Bookish Visuals

Create an instant library with these pictures. I’d buy the 3 and stack them up from bottom to top in my library (in my dreams) and have a fake bookshelf! But a gorgeous one.

March of the book penguins via fuckyeahreading!. And books in arty motion from the same link. Amazing, isn’t it?

I love these book cover designs, via fuckyeahreading! again.

The ultimate bookish visual – see the beauty of this amazing library in all its 3D glory via Papervision3D. Almost like being there yourself!

Bookish Clothes

I love to read and I love to shop for clothes, so there’s nothing more exciting for me than to find clothes that show off my bookish side. Sadly, I can’t do much except appreciate them ‘cos I don’t have Paypal for online shopping and I can’t find clothes like that where I live. Actually, it’s a good thing I can’t shop on international sites ‘cos I’m already splurging as it is on local online shopping!

Anyway here are some bookish T-shirts I sure wouldn’t mind wearing.

Peace Love Books T-shirt. I’m all for promoting the three elements! But for USD$23?

Movies: Ruining the book since 1920 – true or what? Though to be fair, I much preferred the movie of The Devil Wears Prada than the book. And how few people actually lasted reading the whole trilogy of LOTR? The movies were easier to go through despite the minimal 10 hours you have to devote yourself to.

Kinda juvenile but I found it funny still.

I don’t need more books, but I can never resist when I see a book that I want.

I can think of a few customers at the place I work at that would fit the description of this T-shirt!

There are many more bookish clothes at where I found the two T-shirts above. Again… it’s a good thing I don’t have Paypal! It is, it is…

Reading Resolutions

Happy New Year to you!

I hope you had a good time ushering in the new year. As for me, I had an early night on New Year’s Eve, for a change to my usual late nights. Didn’t exactly feel more well-rested the next day but I did enjoy the luxury, nonetheless!

The new year is almost always associated with resolutions. Personally, when I first started blogging I made those typical personal new year resolutions – eat healthier, exercise, travel more blablabla. This year I won’t do this. Instead, I shall make reading resolutions!

1. Read more popular books.
I know this seems like a cop-out or cheesy thing to do. My reason for doing this is simply because I want to know what’s the hype behind the book and to be more in the know with the hot books at the moment.

2. Read more Malaysian books.
Just finished reading The Royal Selangor Story and reminds me that there are great books out there by local authors. Not that I’m not aware of that fact, but it’s just more tempting to devour books by Western authors. I don’t really fancy reading the Asian genre, but books about Malaysia I’ll try to make an exception.

3. Read one classic literature book. Or two.
Like Wuthering Heights. Or Pride & Prejudice, which I never did finish the first time I read it. That sort of classics.

4. Clear my bookshelf…
by rereading a book I don’t really like so I can give it away. I mean, sometimes I find that a book I really enjoyed a few years ago doesn’t mean much to me anymore if I read it again now. And since I keep adding more books to my shelf, I need to make space. Book trimming sounds bad but I think it’s a good thing for me.

So those are my reading resolutions! Do you have any? Do share them with me!

A List of Good Asian Books

In no particular order. Taken from here.

1. The Gift of Rain – Tan Twan Eng
2. Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond – Pankaj Mishra
3. Silk Road – Colin Thubron
4. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found – Suketu Mehta
5. Beijing Coma – Ma Jian
6. The Wasted Vigil – Nadeem Aslam
7. Burnt Shadows – Kamila Shamsie
8. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders – Daniyal Mueenuddin
9. The Temple-Goers – Aatish Taseer
10. The Harmony Silk Factory – Tash Aw
11. The Last Song of Dusk – Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
12. The Inspector Chen Series – Qiu Xiaolong
13. The Glass Palace – Amitav Ghosh
14. Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra
15. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
16. The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai
17. The Golden Age – Tahmima Anam
18. Butcher and Bolt – David Loyn
19. Greetings from Bury Park: Race Religion and Rock and Roll – Sarfraz Mansoor
20. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
21. Snow – Orhan Pamuk
22. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie
23. The White Moghuls – William Dalrymple
24. Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
25. White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
26. Descent into Chaos – Ahmed Rashid
27. Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
28. China Road – Rob Gifford
29. Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century – Will Hutton
30. God’s Terrorists – Charles Allen
31. Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism – Edna Fernandes
32. Khandahar Cockney – James Fergusson
33. Brick Lane – Monica Ali
34. Persepolis: The Story of an Iranian Childhood – Marjane Satrapi
35. The Kite Runner – Khalid Hosseini
36. The Places in Between – Rory Stewart
37. The Vagrants – Yiyun Li
38. The Boat – Nam Le
39. Madwoman on the Bridge – Su Tong
40. Evening is the Whole Day – Preeta Samarasan
41. Once on the Shore – Paul Yoon
42. The Calligrapher’s Daughter – Eugenia Kim
43. The Assassin’s Song – MG Vassanji
44. Imperial Life in The Emerald City – Rajiv Chandrasekaran

My personal additions to the list:

45. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
46. Chinese Cinderella – Adeline Yen Mah
47. The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures – Malba Tahan
48. Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato’ Hamid Adventures – Kam Raslan
49. Empress Orchid – Anchee Min
50. Sing to the Dawn – Minfong Ho