Working from home

In tattered t-shirt. Shorts. Rain outside. My bed a foot away. Much needed 'break'. Have a good Tuesday! :)

Monday Read Lusts

Woke up to another rainy Monday morning! I braved the storm in my cozy San Francisco hoodie & red bow shoes. I read the news with a steaming cup of chocolate coffee. Then the AC broke down. Again. The room was so hot we had to work without lights to cool off. The next thing I know there was smoke everywhere and people were rushing to the door. What a day. The only good thing is that there was no traffic - I was home in 30 minutes flat. And of course, your Monday dose of links! Read on :)

Your favorite paperback as a piece of jewelry, perhaps?

Saves you a lot of bookshelf space!

If Thumbelina & Tom Thumb was real they'd read this.

Making the world a better place one payphone booth at a time.

Not joining the e-reader bandwagon? Read this.

I updated my About page! Have a look if you have time to spare and visit my other corners in cyberworld. I also added the 'You might also like' widget. Don't forget to check 'em out!

Been uninspired lately. I think the rain has got something to do with this.



Sorry for the rant.

Happy reading :)

Come fly away

I get fascinated by the most random things/persons sometimes. It could be sparked in a split second - read somewhere, heard somewhere, saw somewhere - then I forget it until something comes up.

This is overdue but I wanna do something for Amelia Earhart's 115th birthday (July 24th, thank you for the memo, Google!). Amelia Earhart was one of the first women to fly a plane in the 1930s. She lived with determination and strength, especially being a woman in that era. Though women were beginning to have their way by that time, still she had to prove herself. She mysteriously disappeared after attempting to fly around the world in 1937. No one knew what really happened until now - some theories claimed that she was cast away on an island where she eventually died.

Who would've thought such a fragile woman could fly a a plane by herself? Photo from National Archives.

Earhart wrote books and there are books written about her.

Monday Read lusts

On Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of rain, to the warm hue of my room tinted by peach curtains, I reached for Age of Innocence on my bedside table, and thank the heavens for the simple pleasure of spending my morning bundled up in my bed without the urgency to move. I feel I could stretch the morning into days.


Makes it harder to get up on Monday mornings, right?

Read away your Monday blues with these...

Found this charming blog by a bookseller who finds the most interesting bookmarks -from vintage ephemera, tickets, black and white photographs to mundane grocery lists.

Staying in with a good book? How about reading outdoors in a book-vineyard?

Does this mean I'm a book snob because I don't read out of my comfort genre?

Ever wished fictional bookworms weren't so fictional? Peek at their reading list!

Happy reading :)

And then I saw this..

Lucas Scott's reading list, I literally squealed!

The Winter Of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Call of the Wild by Jack London
Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

PS. I first knew about Great Gatsby from him years ago!

Find out other fictional characters' reading list on Flavorwire.

Wishful thinking

There are rare works of fiction that seep into our lives - books, movies, TV series - that when we reach the epilogue or the finale, we're hit by a kind of longing for the future, for the parts that the curtains closed on or the author left out. And we'd indulge ourselves that on the other side of the world, the characters we're rooting for is walking the earth just as we are. The thought is comforting if not wishful.

If you could take something/someone out of a book, movie, or a series, what/who would it be?

It'd be Lucas Scott's book An Unkindness of Ravens, from One Tree Hill. I've always been a fan of the series. I skipped a few seasons but I watch it whenever I have the chance. The characters felt so real, the things they go through felt human. Lucas wrote that in Ravens - the girls he loved, dealing with his stepbrother Nathan, friendships, vulnerability, adventures, family. Lucas wrote the novel when he was in high school, he didn't take out the real names, "written as they happened and written exactly how he felt at the time". He became a known author after the novel was published. To read the series in print from Lucas' point of view will be a guilty pleasure!

An "excerpt" from the novel:

"Suddenly, it was as if the roar of the crowd, the echo of the final buzzer, the cheers of my teammates were all sounding from a thousand miles away. And what remained in that bizarre, muffled silence was only Peyton, the girl whose art and passion and beauty had changed my life. At that moment, my triumph was not a state championship, but simple clarity. The realization that we had always been meant for each other and every instinct to the contrary had simply been a denial of the following truth. I was now, and would always be, in love with Peyton Sawyer."

Got the idea from an article I read over at Flavorwire: 10 Fake Books in Movies That We Wish We Could Read. 

Ramblings

My mind is a clutter right now - overlapping thoughts and daydreams and words - stumbling to get out. Every time I stop to sort things out with myself, I hit a writer's block. I feel detached, floating aimlessly in a sea of words. I feel restless and anxious, wanting to say everything but not knowing how to say it. Words are not enough but they're everything.

