Literary takedowns

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

My dog just had his birthday (12 years old, thanks), so … how do you feel about books about dogs or pets? Fluffy stories of fluffy family members? Solid books on training them or taking care of them? Touching reminiscences of trouble and the way a person’s dog (or pet) has helped get them through?

(Mind you, almost all the pet-related books on my shelf are about dogs, but I’m well aware that people love their cats, horses, ferrets, rabbits, fish, etc. just as much, so … any species is fine!)

Any favorite books to recommend?

 Mozart (r) on his first birthday with guest/buddy Shopao (l, neighbor's pooch)

I notice, browse and admire those books about dogs but I actually do not have any of them. When I had my fur son I read about how to take care of him online and just asked his vet whenever I needed a quick question answered. Guess I was more keen on spoiling him. The spoiling took its toll. He turns 12 in August and behaves like a cat, eg. feeling entitled.

If I want Mozart to come to me I don't say "come" but "bye-bye, Mo." When it's bath time he suddenly gets busy pretending the noodle ad he's watching on TV is of national importance. Fur parents like me should probably read When Pigs Fly!: Training Success With Impossible Dogs. Or maybe someone should write us a book like When Pigs Fly: Training Success With Spoiled Rotten Poodles.

I have lots of DVDs that feature dogs though. One of my faves is Lassie Come Home. I can't stand stories or anything in the news that show dogs or any animal being mistreated.

Serious reading I did for Mozart was after my divorce when I had to pack him to Grandma's house. It was international travel. The process involved customs, quarantines, airline regulations on flying pets and government to government communications. It was major stress.

Now that we're back to normal I am eyeing a fun read called Arlo Needs Glasses. Here's the book trailer if you want to watch -

 ~ x ~

Thursday 13: literary takedowns. What do you think of authors or editors bashing other authors or their works? Have you had a fave author or work attacked? What was your reaction?
 

1.   V.S. Naipul against Jane Austen

2.   Stephen King against Stephenie Meyer

3.   Kathryn Schulz against F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

4.   Christian Lorentzen against Alice Munro (Poor Rose)
5.   Joseph Epstein against Franz Kafka (overrated?)

6.   Mark Twain against Fenimore Cooper (his Literary Offenses)

7.   Oliver Wendell Holmes against Plato 
8.   David Foster Wallace against John Updike (Phallocrat)

9.   George Bernanrd Shaw against Shakespeare

10. Lord Byron against Chaucer

11. Nabokov against Dostoyevksky

12. Bertrand Russell against Socrates

13. Ralph Waldo Emerson against Jane Austen

Antebellum reverie

It's a lovely week in the chili patches. Here's celebrating moments that made it so.

Dainty Dory a seafood bistro at Terminal 21. Inside it's like finding yourself in one of those sunny seaside Greek cafes featured on TV and films

Carnation cheer brightened up a dreary day in the office. Read: marking finals that never seem to end. A vase of red pink carnations is the only cheer in a sea of academic bits and pieces. I made it til sign out time by imagining tea served on the porch of an antebellum mansion.

Mother's Day gift. The day for Moms has been awhile but I've been busy. This week was my only chance to take a close look at a gift a friend gave me. 

Finding the perfect purchase during a routine book shopping. The friend who gave me the Body Shop Chocomania gift set (above) mentioned she and her diving buddies fancy the Great Barrier Reef next year. The Dive Sites of the Great Barrier Reef is a nice book that provides what my friend would most likely need to know about the place. I love it when it's my turn to give gifts.

Calamari wish granted: my little brunch at Dory

 ~x~
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Patriotism

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

"Do you ever read books that could be considered patriotic? Rousing stories of heroes? History? Brave countrymen & women doing bold things? What would you recommend if somebody asked you for something patriotic–no matter what your country?"

The only patriotic books I read were those required in school.  Nowadays if I have to pick up one patriotic book that involves my country, the Philippines, it will be Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq by Susan A. Brewer.  John H. Brown, Ph.D., has a good review of the book on American Diplomacy.

Thursday 13: quotes about time. Which ones do you like or relate to?

