Shifting Through the Noise

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful holidays So, with the start of a new year, I’ve shelved both my books to read list and books I’ve read list for 2008 (had a little issue as apparently version 2.7 of Wordpress no longer has the conversion option for pages into posts, but that’s just a little side matter). Wow, a total of 75 books last year! Quite awesome. So anyways, new books to read (watch this list grow by the end of January; a lot of my novels are coming out this month) pages for 2009.

And now for a book meme!

So … any Reading Resolutions? Say, specific books you plan to read? A plan to read more ____? Anything at all? Name me at least ONE thing you’re looking forward to reading this year!

Reading resolutions…well, I definitely want to get through this list and this list. The only other resolution I could think of reading-wise is to maybe read more classics, get around to reading some books that I’ve avoided for some reason or another (i.e. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; I’ve already read War and Peace so that means Anna Karenina should be a breeze—right? Also Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere; we have a copy here in the house but it’s in Tagalog and I’d rather read it in English. And there’s also Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters too) and perhaps re-read others more properly this time (Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women). I also plan to reread a good chunk of my bookshelf again. We’ll see how this year goes. So many books, so little time xD

Seeing as I am ghastly behind in reviewing a chunk of books I’ve read over the past few months and being unable to post them all, I’m going to do my brief blurbs all in one massive post, LOL. Because they’re all crammed into a single post, some of my comments are pretty generic and vague; to be honest, some of these books were read so long ago that I hardly remember my reaction to them. So beware, lots of spoilers ahead in this post!

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I came across this book meme site through Kris so I decided to start doing it too. Instead of doing it on my LJ however, I decided to do the memes here (it’ll give this blog some life while I’m at it, LOL)

“Name a favorite literary couple and tell me why they are a favorite. If you cannot choose just one, that is okay too. Name as many as you like–sometimes narrowing down a list can be extremely difficult and painful. Or maybe that’s just me.”

Aww, man, too many to list! Let’s see if I can make a wee little list out of all my favourite couples…

• Anne & Captain Wentworth (Persuasion) — I absolutely love how, despite their years apart, they still care for each other and they still regard each other as “the one”. Plus, Wentworth’s letter was just guh, perfection.

• Margaret Hale & Mr. Thornton (North and South) — I love how they start off as disliking each other, then Mr. Thornton’s regard for her starts to grow and then finally Margaret realizes that she loves Mr. Thornton. It’s a process and I love how they come from different backgrounds and manage to come to terms with such differences and stuff.
• Cecilia Tallis & Robbie Turner (Atonement) — This couple absolutely kills me. Every time I read the book it’s just like OMG (I can’t even go into details without spoiling the book).

Do you give books as gifts?
To everyone? Or only to select people?
How do you feel about receiving books as gifts?

Yes, but it depends on who likes to read and stuff (not to mention I’d have to make sure that they don’t have that book yet or anything). As for receiving books, I absolutely love it! That’s like the gift for me, lol.

So yeah, I think I’ll be doing this more often…and hence this blog will be utilized more often, lol.

I wrote the following short story for UofT’s Crumpled Paper, a creative arts and writing magazine. The theme for issue X was “hybrid”. I was a little stumped at first as to what I should write about (what genre should it be? what should the short story revolve around?); didn’t help matters that I was incredibly busy at the time of the submission period. Ultimately this story came out of the confusion; I honestly can’t remember how I found the inspiration came for this story. All I remember is that the story hit me at 11pm at night and I just started writing. This story was a bit longer in the first draft but because the editors were asking me to keep it to a 2-page limit, I ended up cutting a bit of good dialogue down. Maybe I’ll post it up someday, we’ll see

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I wrote the following short story for UofT’s Crumpled Paper, a creative arts and writing magazine. The theme for issue IX was “tospy-turvy” (and hence why the title of this theme is present at the title of my story). I’ve been playing with certain elements that appeared in this story for a while now, was unsure how I would use it (though I did come to the conclusion that it would be playing out in a sci-fi premise). Then this theme came out for the magazine and I thought that maybe I can try and fit in these elements in a short story. I didn’t think that it would be printed, to be honest, but here we are.

