Random: Books, Odds and Ends
May 29, 2009 Ramblings
I realized that I’ve been blogging a lot more memes here lately moreso than actual posts so here’s an “actual” post (albeit a very random post) 
So yeah, summer’s more or less underway on my end (20 more days until I graduate from my undergraduate program!) and if you’ve been peeking at my Books I’ve Read [2009] list, you’ll notice that I’ve read over 15 books this month alone (perhaps a new record? I’ve been deprived earlier in the school year, what can I say?). This will be a very interesting summer reading-wise, lol.
I hope to type up a couple of reviews when I get the chance; I’ve read some pretty fantastic books since January that I want to comment on (I just hope I remember enough of my reactions to write a review!) and stuff. I need to stay away from the bookstore for a while because I have plenty of books to keep me busy for a while but I also hope to re-read a number of my favourite books this summer (i.e. LOTR, the rest of Jane Austen’s books, Atonement, etc.) as well as other books that I haven’t read in a long time now (Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre comes to mind). Maybe I should dedicate June or July (maybe July as my TBR list is still pretty long) to just re-reading my favourites or something
I’m also planning on reading a number of classics for the rest of the year; ever since I discovered FeedBooks, I realized I could save a bit of money by reading the classics as e-books. I used to be much more hesitant about e-books just because I didn’t want to stare at the computer screen for long periods of time. However, since I’ll be in Ottawa in the fall and I’ll be on a laptop, I figured I could bring a couple with me should I get sick of my course readings or from marking undergrad papers or something But anyways, you can see my list over here (it’s a mix of classics and fantasy and sci-fi). I’m hoping to get at least through 2 or 3 classics this summer alone (maybe more if time permits).
What else is going on…website-wise, I’m hoping to reorganize and update stuff over the course of the summer. I don’t know how often I’ll be able to update my website next year seeing as I’ll be out of town, on laptop and at the mercy of my university’s bandwidth, but we’ll see. It’ll be nice to shake things up though.
And that’s about it from me for now; I have this sinking feeling that I have a number of things to do but I’m just not moving fast enough at the moment (which seems to be the case for this entire month, but anyways, lol).
Tags: books: classics, books: general, books: reading list, ramblings: website
Meme: Booking Through Thursdays
May 29, 2009 Meme
Am a bit late this week but here we go…
Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?
Oh gosh, hmm, books I wish I could “unread”…well, one book that comes to mind from recent reads is Juan Gomez-Jurado’s book God’s Spy. I read reviews whereby people thoroughly enjoyed the suspense of the novel but I didn’t find it very suspenseful. I thought the characters were annoying and had no sympathy for them even after their “dark pasts” were revealed. I also found that certain plot elements were also introduced too late in the novel that I didn’t care about it so much at that point. So yeah, I wish I could unread that book 
Memes: And yet another meme…
May 24, 2009 Meme
Because I’m in a book meme kind of mood…also got this meme from book_memes:
1. What’s the funniest book you’ve ever read?
It’s funny (no pun intended) but I was looking at my bookshelf recently and realized that I didn’t own very many books that were laugh-out-loud. Two books that come to mind that were hilarious to me were Stephen Clarke’s A Year in the Merde (his description of his time in Paris was just lol) and Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (there was this one scene in particular that had me laughing out loud).
2. What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read?
This is a difficult question to answer because I don’t think I’ve come across a book that was really scary. I will mention that the scariest moment that I’ve ever come across while reading was the chapter in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf is reading the last entries from this log in Balin’s tomb…I read it late at night and I remember getting chills when I read those passages xD
3. What’s the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
For fiction and in terms of getting through it because of boredom (and in terms of memory), it’d probably be Miriam Toews’s A Complicated Kindness. I thought it’d be interesting but it did not capture my interest whatsoever.
In terms of non-fiction, it would be Locke’s Second Treatise (and not necessarily because of boredom); if it wasn’t for my prof’s lectures, I would not understand a single word Locke was talking about. The Essential Works of Lenin was also difficult to get through, especially with all the economics involved.
4. What’s the most shocking book you’ve ever read?
I remember reading through…gosh, I can’t remember if it was The Permanent Purge or some other book, about the Stalinist Purges of the 1930s for my independent research paper and I had to stop researching for a while to re-orient myself; the experience that Soviet citizens went through during that time was just unbelievable…the fear, the NKVD, etc. It was intense, I had to give myself breaks before I could continue reading.
As for fiction…I don’t read a lot of crime thrillers often but Jurado’s God’s Spy was a lot more disturbing than I thought it would be (not to mention I didn’t like the book for other reasons, but anywyas). It reminded me why I didn’t read a lot of crime thrillers, lol.
5. What book made you cry more than any other?
I don’t cry very often from books and movies and stuff but I remember Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember got me all teary when I was in high school. As for more recently, the ending of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief got me all choked up and sad.
6. What book gave you nightmares or bad dreams?
It didn’t give me nightmares or bad dreams but reading Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 recently left me with very intense dreams, lol.
7. What book inspired you to change your life?
I only book I can think of is Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. I read it for the first time in Grade 12 (the book was a gift from my chaplaincy teacher) and it was wondering, very life-affirming. I re-read the book every now and then to remind me that there is hope, that achieving your dreams is possible (even the more out-there ones 
).