1. There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~ Bill Waterson

2. Time is a game played beautifully by children. ~ Heraclitus, Fragments

3. If you judge people, you have no time to love them. ~ Mother Teresa

4. Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. ~ Curtin, Phrynette Married

5. They say I'm old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast! ~ Dr. Seuss

6. I'm on a government watch list. But I'm not interested, because government watches only twenty minutes out of every hour. ~ Jarod Kintz

7. "I wish it need not have happened in my time, " said Frodo.  "so do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

8. Time is the longest distance between two places. Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

9. There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart.  So you'd better learn the sound of it.  Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying. ~ Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

10. You may delay, but time will not. ~ Benjamin Franklin

11. Time is an illusion. ~ Albert Einstein

12. Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. ~ William Penn

13. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. ~ Anthony G. Oettinger

Summer reading

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

"It’s time for summer reading, so … today’s question? What’s the worst thing you ever did to your reading material? Sand in the bindings from the beach? Dropped into the pool? Covers smeared with sunscreen? 

And, if you’ve never done actual summer-time damage … have you EVER damaged your book/magazine/paper? Dropped it in the bathtub? Used it to kill a bug? Spilled with coffee?"

I left Dan Brown's Deception Point in my mother's living room long enough for a niece (who was also visiting) to be tempted to 'steal' it and make it her own summer read.

I normally take enough care of my books that none of them are ever damaged but there was a time when some of them were eaten up by termites.  The house help never informed me until the darn pests have burrowed into them.  I was brokenhearted. 

Thursday 13: things the world's smartest people are afraid of.  A hundred and fifty of them are listed on several internet sources. Worry was mentioned several times by, you guessed it - psychologists. What do you think of these fears?

1) Armageddon  ~ Timothy Taylor, archeologist
2) The demise of the scholar ~ David L. Everett, liguistic researcher
3) The post-human geography that will result when robots have taken all our jobs. ~ David Dalrymple, MIT researcher
4) That aliens pose a danger to human civilization. ~ Seth Shostak, SETI researcher
5) That genomics may fail us when it comes to mental disorders. ~ Terrence J. Sejnowski, computational neuroscientist
6) That we'll begin to treat technology like magic. ~ Neil Gershenfield, MIT physicist
7) The proliferation of Chinese eugenics. ~ Geoffrey Miller, evolutionary psychologist
8) The homogenization of the human experience. ~ Scott Atran, anthropologist
9) I worry that free imagination is overvalued, and I think this carries risks. ~ Carlo Rovelli, theoretical physicist
10) The end of hardship inoculation. ~ Adam Alter, psychologist
11) The pseudoscience will gain ground - Helena Cronin, author, philosopher
12) That we will continue to uphold taboos on bad words. ~ Benjamin Bergen, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science, UCS
13) I worry about the prospect of collective amnesia ~ Nogra Arikha, historian of ideas

Here are the rest of them:  150 things the world's smartest people are afraid of

Lotus white, tea, braids and ice

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

"And, the reverse–which actors have been particularly badly cast in roles of characters you first met in the pages of a book? Do you blame the actors or the writers and other film-people for the failure? Who would you have cast instead?"

Ewan McGregor as Carlo Ventresca in Angels and Demons. I thought he was too thin and small as a carmerlengo. They could have cast someone with more body volume and a deep bass voice, but it's just me.

Katharine Schlesinger as Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. Too pretty for her character as one who is into horror Gothic stories. Again, it's just me.

I don't care about blaming anyone for the failure. It's not worth the wrinkles. I just go get myself a cup of tea and find other books and movies to enjoy.

Thursday 13: Random quotes that mention white things in photos I took recently

1. The white lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets. ~ Fung and Iroh.

2. I failed to make the chess team because of my height. ~ Woody Allen

3. A picture is a poem without words. - Horace

4. There is not so variable a thing as a lady's headdress. ~ Joseph Addison

5. As lovely as the white orchid, I'll never own this bloom outright. Yet as I dream in my small chamber, faith blooms in ever spreading light. ~ Liilia Talts Morrison

6. Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one. ~ E.B. White

7. Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. ~ William Arthur Ward 

8. From time to time I'm vilified as the person who cares about the look of a teapot. ~ Stephen Bayley

9. Real nutrition comes from soybeans, almonds, rice and other healthy vegetable sources, not from a cow's udder. ~ Ingrid Newkirk

10. Women eat ice cream. Men toast marshmallows. ~ Diana Hardy

11. Consumers are eating about six ounces of Pangasius per year. Hardly more than a mouthful ~ shared by a member of The Caravan Club

12. A girl without braids is like a city without bridges. ~ Roman Payne

13. I dread no more the first white in my hair, or even age itself the easy shoe. Time doing this to me may alter too my sorrow into something I can bear. ~ Edna St Vincent Millay

Dream Cast

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

"And while we’re thinking about books converted to tv/movies. Do you ever sit and wonder who could be cast as your favorite characters? (Please feel free to give examples!)
What actors do you think have done particularly excellent jobs with some of your favorite characters?"

Cleopatra VII of Dan Brown's latest thriller; if they're converting Inferno to film soon- I wonder how would a younger version of Maggie Smith do. A complicated fancy but it's free to wish.

Richard Harris (HP1 & 2) and Michael Gambon (HP3-6) were perfect for their role as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

They couldn't have chosen a better actor than Leonardio di Caprio as Jay Gatsby in the recent The Great Gatsby.

Jacob Black of the Twilight series was played quite well by Taylor Lautner. I don't mind that he is not as tall as his book character. Taylor is the best shape shifter ever and he played Jacob very well I was in love with him for months.

Thursday 13: Random bookish photos in my files

1. the latest Dan Brown thriller

2. I piled these last Christmas to make a tree out of them

3. got to watch the film first; went straight to the bookstore for the reading experience

4. at my fave second-hand bookshop: deciding which ones to check out

5. writing a research-reflective note on a page of a Jane Austen book

6. I heard my mother mutter quietly while watching me bid goodbye to these books I bought after a week-long vacation at home, "Anastasia and her latest loot.'

7. Advertising Management books, Business Management Faculty office (my playground)

 

8. this boardroom at work teems with e-books

 

9. Kinokuniya search machine; looks like the one that replaced the note cards

10. a book filled with color drawing of fairies by Mary Cicely Barker

11. some of those books I bought from Logos Hope

12. normal state of the bed

13. playing with free photo background online

Unbirthday tea

As Lewis Carroll's neologism in his Through the Looking Glass, an unbirthday is "an event that can be celebrated on any day that is not the person's birthday." People who love celebrations may be into unbirthdays regularly. I am. It keeps me counting blessings and looking at life positively.

"Statistics prove that you have one birthday, just one birthday every year. But there are three hundred and sixty-four unbirthdays. And this is a reason to gather and cheer." 

An unbirthday is also

"when you acknowledge that it is, indeed, the date of your birth, but refuse to acknowledge that you have aged."

and to you!

 

~ Sally's Blues and Maiylah's Food: sticky rice sweet coconut balls ~

It is also suggested that an unbirthday is "the day of a sibling's birthday where you also receive presents/money in order to keep the peace." 

I didn't know about this before but I have been buying gifts for my fur kid when the biological one has a birthday, and vice versa. When CJ turned nine I decided to join in the fun with my boys by having an unbirthday; albeit a working mom style one, spread and ongoing.

The local delicacy is the saving grace of the plastic water glass and paper coffee cup - served as snack during a 15-minute research conference break (intense and seemingly endless; not to mention quality control meetings here and there). When things go this way, as they usually do, the answer is an unbirthday.

~ My World: Business Faculty meeting, TRU-STech 18, Bangkok Campus ~

Never mind that it's punctuated with research thingamabobs: Epistemology. ANOVA. Enthnography. Multiple regression. Theoretical framework. Gimme the darn findings already! A long shot but it's nice to wish sometimes.

Plowing on - content validity, strategic communications, deception analysis. Crack! I need tea!

~ Mellow Yellows: it's strawberry milk tea time in my nook ~

And another unbirthday. So I made a little detour to Asia Books from bank errands the other night and got myself the latest Dan Brown thriller. Don't you just love the feeling of holding a 'just out' book in your hands?

~ ABC Wednesday: unbirthday treat ~

I read the prologue aloud to myself, heart skipping at the mention of Uffizi, huddling in the shadows...; then halted unexpectedly on chthonic, laboring beneath the earth.... How is 'chthonic' pronounced anyway? Anyone?

~ Ruby 2: Inferno ~

They are behind me unyielding, closing in. 

They do not understand what is coming.... 

Ungrateful land! 

The pressure to publish is floating around my nostrils. "'Seek and find,' the woman repeats" (Brown, 2013). Back to research mode. The load does get lighter when fueled by unbirthday tea.

Visit these sites: Time Travel * Favorite Things * ABC Wednesday * Our World * Sally's Blues * Mellow Yellows * Ruby 2 * Share the Joy * Food Friday *

Childhood vs adult

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

"Have your reading habits changed since you were a child? (I mean, I’m assuming you have less time to read now, but …) Did you devour and absorb books when you were 10 and only just lightly read them now? Did you re-read frequently as a child but now only read new books? How about types of books? Do you find yourself still attracted to the kinds of books you read when you were a kid?"

It's less crazy now and I have more freedom to read the way I want, what I want. As a child my books were parent-sanctioned. During my teens I relished that secret excitement over books they didn't know of or didn't approve. I don't remember re-reading. But I was told that before I learned to read I used to ask my mother to read those Bible stories to me again and again. 

Then I learned to read. I devoured fairy tales and mostly mystery. I had a go at trash and struggled to understand The Aeneid to please and impress my father. Since becoming an adult I haven't taken a second look at the ancient work. I fancy revisiting it but electronically this time. Old meets new.

My juvenile reading curiosity was eclectic. At one point it got me engrossed in Lapland and at another my eyebrows met stupidly in the middle at discovering myself innocently plowing over raw tuition in gun silencer installation. As far as attraction goes, mine is on the postmodern version or reincarnation or call it metamorphosis of the books I read when I was a kid.

Thursday 13: Books I want to add to my collection. I mean I already promised myself to slow down on collecting as this tiny city apartment is going to explode. But well... and oh, this is only part 1. There are several of them mentioned in Books that changed the world. It's for the reason they made it to the list that I want them in my collection.

1. Hitler's Mein Kampf
2. Darwin's Origin of the Species
3. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
4. Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams
5. William Harvey's De Motu Cordis
6. Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince
7. Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica
8. Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience
9. Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman
10. Thomas Paine's Common Sense
11. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations
12. Alfred Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
13. Edward Jenner's An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the VariolaeVaccinae

Second choices, anyone?

When I got divorced I had to make changes to a life of ease which came with luxuries that I sometimes took for granted. The process taught me a few, important things. Single life so far has been very good and I am grateful for enough blessings and challenges that kept the balance.

My son attends school in the home country. I continue to be a mom to him from a distance, and although it is not exactly what I would rather have, I am learning to work my way around such living arrangement.  Second Choice: embracing life as it is "challenges some assumptions in Western culture and gives a different slant on the idea of success." I pick what's culturally relevant to me.

Viv Thomas, the author "insists that to live our lives well it is vital that we are able to live in a world of second choice or no choice at all." I would recommend the book to anyone who is curious about second choices and how they can become "places of grace, community, imagination and maturity if we learn to embrace life as it is." (excerpt)  The photo above is the cover of my copy. Lovely, isn't it?

The kiddo turns 9. Nine roller coaster years! For his gift I made a financial decision that will impact his life long term. Here's to life, my Baby Pooh you Sweet child of mine! What's a celebration without music? Do you like Gregorian? I do. This is my favorite remake of the power ballad.

So while loved ones at home are busy celebrating with glorious food, I'm having brunch of beef steak, salad and black tea from Fuji, my favorite Japanese restaurant.

Visit these sites: Mellow Yellows * Creative HomeAcre * Inspire Me 

Share the Joy * Food Friday * Favorite Things

Returns

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

What book(s) do you find yourself going back to? Beloved children’s classics? Favorites from college? Something that touched you and just makes you long to visit?

(Because, doesn’t everybody have at least one book they would like to curl up with, even if they don’t make a habit of rereading books? Even if they maybe don’t even have the time to visit and just think back longingly?)

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. JK Rowling's Harry Potter 5 and 7. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight 2 and 4 - re-read all twice.

Mary Cicely Barker's The Everyday Handbook for Magical Mothers. I LOVE FAIRIES. The illustrations on my copy take me to a world I love visiting again and again.

Lately I've been scouring second-hand bookshops for Clue in the Crumbling Wall of the Nancy Drew series. I've been wishing to find an old copy, not interested in its e-form, no thanks. I want the book preferably yellowed with age, with the paper gone brittle through the years. Since I could not find it I bought Carolyn Keene's The Hidden Staircase which I reckon would do for now.

