I’ve long been intrigued by Jonathan Safran Foer; I’ve heard so many people raving about him. So when I saw there was a 2-in-1 hardcover volume with both Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at National Book Store (so pretty!), I figured it was time to start reading at least one of his novels.
Tag: war
Back to the Underland
Last month, I blogged about how much I loved Suzanne Collins‘ Underland Chronicles after I read the first three books right before Mockingjay was released. I must confess the series took me by surprise; way before I discovered the Hunger Games series, I’d been seeing the Underland Chronicles in the bookstores and never really thought of picking them up. Then I managed to forage two books out of the bargain bins, and when I finally decided to read them, I found them utterly engrossing!
I read straight on from books 1-3: Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, and Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. I had trouble finding copies of the next books in the series, Gregor and the Marks of Secret and Gregor and the Code of the Claw so I momentarily had to stop reading the series, but some wonderful friends at Scholastic (yay, thanks Ms. Joyce and Ms. Roselle!) gifted me with books 4 and 5, and as soon as the craziness of the past couple of weeks subsided, I happily dug into the remainder of the Underland Chronicles.
Suzanne Collins Marathon
Still counting down to Mockingjay!
In an attempt to slake my excitement over Mockingjay, I brought out all the Suzanne Collins books in my possession (and bought one more) and have been reading voraciously for the past five days. I started with Gregor the Overlander, the first book of the Underland Chronicles last Friday, but I didn’t have book 2 yet so I decided to reread Hunger Games and Catching Fire on Saturday. By Sunday, I was already reaching for the copy of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane that I’d bought the day before. And then I started reading Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods yesterday, and now I’m out of the Underland Chronicles, so the marathon’s on hold (at least until I can find myself copies of Gregor and the Marks of Secret and Gregor and the Code of the Claw).
the girl who played go
I was rummaging in the bargain bin at Book Sale when a jacketless hardcover book caught my eye — creamy ochre with a red spine. The title, the girl who played go by Shan Sa (book # 111 of 2009, #18 for the FFP Diversity Challenge) sounded interesting, and as the summary was lost to the missing dust jacket, I decided to get it anyway, because it was only P50 (around $1).
I knew that Go is the Chinese strategy game comparable to chess (or checkers), and because I’ve read some novels that revolve around chess, such as The Eight by Katherine Neville and The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, I was quite intrigued by this book.