8. What’s the most romantic book you’ve ever read?
Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The idea of getting a second chance in love, of experiencing a love that’s constant and steadfast regardless of distance and of the past and of family…it’s just really romantic. And the letter that Wentworth wrote to Anne? Oh how I wish I were Anne
9. What’s the most adventure-filled book you’ve ever read?
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was certainly adventure-filled. Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy was also adventure-filled; all the places mentioned in the map were practically visited over the course of three (or four, depending on whether you got the trade or the mass paperback) books.
10. What book carried you off into a land of imagination more than any other?
Hands down, The Lord of the Rings really got me into the fantasy genre and opened my mind to the possibilities of where imagination can take you. It really felt like I was in Middle Earth whenever I read the books, like it’s a real place you can go to and hang out and stuff.
Tags: meme: books
Meme: Just Another Book Meme
May 24, 2009 Meme
First off, just wanted to comment that I changed the layout here on WordPress…felt like changing it and this one’s pretty clean and organized.
But moving on…meme time! Got it from the book_memes community at livejournal
1. Name the book that has most made you want to visit a particular location.
Reading Carols Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind makes me want to visit Barcelona now. in the past, Spain wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of places to visit but after reading it (and The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax just reinforced the notion), I want to visit Spain, there’s a lot more history and culture in that country than I’ve always thought.
2. Which author’s fictional world would you most like to live in?
Middle Earth! 
Walk in the streets of Minas Tirith, ride with the Rohirrim, try to catch a glimpse of the elves, hang out with the hobbits…it’d be awesome
3. If you were off on an adventure, which five literary characters would you want to take with you?
Good question…
- Aragorn from LOTR (for protection, hehe; he knows what to do in the country, after all)
- Eomer from LOTR (also from protection…plus Arwen’s already claimed Aragorn and I need some eye candy in this group *loves Eomer anyways*)
- JonMarc Vahanian from Chronicles of the Necromancer (for his resourceful and a dose wise ass-ness, lol)
- Fermín Romero de Torres from The Shadow of the Wind (because he’d make a great sidekick and has the best lines—he and Vahanian would probably clash a bit, but whatever)
- Azhure from The Axis trilogy (because she’s tough and level-headed. Not to mention I need a girl in the group so it’s not too lonely xD)
4. Name three books that you would take with you if you were suddenly uprooted from all your stuff.
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (counts as one, lol)
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
5. You find yourself alone in a strange, potentially hostile place. Pick a literary character who would fill the ‘?’ in ‘WW?D’.
Okay, after scratching my head and wondering what this question meant, I finally understand it: “What would Aragorn do?”
Tags: meme: books
Meme: Booking Through Thursday
May 21, 2009 Meme
What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?
Good question…normally I would say Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but re-reading it is always like reading it the first time because I always pick up something that I didn’t notice before or didn’t focus on. So actually there’s three books that I would love to be able to read again for the first time:
- Jane Austen’s Persuasion — I remember reading it for the first time and getting all excited with anticipation and anxiety: will Wentworth and Anne renew their relationship after eight years of being apart? Or will Mr. Elliot succeed in charming his cousin away from Wentworth? I remember not being able to put down the book because it was just so intense
- Ian McEwan’s Atonement — This book had me from the very first page. I read it shortly before the movie came out in the theatres and the book pretty much gripped me from the very first page: the characterization, the prose, the plot…I could not put it down (which wasn’t actually a smart thing at the time since I read it during my midterms and was supposed to be studying for my exams, LOL). I couldn’t stop thinking about it days after I had completed the novel…I mean, it still affects me after re-reading it, but not to the same level of shock and sadness as the first time.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind — I haven’t re-read this book yet since I just read it back in January but I had such an enjoyable experience reading it. The plot, the characters, the entire atmosphere of the novel really had my attention. Absolutely enjoyable; I was sad when I had completed the novel because I didn’t want it to end, lol.
Meme: Musing Mondays, Teaser Tuesdays
May 19, 2009 Meme
A day late but here we go:
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about early reading…
Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? Was it from a particular person, or person(s)? Do you remember any books that you read, or were read to you, as a young child?
That’s a very good question…see, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been reading (even back when I didn’t know how to: there are photos of me when I was three flipping through picture books and stuff). I remember my mum used to read fairy tales and pictures books for me when I was really young (I particularly remember this pink book I used to have that had stories like Humpty Dumpty and other Nursery rhymes/stories). And when my mum was pregnant with me, my dad used to read the daily newspapers to me (which probably explains why I took political science alongside history and why I’m interested in current events), lol. When I entered grade school, I remember being excited when we got our first readers because that would mean learning how to read. By the time I was nine years old, I was reading Star Trek TNG and DS9 novels and the like So yeah, that’s pretty much my early years with reading, lol.
TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
My teaser for the week: “He had played her like a master, making every move she would have made. He had appealed to her conscience and flattered her ego, just as she had done to countless of delegates, ambassadors and presidential aides.” – p. 40, The Last Testament by Sam Bourne.
I only started reading this book yesterday and it’s pretty good so far. Very promising
Movies: Star Trek (2009)
May 14, 2009 Movies
Okay, ever since I heard that J.J. Abrams was attached to a new Star Trek movie, I had been on the lookout for it. And when it came out and everyone—from my friends list on LJ to Twitter to pretty much the entire population on the Web—was raving how amazing it was, the inner Trekkie in me (I have been a fan since I was 6) has been flailing to see it. And I finally did. And I loved it to bit. Spoilers ahead!
Tags: movies: review