Thursday 13: Books I fancy reading again

1. You Don't Say by Barry Phelps
2. The Complete Neurotic by Charles A. Monagan
3. Interpersonal Communication by Julia Wood
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. Secrets of the Code by Dan Burstein
6. Anne Shirley of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
7. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
8. Taste Berry Tales by Bertie Youngs
9. Jesus, CEO by Laurie Beth Jones
10. Second Choice by Viv Thomas
11. The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
12. Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks
13. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Do you re-read books? Care to share?

Fifty

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

"My brother-in-law turns 50 this weekend. So, in his honor, please pick up your nearest book or whatever book you’re currently reading, and turn to page 50 and then share the first 50 words with the rest of us."

From Timeline by Michael Crichton:

Only the Professor's personal intervention prevented him from being expelled from Yale. Chris's response to this sudden jeopardy was to bury himself in his studies; his grades swiftly improved; he eventually graduated fifth in his class. But in the process he became conservative. Now, at twenty-four he tended toward fussiness and stomach trouble. He was only reckless with women.

Thursday 13: Books that readers did not finish reading. Book Riot on FB asked fans what books they broke up with and these are 13 out of more than 200 responses.

1. Fifty Shades of Grey (reported 29 times)
2. Twilight (reported 7 times)
3. Eat, Pray, Love (reported 3 times)
4. Game of Thrones (reported 3 times)
5. The Great Gatsby (reported twice)
6. Anna Karenina (reported twice)
7. Duma by Stephen King (reported twice)
8. War and Peace (reported twice)
9. The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling (reported twice)
10. Jane Error (spelling intended)
11. Wuthering Heights (reported 3 times)
12. Catch 22 (reported twice)
13. Emma by Jane Austen (reported twice)

Other answers were Little Women, The Devil Wears Prada, Water for Elephants, Hunger Games, The Book Thief, Poisonwood Bible, and even Pride and Prejudice. But clearly people's preferences differ of course. What book did you not finish reading?

Tea time in Castelgard

Constantly a fan of old, it took me 2013 to start reading Michael Crichton's Timeline. Published by Frederick in 1999, the book talks of going back hundreds of years; of knights and castles, an ancient language, lords and ladies, sword battles - there's my appetite for medieval history.

The story deals with modern machinery to get a glimpse of the old world. That's my cue not to lose touch with reality. High-cost technology is woven into the plot. There's a tournament in Castelgard. A rogue knight threatens to marry Lady Claire by force to save himself from bankruptcy. I need to make sure my own finances are in order after that spontaneous island vacation I did two weeks ago. Things seem manageable. I bought the paperback for just 68 cents. Contrasts keep life interesting, don't they?

So tea time into a tour back in time.

And joy is accompanying the read with a white chocolate macadamia moist cake paired with a cup of earl grey. I love chocolate drinks, hot or cold, but I take care not to have the same flavor in both pastry and drink. What kind of drink do you usually have with cake or while reading?

Visit these sites: Sally's Blues * Thrifty Things * Food Friday * Share the Joy * Favorite Things

Celebrating Equinox

This post is linked with: Booking Through, Thursday 13 

Happy Spring Equinox, everyone. What book are you choosing to celebrate with?

Timeline by Michael Crichton. It works around some of my most favorite topics: archaeologists discovering something shocking at a medieval site.

Thursday 13: Dasa's bestselling travel non-guidebooks in my side of town. Any familiar author or title you might be interested in?

1. A fortune-teller told me by Tiziano Terzani

2. A cook's tour by Anthony Bourdain

3. Off the rails in Phnom Pehn by Amit Gilboa
4. Holy Cow! by Sarah MacDonald
5. The great railway bazaar by Paul Theroux
6. Notes from a small island by Bill Byrson
7. Finding George Orwell in a Burmese teashop by Emma Larkin
8. Ghost train to the Eastern star by Paul Theroux
9. Defiled on the Ayeyarwaddy by Ma Thanegi
10. Into the wild by Jon Krakaur
11. Lost Continent by Bill Bryson
12. Down under by Bill Bryson
13. To Myanmar with love by Things Asian Press