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Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted around here; it’s just that school has been keeping me real busy these past few months. But I’m back now and slowly upgrading all of the programs attached to my website. Will likely start updating my website tonight depending on how much I can get done…should be exciting. The new Wordpress looks far more impressive than the old one…will also likely be utilizing this blog a lot more as I’m thinking of merging some content from this section to here but we’ll see; got to clean this blog up a bit first

It’s been a while since I’ve done a review…with school starting again, my reviews will becoming sporadic again with everything that’s going on but I’ll try to post whenever I can. I might also start posting reviews and random comments on manga and anime series and stuff as I’ve been reading a ton lately xD Anyways, moving along now…

Ocean Sea
By: Alessandro Baricco

I’ve been waiting forever to get my hands on this book (had to put some money aside for this book as the price was a bit of a turnoff for some time (given the length of this book)). Anyways, Alessandro Baricco is the author of Silk (which was adapted into a movie starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley); as that book is probably his most well-known here in North America, you think I’d pick that book up first. But nope, it was Ocean Sea that caught my attention (and not just because it has the title conjures up endless sea and the cover was rather intriguing). Its premise is an interesting one: five different individuals all end up checking into a remote hotel facing the sea as a way to solve their troubles. For me, Ocean Sea is deeply rooted in the post-modern tradition of the novel (think stream of consciousness; book II is a clear example of this) so it was a different experience for me altogether (I hardly read post-modern books from the 20th century as I’m still going through the classics ;)); you had to really read each word and look beyond the the surface to really understand the psychological implications of what’s going on. Additionally, you have to suspend your sense of reality when you read this book as there are some mysterious elements that come into the story as you read along. But the events leading up to the end of the novel makes complete sense, including some twists that I didn’t figure. The journey that each of the characters make is compelling, like they’re all a metaphor on certain aspects of life. Even after I finished the novel, I was contemplating at exactly what the sea was supposed to represent: life? heaven? freedom? Another thing I liked about the book was the prose; I’m sure some meanings were lost in the translation from Italian to English but overall, it’s absolutely beautiful, another reason why you should read every single word in this novella. Overall, it’s an interesting novel that really gets you thinking about the deeper elements in life.

Learn more about Alessandro Baricco here || Order this book from chapters.indigo.ca

I’ve been debating for some time what else I could do with my website. I mean, right now it’s been going quite nicely and storing a lot of my stuff (mainly my wallpapers), but I’m just wondering if I could expand it out a bit—not so much that in the end I won’t be able to manage it because of school, but enough that my website will be accessed by more people, etc. Plus, a new project is always fun. So I had a number of options in mind:

• Fansite — an idea that has been circulating in my brain for some time now. Not a ginormous fansite or anything but a small shrine perhaps to a particular character or ship.

• Gallery — I don’t take photos as often as my dad, but it is a hobby of mine. Plus, if I do go with a gallery, I could try out this software rather than Coppermine.
• Community/Message Board — I’ve always played with the idea of owning my own message board (particularly with a books and novels theme), but alas, lacking in time and money But I came across this application which seems simple, easy to use, and it doesn’t take up any space on my domain. Of course, then the question would be what would the topic of this message board be, but there we go.

So there’s my random ruminations at the moment; if I do decide on anything, I might not be able to do it right away as this coming two-three months are going to be hectic with classes and applications and all that fun stuff xD

The Name of the Wind
By: Patrick Rothfuss

I picked up this book after hearing many positive reviews from the Terry Brooks forums. This novel is about a character named Kvothe who dictates his life story of how he rose and became a legend to the Chronicler. This first novel follows Kvothe’s early years and how he came to be enrolled to the University and all the adventures and struggles that came with his years there. Rothfuss had also essentially set up what appears to be the greater struggle that will most likely show up in the remaining books in this trilogy (I believe it’s a trilogy, unless it’s stated otherwise). What keeps this novel interesting is that the story goes back and forth between Kvothe’s narrative and the happenings going on in the present time (which, by the end of the novel you realize is shaping up to be something as well). Rothfuss has certainly set an interesting premise for his story, with intriguing and colourful characters with equally interesting traits and backgrounds and trades. You get a sense that these characters really do toil and go through the mundane stuff as well as the more intriguing stuff. The University system is equally intriguing, which I hope will be expanded in the next novel. I can’t remember a fantasy novel that delves this far back to the makings of a legend. Overall, reading this book was very enjoyable and am looking forward to the next novel in this trilogy.

Visit Patrick Rothfuss’s official website || Order this book from chapters.indigo.ca

The Historian
By: Elizabeth Kostova

The premise of this story follows a quest throughout Europe surrounding the legend of Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula. Three separate stories are interwoven throughout this novel, one set in the 1930s following a young Rossi, the second set in the 1950s following the graduate student Paul and the last story is grounded in “present time” (the 1970s). I don’t read a lot of vampire books, but Vlad the Impaler as a historical figure is one that I haven’t really read up a lot on so I thought the premise of the story was interesting, that and the fact that I don’t know much about Eastern European history. Continue Reading »