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Showing posts from July, 2011

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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Yet another Monday (Aug 1, 2011)

Sheila  @  One Persons Journey through a world of Books  wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige! It's been a while since I did this post. I haven't been around a few weekends and I'm not a fan of scheduling posts in advance. But now that I'm home this Sunday trying to make it last, I figured I'll post this Monday. My biggest highlight this weekend was managing to get into Pottermore the first day. I stayed up until 3 am with no luck, but then woke up an hour later to see the Muggle world in uproar, all trying to join Hogwarts. Blimey! At least I can work this week in peace. How many of you got in yet? I hope all of us fans manage to get in. Books finished since the last update    Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol    Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curt

Kicking off BBAW 2011

The book blogging world surely has no shortage of awesome events. Only yesterday I was talking about the Indie Lit Awards. Today, I have another event to talk about - the 2011 Book Blogger Appreciation Week . I have a lot of links shared up in this post. You can also just go to the main website and browse around. The BBAW, as it is better known, is Amy's (of My Friend Amy ) brainchild. It has been running successfully for a few years now, and if you don't know what it is about, it is a week of celebrating book bloggers and all that we stand for. There are awards for various categories and niches and also a few book categories. The 2011 BBAW runs on the week of September 12-16. Starting now, you can register your favorite blogs in their respective categories or niches and once nominations are over, the judging will start. Learn more about BBAW 2011 and the award process this year. To know if a blog you enjoy reading is eligible for a 2011 BBAW award in any category ,

Almost knocking at the door.. Indie Lit Awards

Have you guys been thinking about what books you would love to see in the Indie Lit Awards longlist this year? I hope so, because nominations will be open in September, and that's just a month away! (Seriously, I can't believe it's almost time to start thinking of books that will go on to the 2011 Best Of... lists! Have I even read enough books this year so far? For the uninitiated, the Indie Lit Awards is the brainchild of the amazing Wallace, who you may know as the blogger over at Unputdownables . These are book awards given by literary bloggers to books released for the first time in 2011, irrespective of where it was released first. I loved following this award last year and am truly glad to be a voting member of the Fiction panel. There are more panels, so be sure to check out the full list , so that you can be sure not to miss updates on any other genre that you enjoy. There have been quite a few updates lately, that I am a little late to share, but there ha

Fleeting thoughts (Number the Stars / Bud, not Buddy / The Lonely Hearts Club)

Since I'm way behind on reviews and don't have much to say about these three books, I'm doing some blazing fast reviews, focusing on just what-it's-about and what-it-made-me-feel and did-I-like-it. Couple of them - Number the Stars and Bud, not Buddy are Newbery Medal winners and focused on a younger audience than The Lonely Hearts Club . They cannot be more different in theme and focus, but I enjoyed all three of them. Number the Stars  by Lois Lowry : This is probably one of the most well-known Newbery Medal winners out there. (Maybe I say that because it's the first Newbery Medal winner that I heard of, but I do know that this is quite a popular book.) Number the Stars follows ten-year old Annemarie and her best friend, Ellen, who is Jewish. Their native country - Denmark - has surrendered to the Nazis and these two girls miss life before the Nazis' arrival. However, Jewish people in their town are slowly disappearing - relocated by the Nazis an

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

"I have that information you were looking for." The friendly grandfather tone was gone, replaced by serious cop. "Do I want to know?" I laughed. He didn't. "You were right, Julia Laroche isn't her real name -- it's Karen Christianson." "That's interesting. Do you know why she changed it?" "You don't recognize the name?" "Should I?" " Karen Christianson was the only survivor of the Campsite Killer. " Sara Gallagher was adopted as a baby, by foster parents who couldn't conceive. But then her foster mom soon gave birth to two girls, who have been the apple of their father's eyes ever since. Her foster dad never showed any affection towards Sara, and was always ridiculing or scolding her even for no fault of hers. This contributed to her increasing curiosity about her birth parents, forever wishing for them to c

Your regular programming will soon resume...

