Author: Sumthinblue

The Fire and the Hornet’s Nest


Last week, I decided to finished reading the rest of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.

I found the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo an engaging read — it took a while to get into the story but absolutely compelling when it hit the groove. I admit I was a bit apprehensive about the rest of the series, because I kept hearing opposite opinions about it. One side emphatically insisted the series gets better in books 2 and 3, the other side insisted, with equal gusto, that the first book was the best of the bunch.

I liked the first book enough that I thought I’d miss out if the next two books did turn out to be better, so I went ahead and got myself the next two books in the series. There were no more trade paperbacks available anywhere (my TGWTDT s a trade paperback) so I settled on the UK mass market paperbacks, which looked like they had better paper and binding than the first, and they’ve held up pretty well through the first reading — spine creasing not so pronounced — although now they’re crying out for me to “upgrade” them. I hope bookstores would restock the trade paperbacks; I don’t know how long I can resist getting the nice hardcover set tempting me from the bookstore window!

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Crazy over the cut-price sale!

The annual National Book Store Cut-Price sale is on!

I’ve been shopping at the NBS cut-price sale since I was in college, and I always manage to take home a great haul over the  three-week sale season. I’ve even developed a strategy for it over the years — I’ve learned to pace myself, because otherwise I’ll just go crazy (not to mention broke).

I spend the first week scoping out a couple of branches, and I usually don’t buy anything (unless it’s something I absolutely must have for my collection); I just check out the books on sale. And then I do my first round of shopping at the one branch, where I do the bulk of my cut-price purchases. Over the next few days, when I have the chance, I drop by the different branches, and see if there are one or two books I still want to buy. And then, at the tail end, I drop by another branch and scrounge for more books — sometimes the prices drop towards the end of the sale!

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Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

I’ve been following Meg Cabot’s Queen of Babble series for some years now, but was only recently able to get ahold of the third book, Queen of Babble Gets Hitched via some very kind moochers on BookMooch.

Lizzie Nichols has always been a charming protagonist, and I’ve enjoyed reading the first two books in the series — Queen of Babble, and Queen of Babble in the Big City. Lizzie is a a twenty-something with old-fashioned sensibilities, and a talent for restoring vintage dresses. The series follows her life (and lovelife) as she ventures out of her hometown and away from her family to make it on her own.

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Reading time!

I’m not  a terribly vain person, but there is a reason I like going to the salon — I get some reading done! The, erm, “beautification” is an added bonus.

This year has kept me pretty busy that I’ve rarely had time to read for very long, and I have to consciously jump at all opportunities for reading, including, to the amusement of my officemates, that snippet of time after the afternoon bell has rung, and I’m waiting for the rest of them to shut down their terminals and pack up their stuff.

Anyway, last weekend, I threw some books into a totebag and headed to the salon for a hair rebond. I get my hair rebonded once a year, because it saves a lot of time fussing about hair all year round and drastically reduces the frequency of bad hair days (especially in the humidity!).

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Vintage Novelties


I don’t often read non-fiction, and when I do, they’re mostly palate-cleansers, e.g. books I read in between books when I get bogged down by lengthy reads, and more often than not, they’re either trivia books or novelty books.

Now, I can never resist pretty books, and I love vintage art, so I’ve got a growing collection of novelty books that feature vintage ephemera. Four more were added to my collection recently: Cheap Laffs: The Art of the Novelty Item by Mark Newgarden and Picture Box, Inc., which I recently unearthed from my TBR (bought it two years ago, it was still wrapped in its plastic casing); Let’s Be Safe by Benjamin Darling (via BookMooch); Fireside: A Family Companion by Janice Anderson (book sale bargain bin, for P25); and What the Doctor Smokes and other inspiring adverts through the ages by Kate Parker and the Advertising Archives (Powerbooks Book Barter).

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