Reading on a Rainy Day

I missed the readathon this weekend, but looks like so many of you had fun while at it. I did have a good reading week otherwise though. In the car, I finished listening to Child of Dandelions by Shenaaz Nanji. This book is the story of a fifteen-year old girl affected by the expulsion of Indians from her home country Uganda. Even though her parents and herself are born Ugandans, their ancestry is Indian. I had mixed feelings about this book - the story was harrowing, but occasionally, the narrator sounded like she could be 8 or 9 years old. Still, I would recommend it. I ended up spending the next four days debating if I should resume listening to the A Game of Thrones audiobook. Finally, I decided not to, as I have a feeling I would enjoy the books much more. Who doesn't like losing themselves in a chunkster epic saga! The husband has stated that he prefers the TV show - besides the book is very very...... slow! After finally deciding that, I started listening to Does m...

This week and reading, not so much. I've been watching some TV but mostly spending lots of meaningless hours on my iPad. I only just discovered the iTunes University and decided to sign up for courses I've always wanted to take (Literature-related) but never could fit into my major (Computer Engineering). One of the courses I started was Fiction for Young Adults and another one which I'm hoping to get started on is Creative Writing . The other thing I've been doing on my iPad is playing Clumsy Ninja . Seriously, this is one of the best graphics I've seen in games, because you can tickle this ninja of yours, lift him by the leg, give him high five, throw him through a basketball hoop. Man, I got a nice laugh out of it all. On the book front, I finished only one book since the last update - Tina's Mouth , which I reviewed this week. I'm still listening to Life of Pi in the car (please, don't ever listen to this one as an audiobook - some descript...

It's been strangely quiet over here this week. I've been having good intentions of blogging everyday, but my first knitting project (which I just finished last night, woohoo!) and The Walking Dead books kept me mostly occupied. Last weekend, I finished Allegiant , the third book in the Divergent series. I've relieved that this series is finally over and while I liked the plot of this book better than the others, I didn't like the manipulation in the ending. I also finally read The Walking Dead Compendium 1 . I absolutely love this series, both the comics and the TV show. I can't wait to get my hands on the next compendium. Next in the list I'm listening to Yann Martel's Life of Pi in the car. I had already seen the movie, which I enjoyed but the book is dragging so far. At least, knowing what happens keeps me want to continue listening - I'm sure if I didn't know the story, I would have abandoned it long back. Review Backlog 1. The Wal...

I've had a pretty good reading week, which sort of explains my absence from here. I also picked up my half-done first knitting project (a scarf for the husband) which I had set aside a few months back, waiting for the right season. I've almost on the home stretch now and cannot. wait. for. it. to be ready! On the reading front, I finally finished an audiobook - The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - after two months of listening in the car. Phew - what a long book. By the end, it felt just like a saga - it was hard saying goodbye. I also finished Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist , the ending of which I found quite interesting. It did leave me wondering what it takes to make a fundamentalist and how cyclic the cause-and-effect pattern of it can be. Next in the list This weekend, I picked up Allegiant by Vernoica Roth. I was never a fan of this series because of its poor writing, silly dialogues and sappy romance, but this book made it worth stic...

The spookiest day in the world is coming up soon, and in my book that is the beginning of the end of the year. Although I read very little during the first half of the year, the second half made up for it mostly. Over the last two weeks, I finished only two books - Monsters of Men and The Perks of Being a Wallflower . I enjoyed the Chaos Walking trilogy quite a bit and Monsters of Men brought it to a nice conclusion. Since I never reviewed any of the books of this trilogy, I'll do it in one post. The Perks of Being a Wallflower was an amazing read. It brought to mind another book - Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian but I think I loved this one more. It was sad, moving and occasionally made me worried for the narrator but it was also very uplifting and made me feel very hopeful by the end. Next in the list Last night, I started reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, which is another title that I've been intimidate...

It feels good to summarize my reading after doing a readathon . I had a couple of so-so reading weeks and then finished two books on Saturday.  I finished Maus couple of weeks back, for the second time and loved it more than I did, the first time, if that's even possible . I read it slower the second time and discovered a lot of new things. Soon after, I picked up the " Maus encyclopedia", MetaMaus , which was a treasure to read! If any of you are Maus fans, you should read this one too. In addition, I finished Quarantine (quite good) by Rahul Mehta and The House on Mango Street (just okay) by Sandra Cisneros. Next in the list I'm a quarter of my way through Monsters of Men , which I'm enjoying. The Chaos Walking series has been a lot of fun to read, even though it's taken me awhile to get to it. I'm waiting to pick up The Perks of Being a Wallflower next. This is another book that's got a lot of positive vote. Reviews posted 1.  Ni...

