Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
Some weeks ago, my tongue was a bit twisty after reading two British books in succession; I can’t help reading them without a British accent in my head! At that time, I was also nursing a bad cough (read: evil virus going around) with lots of mint tea and honey (okay, and some all-butter shortbread), so I was enjoying round-the-clock teatime, perfect for these two books: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend, and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Happy New Year!
It’s the last day of my vacation and I hope to get back on track with my blogging within the week.
But before I start a new year of blogging, I’d like to thank everyone for sharing 2010 with me. The year has flown by so fast — I think it’s been my busiest year ever, judging from the way my reading tally plummeted to 205, some 30-40 books down from my annual average for the past three years (or maybe I’ve just been reading thicker books). Nevertheless, the year has been quite eventful, with weekends packed with bookish activities, and I’ve also made a lot of new friends: authors, illustrators, fellow book bloggers, BookMoochers, new Flippers, and new blog readers! Oh, and don’t get me started on the number of books I’ve added to my TBR in 2010, because I’m actually too scared to count ’em! :D
Here’s a Christmas present I got myself, after being cooped up with this upper respiratory tract infection for most of my short vacation: The Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Edition Boxed Set.
I’ve been drooling over this ever since I saw it at the bookstore earlier this month, and I was trying to see how long I could hold out before breaking down , but National Book Store was on sale at Mall of Asia and 20% off (P2,395 from P2,995) was too good a deal to pass up! I finally took home the set today! Squee!
I know, I know, you’re thinking, I’ve read the Millennium trilogy, I have three copies of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (trade paperback and hardcover AND a Swedish mass market paperback), and I have mass market paperbacks of The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. But you know I can never resist a pretty book (even one that I already have a copy — or multiple copies for that matter — of, erm, this is why I’ve come to amass over a hundred Harry Potter books in different languages), and well, check out how pretty this boxed set is:
With just a week to go in the year, I’m now working overtime on my A-Z Challenge, with four books to go and eight reviews to write. In an attempt to make it before the clock strikes twelve on the new year, I am trying to rad the remaining books and churn out their reviews as fast as I can, and I’ll deal with the backlog of my regular reading list in the first week of the new year.
Let me start with an Asian selection: Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto and A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong.
This is one of the reasons I’ve been so busy this season: the Harry Potter Christmas tree!
I wanted a bookish Christmas tree this year so I ended up putting it up myself. And then I had my heart set on a Harry Potter theme, so I drove myself crazy searching for ornaments and even making some of it myself!
It’s been a photo-finish job (I crammed most of it in the last couple of weeks, mostly when my mom was in Singapore, and to her credit, she did not bat an eyelash at my pagan tree!), but it was a lot of fun putting it together!
Here it is, in pictures:
