Posts by: Li

Meme: Booking Through Thursday

Posted 23 July, 2009 by Li in Meme / 1 Comment

Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date)

  • Reading something frivolous? Or something serious?
  • Paperbacks? Or hardcovers?
  • Fiction? Or Nonfiction?
  • Poetry? Or Prose?
  • Biographies? Or Autobiographies?
  • History? Or Historical Fiction?
  • Series? Or Stand-alones?
  • Classics? Or best-sellers?
  • Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose?
  • Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness?
  • Long books? Or Short?
  • Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated?
  • Borrowed? Or Owned?
  • New? Or Used?

– Booking Through Thursday

Ooh, short answers today 🙂

  • Something serious…I own maybe 5 books that aren’t xD
  • Paperbacks usually…unless I really, really, really want a book I’ll get it in hardcover
  • Fiction…I read too much nonfiction for school
  • Prose…unless is Federico Garcia Lorca
  • Biographies…? I don’t know, really, I don’t read them often enough
  • History…but I read/like both 🙂
  • Standalones these days…series can get costly for my pocket 🙁
  • Classics
  • Straight-forward, basic prose
  • Plots
  • Long books
  • Non-illustrated
  • Owned
  • New

Well, that was fun 😀

Review: Shanghai

Posted 22 July, 2009 by Li in Books / 0 Comments

Shanghai
By: David Rotenberg

I’ve seen this book floating around Costco and the bookstore after it came out in mass market paperbound back in June. After staring at it for some time, I finally got a hold of the copy. Here’s the synopsis of the novel (as I’m too lazy to summarize it on my own—it’s a hefty story anyways):

With his last breath, China’s First Emperor, Q’in She Huang, entrusts his followers with a sacred task. Scenes intricately carved into a narwhal tusk show the future of a city “at the Bend in the River,” and The Emperor’s chosen three- his favourite concubine, head Confucian, and personal bodyguard – must bring these prophecies to life by passing their traditions on for generations. Centuries later, the descendents of the Emperor’s chosen confidantes observe as Shanghai is invaded by opium traders and missionaries from Europe, America, and the Middle East. Of them all, two families- locked in a rivalry that will last for generations- will be central to the evolution of the city. As history marches on, locals and foreign interlopers clash and intertwine; their combined fates shaping what will become the centrepiece of the new China- Shanghai.

Read More

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

Posted 21 July, 2009 by Li in Meme / 2 Comments

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
– Grab your current read
– Open to a random page
– Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
– BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
– Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

– Should Be Reading

My teaser for this week: “In the fourth month of the siege, rumour spread through the city that the Heavenly King had left with his son, and finally the inevitable revolt of the dispossessed and exhausted brought the city to the brink of surrender. Maxi pleaded, through his interpreter, that to open the gates was to allow in destruction.” – p. 431, Shanghai by David Rotenberg. I slowly started reading this book last week during a picnic. It’s a massive book—1100 pages in mass paperback—and so far it’s okay. I find it a bit confusing at the start with the back-and-forth pace between characters. I’m only getting a handle of it now, I think *blushes*

List: Summer 2009 TBR List [Update V]

Posted 20 July, 2009 by Li in Lists / 0 Comments

  • David Anthony Durham’s Acacia
  • Greg Keyes’s The Born Queen
  • The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (N)
  • Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Four
  • David Rotenberg’s Shanghai
  • Gary R. Ryan’s Blessings in Disguise (N)
  • Elizabeth Gaskall’s Wives and Daughters
  • Ariana Franklin’s City of Shadows
  • Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Angel’s Game

Read another couple of books, dwindling my TBR list down to 9 books (which is probably the shortest I’ve seen it in a very long time, lol) 🙂 I succumbed to the temptation and bought Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Angel’s Game, lol. The last few books I’ve read were pretty interesting, a little hefty on the Eastern European front as the setting for these novels (I Served the King of England and The Lazarus Project).

I’m slowly reading through Rotenberg’s Shanghai, which has been okay so far although I feel like it keeps jumping back and forth between characters that I find myself a bit confused at times. 🙁 I’ve also started flipping a bit through Durham’s Acacia (because I didn’t want to bring Shanghai with me yesterday on my trip out of town) and I’m liking how intricate the history is in the world that Durham created. Should be an interesting read.

Meme: Musing Mondays, Teaser Tuesdays

Posted 13 July, 2009 by Li in Meme / 3 Comments

I was at a dentist appointment this morning so I was out for most of the day, hence the slight lateness of this meme:

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about book covers…

We all know the old adage about not judging a book by it’s cover, but just how much sway does a book cover have when it comes to your choice of book – whether buying or borrowing? Are there any books you’ve bought based on the cover alone?

– Just One More Page

Yeah, about the adage, I do try not to fall for the pretty cover = must check it out. Sadly, I do fall for it sometimes when I’m browsing aimlessly through the bookstore (though it’s usually the title of the novel that catches my attention during such occasions). A very pretty/spiffy/cool cover for a book does the trick in drawing a reader to checking out the back blurb and seeing what the novel is all about (I do read the back still and flip a bit through the pages but it’s that initial attraction from the cover that leads me to steps two and three there, haha). A couple of books I bought on the whim thanks to the cover are:

  • Chris Evans’s A Darkness Forged in Fire — Very cool cover, very shiny and attention-grabbing, LOL
  • Juan Gomez-Jurado’s God’s Spy — Can’t find a link on chapters.indigo.ca but it’s a good example in my experience of NOT picking up something based on what you glanced over while browsing the shelves =\
  • John Meaney’s Bone Song — When I saw the cover, and then the tag line—“Even death has its own laws–and those sworn to uphold them”—I knew I had to check it out =)

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
– Grab your current read
– Open to a random page
– Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
– BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
– Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

– Should Be Reading

My teaser for this week: “‘Mr. Thorpe had no business to invent any such message. If I had thought it right to put it off, I could have spoken to Miss Tilney myself.'” – p. 80, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. For a change of pace, I decided to re-read Northanger Abbey; I love this book 🙂