Well, well, well... Looks like we only have three more months left in the year. It always bugs me how it feels like only yesterday we finished with all the Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas celebrations, and what do you know, they are already just around the corner. Quite frightening, really.  I had a really slow week in reading - it had to happen sometime. I think the problem was that I was reading The Silent Wife very slowly. It's a great book, really, but it's also a book I would read in a couple of sittings and not a few pages at a time. So it's back on the shelf for now, but I'm hoping to get back to it soon. In the meantime, I started rereading Maus . Last time I read it (sometime last year), I couldn't bring myself to review it. The book was so much more than I could really say anything about it. While rereading it now, I've been feeling that I may have read it too fast the first time - there are a lot of things I don't recollect reading. I'm ...

I didn't realize I had been away from the bloglandia whole weekend. We had some things come up. We bought a new car this weekend, plus I was scrambling to finish Eleanor and Park , for no reason other than the fact that it was so darn good! Rainbow Rowell is becoming my new favorite author! I also finished David Rakoff's  Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish  which, I realized belatedly, was written in verse. It didn't work for me. I could see that the poetry was beautiful and the stories profound. But I just didn't mix too well with it - I think that's probably because it was more a literary verse as opposed to being a narrative verse. So for now, it looks like my foray into the verse genre has ended even before I thought it began. Next in the list Today, I'm debating on starting A. S. A. Harrison's The Silent Wife . At this point, I'm a little leery of books that have Gone Girl yelling at me from the blurb. It's not fair to the book ...

Last week was a good one in books. I finished How to be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman, which was enjoyable, but not quite as good as I hoped it would be. I also finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane and that was a very amazing read. I'm looking forward to reading more of Gaiman's books - I can now see his appeal. I spent a day not reading at all but mostly catching up on some chores, doing some shopping, catching up on  Supernatural . I'm still not sure what my next read will be but this past week, I've been listening to  The Warmth of Other Suns  by Isabel Wilkerson. It has a whopping 19 discs, which is more than my max disc count so far of 12. I know I'm curious to see how this one will go. So far, content-wise, it is very informative. I don't quite like it when the author gets a bit preachy, but that can be forgiven considering the subject she has written about. Next in the list I am waiting on two good books from the library. One of them is Rain...

Cory Monteith is dead. That's what I woke up to yesterday and it's still just sinking in. Cory  is  was one of my favorite Glee guys and it's just so unbelievable that he has passed away. What is it with these famous guys and being dead in hotel rooms? Despite all the crazy fun that Glee is, this show suddenly feels very morose to me. Last week, I finished reading Attachments . Rainbow Rowell is my new Sophie Kinsella . Attachments was so much fun to read that I'm looking forward to reading her next, Eleanor and Park . Even though the book dragged occasionally, on the whole, it was splendid. I started reading Dan Brown's Inferno couple of days ago, but didn't make much progress with it yet. I'm pretty sure that when things start picking up, it will be hard to put it down. I also started listening to In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, and so far, it is very engaging. What I'm excited about... I just picked Reconstructing Amelia ...

Why do long weekends end so soon? I feel like I'm the hand trying to hold so much sand but it slips away faster anyway. I'm still reading Colum McCann's  Transatlantic . I think I'm about 25% in, but it's not the paciest book there is, so I'm expecting that I may be reading this one for one more week at least. This weekend, I started reading Attachments by Rainbow Rowell. This book wasn't really on my radar but it was the perfect book to read in a car when there are people talking most of the time and a dog jumping on your lap all the time. I thought I may not like this one, but it's actually quite enjoyable so I'm looking forward to some good reading. I finally finished listening to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food , which was an educational read but considering that it was published in 2008, not really containing as much new information as I had hoped to get. What I'm excited about... This week, I'm planning to star...

It's July. We are officially at the halfway mark and it's honestly shocking sometimes how fast time flies. I started the year with generous goals and I haven't managed to reach the halfway point. But that's alright. I've been reading good books, I had loads of stuff happening this year (parents visiting, brother visiting, two long vacations, couple of side interests) - so it's always good when you do something other than reading. Moreover, it took me a while to accept that what I really need to read now are fast books. So lately, I've been on the hunt for just such books. After yearning for a brainless read, I got just that with the Vampire Diaries book. I talked a little about my reaction to this book here , especially in comparison to the TV show, but to sum it up, you're not missing anything by not reading this book. The TV show is certainly more intriguing and three-dimensional while the book is just shallow and vapid. This week, I started rea...

Hello all ye wonderful readers and bloggers! Did you go to BEA this year? I didn't catch up with any of that buzz this year, so I hope you had fun, either at BEA or ArmchairBEA or both. Since I haven't done my weekly housekeeping Week In Books post for a while, I thought I'll talk randomly about the books I'm reading now. I had been poring through John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra for quite a few weeks. It's certainly a fast-paced book but it's moving way too slow for me. I think the characters aren't intriguing me in any manner, making me not so interested in the book or it could be the slightly jarring pacing of the story that's making me disoriented. Either ways, I have put it down for now, and may return to it some other time. Couple of days ago, I started reading The Travel Auction by Mark Green. While not exactly the type of book I would pick at a bookstore, Judith's review convinced that it is probably one that I would e...