Spending too much time in one's head is dangerous. But when you bow your head in front of a paperback, you escape, you stop the tide from pulling you into monotony and routine. Books are like anchors, they hold you down, and lift you above the choking water when you need to breathe. 

I felt how strong the tide was and I refuse to go with the flow.

Listening to: 1901 - Birdy & Little bit - Drake ft. Lykke Li

Read lusts for the bibliophile

Since my work meant reading tons of news from the internet everyday, I also get to wander around a bit. I came across several interesting articles about books and writing! It's my escape from countless territorial disputes, international issues, economics, market shares, and all that. Just wanna share them with you.

Photo by Ourit Ben Haim/Underground New York Public Library

Am I the only one who doesn't want to "Keep Still and Obey Mr. Grey"? Why Fifty Shades is a "Best Seller".

Do you read books because of the writing style or the plot? What makes a good book, then?

Be a poet! Just tilt your head sideways at your bookshelf and ta-dah!

For every bibliophile who likes to carry their book around, you know you want one.

It's nice to know a lot of people still read paperbacks, even in subways - and that feeling when you don't care even if you miss your stop so you can go on reading.

Happy reading! :)

Will work for books

Novelists write a great deal about paperbacks with creased spines, falling pages, missing covers, and the readers think it's beautiful, romantic even, and it says a lot about the character's personality. I love the thought of it, but in reality I'm pretty fussy about my books. 

I like my books..


- Plastic covered. I have a thing for plastic-covering. I even have my own step-by-step procedure which I follow religiously!
- Signed with my initials & the date I got the book. For gifts, I include the name of the person who gave it to me.
- Marked with highlighters for quotes
- Dog-eared, in small folds, if a highlighter is not in hand
- Not creased, the spine and the cover. But there are exceptions to the rule, like books I got from Booksale. I love them the same!

PS. I keep the receipts and use them as bookmarks! 

I feel like I'm such a dork!


Every one of my books holds a certain memory, a feeling, time, place, persons. I'm not one who goes around getting every book that I want. I have to work for it and I give up certain things, like clothes and shoes and make up! Haha! But nothing beats the feeling from a good read! 


How do you like your books? :)

Book review: Love Story

Love Story by Jennifer Echols

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Jennifer Echols disappoints, again. That or everything pales in comparison next to Amor Towles.

Good points: (I actually took down notes)

- Plot: Creative writing. New York. Hook line and sinker.
- Some laugh-out-loud dialogues
- Found a highlight-worthy quote (just because I love the thought, I could ignore the prose):

"Each night during my fifteen-minute break at the coffee shop, I looked around at the customers, picked two of them to put together, and brainstormed a happy ending for them... Any of these young men and women could be perfect for each other. They just didn't know it, and they would never introduce themselves to each other except in a file on my laptop."

Downsides:

- Dialogue feels mechanic, too structured
- Bad writing, even the stories for an "advanced creative writing class". I wanna pull my hair out!
- Flat, shallow characters, running on excess hormones
- More horses than actual "creative writing"

I expected lyrical prose, lots of literature (because they were supposed to be majoring in English/Creative Writing in a "New York City college of her dreams"), a novel inspired by New York. Still, the girl in me was gushing in several parts. I like Hunter more than Erin. I wish I could be in Erin's shoes, leave out the disinherited part, studying Creative Writing/English in New York.

But then I wanted a light read, that's what I got.



View all my reviews

Stealing away

A quick segue from work. Been feeling down lately, like I carry the weight of the world. Cliche, yes. But it drives me to sudden burst of tears sometimes. It's the worst feeling ever, to not know, to be helpless, but at the back of your mind you know you brought this upon yourself.

Do you know what makes me happy? Books.

Seeing books. Holding books. The smell of books. The smell of paper. Reading books. Reading words. Drinking prose. The elation of discovering a book, a different world,  beautiful characters. The fulfillment of finding a great read with just intuition. The feeling when you reach the epilogue, like jumping off a cliff. Closing your eyes when the words are so beautiful. Closing your eyes so you can imagine.

Then I remember, that's all I need. My family, my friends, my love, my books.

Books and lusts

Currently reading: Rereading, actually. I have the Penguin classic edition, but don't you love this cover? Have you seen the movie?

Thinking about reading: Was supposed to get this book but I ended up with 501 must-read books!

New on bookshelf: Both were on sale when I bought them! 500 bucks for 2 hard bounds. Great finds! 

Perfect for my bedside table :)

Lusting over: