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Showing posts from May, 2013

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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

We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee

You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it. Soon after finishing We Bought a Zoo , I began to fancy adopting some really crazy project. Like buying a zoo or a restaurant. Or a big farm. Or living 100% on homemade food. Of course, I wouldn't do any of those. At least not in the forseeable future.  But reading this book did get me thinking about how wonderful it would be to take on such a huge project and watch it arrive at fruition. I first heard about this book after the movie based on it and of the same title was released. There are typically two simultaneous reactions I have to books like these: 1. What? They bought a zoo? They are absolutely nuts! 2. But, how wonderful it is - to buy something that's on the verge of extinction and to transform it into something beautiful? *go starry-eyed* So, when I saw this audiobook in the l

Snapshots from a long break

After a long road trip that involved driving for more than 1700 miles, it is wonderful to be home finally. We started at Raleigh and went all the way to the Niagara Falls before returning. There was a lot of driving in two cars which was tiring (our parents and the husband's brother were also with us) and the husband had to work from home during some of the days (boo!) but it was still a fun trip with no drama this time. View from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. We did go up to the 102nd floor as well, but honestly, there wasn't much difference. We headed first to Raleigh, where two of our buddies stay. We spent the wet weekend leisurely, playing bowling and mini golf and eating great food. On Monday was the husband's brother's convocation in Winston-Salem. We drove to New York next after spending the night at our home, to attend my brother's convocation. That evening, we hung around Times Square, visiting Madame Tussauds, the Empire State Bui

The Sunday Salon: Another vacation calls

Anyone else happy that it's the weekend? It's been a crazy busy week here (so, what's new?) but more so because we are reaching a big deadline in our project at work. Suddenly, there's a lot of things to iron, issues to sort out, postponed items to consider, etc, and an overtime schedule is becoming the new routine now. Much as I'm looking forward to the deadline being behind me, the zeal currently gripping the team feels exciting too. Next week, we have two convocations in the family. The husband's brother and my brother are going to throw their caps to camera-clicking moments. We'll be driving down to Raleigh this weekend to stay with our lovely friends there and head over to Winston-Salem for the first convocation. Then we'll be heading north to New York to celebrate the second. We'll be spending the rest of the week in New York and may make a trip to the Niagara Falls as well. This is going to be our second vacation in as many months and

The Sunday Salon: Happy "Birthday" Rue!

One year ago, this day, the husband and I walked nervously into the local Humane Society to get a dog . Before that, we spent a few minutes in the car asking each other if this is it, if we were really sure. Neither was willing to decide either way so we just drove to the shelter. After all, who knew if we'd even like one. Our plan was to get a big dog, like a lab or a retriever. That is, until we saw one of them jump so high that I suddenly started worrying for my table-high possessions and the TV. Besides, we were still living in an apartment then and had no plan to upscale our living. (As an aside, so much has changed in a year!) That's when we met Rue. She was napping in a corner while her relatively more boisterous (a word that's forever part of our life now) 3-month old companion came to greet us. We liked her and that's how this clueless couple ended up with a dog that's naughty, crazy , Marley -ish, cute (especially when she turns those eyes on you), ph

Slow going in March and April

I didn't quite see the point of putting up a monthly recap post, considering I've had a few patchy months of reading. When I resumed blogging yesterday, the husband even jokingly asked me if I even had anything to blog about since I haven't sat down with a book in a long time. But I do like these recap posts a lot - they can be a kind of milestone marker when I can pause and feel pleased or disappointed in my reading, and also make a lot of reading plans for the next month, every one of which I forget about as soon as I hit 'Publish'. Both March and April were slow reading months for me and May is likely to be the same thing. I'm hoping that June will turn things around. But if not, never mind. These are what I read in the last two months: Three of those books were seriously awesome. I couldn't quite get enough of The Dinner . Night was so profoundly moving that I immediately went to B&N to buy the next two books in the trilogy. As for The

Fleeting thoughts: Navigating Early / The Fault in our Stars

After a long break, I'm still catching up on my review backlog. I'm seven reviews behind and while I have a lot to say and share about most of those, there are some that I don't have a whole lot to say without being repetitive. Navigating Early  by Clare Vanderpool: Navigating Early was a delightful little book packed with a lot of surprises, wonder and beauty. I don't remember all that much about this book now and looks like I didn't take any notes on my reading experience but I remember how much this book warmed me when I read it. At the end of WWII, Jack Baker's navy father moves him from Kansas to a boarding school in Maine, where Jack meets the strangest of boys, Early Auden. To Early, the number Pi is more than a number - it is a boy who travels the world using just the Pole star for guidance. When the two boys embark on a trip to find the great bear that has been terrorizing people for a while, Early compares their story with that of Pi's. As a