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"Anything Goes on Saturday" is a meme hosted by Yvonne of Socrates' Book Reviews. It's a chance to choose any topic you want and talk about it on Saturday - it can be about a book, TV show, movie, a recipe or just an update on your week. Whatever you choose.
My mom is very good at making things with her hands. She can sew, crochet and knit very well. She is now 75 years old but that has not made her less enthusiastic. I would say as days go by she is getting more and more feisty! And I love that! Today I want to share pictures of a doll she made, from waste materials. I had shown her a picture of a doll not so long ago. She only took a cursory glimpse and did not say a word and made one! She hid it from me and gave it to me today....(no, it isn't my birthday!). And I never played with dolls either.
I wish I had her patience and her skills! A perfect mother ends up with a very imperfect daughter! I am rather proud of her! Look at the pictures and tell me what you think?
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and
All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical specimen, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?
It does not matter either way for me. I do buy news books a lot. I like the smells of paper and a pristine book offers that. But I am not very fastidious either. If I get the same book for a much cheaper price, I go for it. Also the fact that used books are so much cheaper than new ones, lures me into buying those. I have bought 15-20 used books for the price of one new book. That is best incentive to buy those used ones!
Used books do have character. But they should be intact and should not stink! I like those with the covers. I have also found rare books whilst browsing through used books. Reading is important, books are important, new ones or used ones, it does not really matter.
"She turned her attention next to where she had been lying in dumpster. Staring aimlessly into space, a dead women's body that resembled her sister."
~Page 240, Silent Partner by Jennifer Chase
Mailbox Monday has moved over to LIBRARY OF CLEAN READS for the month of February 2011. 
Update on 26 Feb, 2011: Posting this for Weekly Geeks 2011-8: Short and Sweet
"Anything Goes on Saturday" is a meme hosted by Yvonne of Socrates' Book Reviews. It's a chance to choose any topic you want and talk about it on Saturday - it can be about a book, TV show, movie, a recipe or just an update on your week. Whatever you choose.
I will talk about short stories. I read a lot of short stories. I love to pick up anthologies and devour those. I still love to re-read short stories by Guy de Maupassant, and Saki (H. H. Munro). I also own short story anthologies of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Dorothy Parker, O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), Charles Dickens, and Willa Cather, along with some modern writers.
A short story contains all the elements of a novel but in a compressed manner. A great story teller can mesmerize us and also tickle us with his short stories. I find short stories great for the in between reads as well as when there is short attention span. A case in point is, Guy de Maupassant. Once you read one of his stories, you are hooked to those forever. His stories are timeless...
Do you like to read short stories? Can you recommend anything other than the above anthologies? If you have not read short stories, would you give those a chance? I would like to know your thoughts, either way.
Literary Blog Hop is hosted by The Blue Bookcase. If you features book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion, you too can join in!
This week's question is:
If you were going off to war (or some other similarly horrific situation) and could only take one book with you, which literary book would you take and why?
I would carry a poetry book, Thirst by Mary Oliver. There is no doubt about it. Now Mary Oliver is one poet, I really love to read. Thirst contains poems which touch my mind, heart and soul....I laugh, smile, cry reading those.
When I Am Among the Trees
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."
A Pretty Song
From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.
No answer, no coming out of it.
Which is the only way to love, isn't it?
This isn't a play ground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.
Therefore I have given precedence
to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods
that hold you in the center of my world.
And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on
The House
Because we lived our several lives
Caught up within the spells of love.....
We did not hear, beneath our lives,
The old walls falling out or true,
Foundations shifting in the dark.....
.....For years we lived at peace, until
The rooms themselves began to blend
With time, and empty one by one,
At which we knew, with muted hearts,
That nothing further could be done,
And so rose up, and went away,
Inheritors of breath and love,
Bound to that final black estate
No child can mend or trade away.
Need I say more?
The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden (1958)
'On and off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages . . .'
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| (Dec 10, 1907 – Nov 8, 1998) |
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and
What’s the most romantic book you’ve ever read?
And, secondly, did you like it? Is it your usual kind of reading, or did it take you by surprise?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë wins hands down for me. I read it while I was in school. It enthralled me then, it still enthralls me now. Jane was one very strong character. She knew her mind and was a very independent female. Her integrity is always left intact, and Rochester too does not believe in the classes. An amazing novel which is quite modern, considering those times.
These are a few of my favourite quotes from the novel:
"Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags" (Chapter 12).
"The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him" (Chapter 15).
"And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude and many associates, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire"(Chapter 15).
"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time: I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you; their expression and smile did not.strike delight to my inmost heart so for nothing" (Chapter 15)
"I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me" (Chapter 17).
"In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight tell: it groveled, seemingly on all fours: it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair wild as a mane, hid its head and face" (Chapter 26).
"Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt? May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love" (Chapter 27).
"Reader, I married him."
"I was that man's executioner," Kolm whispered in my ear. "He's the living image of my failure."
~Page 86, Voltaire's Calligrapher by Pablo De Santis
Book Description from HarperCollins
Dalessius is twenty when he comes to work for one of the Enlightenment’s most famous minds, the author and philosopher Voltaire. As the great man’s calligrapher, Dalessius becomes witness to many wonders—and finds himself in the middle of a secret battle between the malevolent remnants of the all-but-dead Dark Ages and the progressive elements of the modern age. The calligrapher’s role in this shadowy conflict will carry him to many perilous places— through the gates of sinister castles and to the doors of a bizarre bordello; toward life-and death confrontations with inventive henchmen, ingenious mechanical execution devices, poisonous fish, and murderous automatons. As the conspiracy to halt the Enlightenment’s astonishing progress intensifies, young Dalessius’s courage—as well as Voltaire’s unique cunning and wit—are put to the ultimate test as they strive to ensure the survival of the future.