Inadvertently, I did disappear from the face of earth, though some of you might have seen me dropping comments on blogs here and there. That was my way of saying I'm still around, just that time isn't letting me type up something longer than would fit in a typical comment box. I've just been visiting friends and working my b*tt off. Reading, not so much. I had very noble plans to schedule posts for last week, but I was just too tired of staring at the computer screen all day. I'm increasingly disliking coming home and looking at anything with an LCD screen on it, I guess it's the result of working 11 hours Mon-Thu, in front of the greatest time-wasting productivity invention of modern mankind . All the better, since that would make me use the weekends to write reviews and then bask in the glory of not having to write on weekdays. Moreover, I've been writing more essays lately. I've always been writing and proofing in my head, and now I want to actual

From the Orange List: The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin

"Bolanle, how old were you when you started menstruating?" "I was thirteen." "And how long do you normally menstruate for? How many days each month, I mean?" "Four to five days." "Heavy? Light?" Baba Segi couldn't hold back. "Do you not know that you are talking to another man's wife? All these questions you are asking are meaningless. She is bar-ren..." Baba Segi has four wives - Iya Segi, Iya Tope, Iya Femi, and Bolanle. He also has seven kids through his first three wives. Baba Segi and his wives, barring Bolanle, are uneducated. Although Baba Segi was initially enamored by the fact of Bolanle's education, he was soon becoming troubled by her because she hasn't borne him a child since they were married. The other three wives don't try to get too close to Bolanle either. Iya Segi and Iya Femi openly dislike her, while Iya Tope doesn't want t

The beauty of graphic books (or in which I celebrate completing one challenge)

Well, technically, I completed two challenges - the Middle East reading challenge and the Graphic Novels challenge . For the Middle East challenge , Helen required just one relevant book to be read, and I did that in January with a book set in Iran - The Good Daughter (which I absolutely loved). But, that was far less than the number of books that I wanted to read for this challenge, which is why I keep feeling that I haven't read much for it. Let's just say that my reading over the last one year was very experimental. Ever since I started blogging, I've been reading the kind of books I wouldn't have read pre-blogging. So, most of the books I usually would read didn't feature much in my reading over the last one year. Now that I'm comfortably settling into my reading tastes, I should be able to visit more of the books I've previously wanted to read (another reason why I set up the PIE list ). It was as part of this experimental read

Thank you, J.K. Rowling for...

I'm feeling extremely emotional right now, all because of this series of books and movies about Harry Potter. A friend of mine and I went last night for the premiere of the eighth movie, and while I'm not going to discuss it yet, I will say that it was an emotional and satisfying experience in so many ways. I have to say this was the best Harry Potter movie I've watched and I'm glad for it, since it was a fitting finale. And can I even say, I loved how they handled Snape? That was one of the most moving scenes. I cried. For a long time, I've waited for the next Harry Potter-something - be it a book or a movie. And now, I realize that there's nothing to wait for. (Okay, there's the Pottermore but it's just a one-time thing.) And as I sat thinking about the whole Harry Potter phenomenon, I know I would never trade it for anything. Like someone said yesterday - it's like what Star Wars meant to the 70s generation. I don't know much about Star

Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme

I've been reading quite a lot of graphic novels lately. Some are from NetGalley , others from the library. I will be doing a few posts on the graphic novels over the next few weeks - I'm still deciding how I want to do them. I don't have a whole lot to say about some of the books, so I may do either mini-reviews or combined posts. But there is this one book - Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme - that I have a lot to talk about, and so I'm kicking off the graphic novel review spree with this. Teenager Lucille is having identity issues. The book starts off with her addressing her sexual needs and looking at her thin stalk-like body in vain. The boy she is interested in has jumped out of her research team to work with a girl he likes. She is worried that no one will like her, and her mother isn't too helpful when Lucille asks her about it, saying that Lucille's looks doesn't matter since she has brains. Lucille's identity issues soon escalate