I draw the Winner for Giveaway of Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran and Cup Cake Earrings today via random.org. There were 25 entries. I have put numbers, 1-25 to each of the entrants.
Random Integer Generator
Welcome to Shore Mount – one of India's most prestigious co-ed residential schools. Here, short skirts reign and sports stars are revered, and skinny dips and sneaking girls into boys' rooms are as much a part of the curriculum as the cool Mr Gomez's literature lessons … Into this world arrives Nirvan Shrivastava, with tremendous expectations weighing on his shoulders. After all, he's following in the footsteps of three generations of brilliant Shrivastavas immortalized on every possible honors board in the school. As he hesitatingly negotiates the crazy roller-coaster ride that is life at Shore Mount, he finds true buddies in Gautam, an unlikely musical genius obsessed with all things edible, and Faraz, the slick ladies' man. Together the boys discover that in Shore Mount survival means much more than braving the chill of heater-less dorms, or scrubbing toilets clean with toothbrushes. And as they learn to stand up to vicious bullies on and off the playing fields and survive the agony of heartaches and broken bones, they find themselves hurtling towards adulthood far sooner than they could have ever imagined …
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
Book Description from Amazon:
Henk was more popular and athletic than Helmer, his identical twin, while growing up on a small rural Netherlands farm. Henk was their father's favorite son. Naturally lovely Riet chooses to marry him instead of Helmer. After Henk dies in an auto accident a couple of months before the wedding, Helmer is forced to leave college and return to the family farm. With deep bitterness, he spends days mucking the stalls and milking cows. Now, 37 years later, Helmer moves his invalid father upstairs to get him out of the way and slowly transforms the living space to be more suitable for a bachelor. After a few correspondences from recently widowed Riet, Helmer agrees to take in her teenage son. She feels that hard farm work will give him some direction. Colmer's superb translation allows the novel's authentic voice to be heard by American readers. Bakker captures Helmer's true feelings with excellent inner dialogue. His ongoing feud with his father instills an unusual bond between the two.
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and
Follow Friday 40 and over is hosted by Java
ParaJunkee asks: What is your favorite romance hero-type? Stereotype wise. Do you like the strong silent type or the brute macho man?
A man with intelligence and deep sensitivity. Strong silent type is better!
Jennifer asks "Tell us about one of your posts from this week and give us a link so we can read it (review or otherwise)
I posted the review of Fault Line by Barry Eisler, a thriller worth checking out!
Do feel free to explore my blog. You will definitely find something that interests you as I read wide range of genres, except maybe for a few. I also write poetry. You can read that on my other blog, rooted. Now go, explore both of my blogs! And follow them, if you like!! I follow blogs I like via Google Reader...
Enjoy!
Which authors have you been lucky enough to discover at the very beginning of their careers? And, if you’ve never had that chance, which author do you WISH you’d been able to discover at the very beginning?
I have read a lot of debut novels. Some of those are so good that one does not feel written by a first time writer. Some have become very popular. I don't really want to specify any author as such.
To answer the second question, I will go back to Charles Dickens. I wish I had been there when he wrote his novels...
"Yeah, there's been another shooting at Aura."
"Who was shot?"
~Page 136, The Elephant Tree by RD Ronald
Synopsis:
Mark Fallon is an overworked detective investigating a spate of attacks at a string of high profile city centre nightclubs. Scott is a dejected 24 year old struggling to make ends meet working for his brother and supplementing his income with a small-scale drug dealing operation. Angela is an attractive 23 year old, raised by her father, a career criminal and small time drug dealer who supplies Scott with cannabis.
This is a chilling tale spanning a few months in the lives of Scott and Angela, where realizations about the present combine with shocking revelations from the past leading to an apocalyptic climax where they no longer know whom they can trust.
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Do check out the International Giveaway of Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran and Cup Cake Earrings by clicking on it.
The Last thing Richard Hilzoy thought before the bullet entered his brain was, Things are really looking up.
Title: Fault Line
Author: Barry Eisler
ISBN: 9780345505088
Publisher: Ballantine Books/March 2009
Pages: 302
Alex Treven, a top shot laywer is scared to wits when two of his associates are murdered and his house is burgled. All of them are in one way or other, involved in the invention of encryption application and patent for it is pending. Alex has no family, as they are all dead, except for an enstranged older brother Ben, who has not been in the vicinity for the last seven years, not since their mother died.
Alex, after much thought turns to Ben, who is an undercover agent, who is currently in Istanbul, having the dirty job of eliminating terrorists. Or find, fix and finish, as he calls it. Although Ben resents Alex contacting him, he nevertheless arrives to save Alex. Another lawyer Sarah Hosseini, who too knows all about the encryption, has to be taken into confidence. Although Alex trusts her, Ben does not. And he has reasons not too. All the while the resentment the brothers have for each other, boils over and almost escalates into one killing the other.
It has lots of actions, twists and turns of events, the bonding between the brothers, although both don't know it nor show it. Both are likeable in their own quirky ways. One can't write more without revealing the plot and that is not done for crime fiction.
As with most thrillers, it too is unputdownable. One really likes the unhurried, detailed way Ben goes about his work. He knows he has to clean the world and he goes about it in a clinical manner. Barry Eisler is a writer worth checking out.
Do check out the International Giveaway of Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran and Cup Cake Earrings
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Do check out the International Giveaway of Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran and Cup Cake Earrings
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Every Sunday, I aim to share poetry with you which had had some impact on me. I am Calling it Sharing Poetry With You. As I didn't have a button for it and also don't know how to make one, I requested Violet Crush as well as Veens to make one for me. Both were kind enough to do that for me. Here I am posting both the buttons.
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| Made by Violet Crush |
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| Made by Veens |
