I just wanted to remind everyone that MPH’s Share-A-Gift Tree is up at the store.

For those of you who are not familiar, MPH sets up a Christmas tree in all their retail stores with gift tags for children from welfare homes like Salvation Army. The tag will tell you the name, gender and age of the recipient to help you choose a book for them.

I normally try to pick a teen boy because it’s hard to find books that would engage them, especially if you don’t know too much about YA literature.  But all the boys were below ten so I picked the oldest girl and got her my ‘Book of the Year’.

Why yes, I did make a crack about sparkly vampires. ;P

The drawback about this kind of gift-giving is that you have no idea if they enjoyed it or if they are even the reading type. But I do this every year because I consider this my personal social responsibility as a reader.

There’s still a lot of tags on that tree last I looked, so go on over to MPH an get someone a good book!

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Share-a-Gift at MPH

I stumbled upon this post just now and realised that I have a photo of Doulos’ successor, MV Logos Hope, from my visit last Saturday. I haven’t actually looked at the book fair yet because I didn’t have time. What I did was interview the captain and managing director for an article. You can read it here.

I also want to repost a photo of Captain Chris Hughes, because I think he is quite dashing.

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MV Logos Hope

I just noticed the author of the last cookbook. No shit.

Bought in two batches, the cookbooks earlier in March and the rest yesterday.

I went into MPH to look for Tim Ferris’s 4 Hour Week but found Unclutter Your Life instead, which I was looking for last year. Sometimes I buy books written by bloggers I follow even if I suspect I already know half of what they’re gonna say.

Ape House is by the author of Water for Elephants. Never did get that book but I loved the audiobook.

Exodus sounds like something I started writing last year.

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Books – March 2011

Given that I’ve been cleaning out my library and selling my books, I’m rather horrified at how huge this pile is. I picked up at half of them for cheap and more than half of them in KL. They’re not the same halves.

Have to say I was tempted by ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’, especially since it grabs you from the first page, but I’ll wait for the paperback.

I’ve read most of the books in this pile except ‘Committed’ and ‘Heaven’s Net’. Elizabeth Gilbert is next on my list, and Lian Hern’s gonna have to wait till I have time and stamina to read the whole Otori series. ‘Heaven’s Net’ is the prequel to the trilogy. Currently reading ‘The Maid’, a random find at Times today. I have a currect infatuation on Japanese authors after reading Natsuo Kirino’s ‘Out’, and ‘The Maid’ is proving to be very interesting.

Sorting out books to be sold was a lot easier than I thought. Fellow book lovers and I used to joke about how we can’t find anything to donate to charity out of a collection of 300+ books (some of us have tried). It was easy for me now because a lot of the books and authors that I used to love have found themselves in a graveyard in my memory. I don’t read the author any more. I’m not interested in the genre any more. Good times were had and will be fondly remembered, but it’s time to move on.

Still loving books but will be more selective in buying them.

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Books – Jan-Feb 2011

Left Pile:
Richard Adams – Maia
Martin Hocke – The Lost Domain
Tad Williams – Tailchaser’s Song
Brian Jacques – Triss
Brian Jacques – Mariel of Redwall
Brian Jacques – The Outcast of Redwall
Brian Jacques – Taggerung
Brian Jacques – Mattimeo

Centre:
Orson Scott Card – Past Watch
Barbara Ann Porte – Hearsay: Strange Tales from the Middle Kingdom

Right Pile:
Rachel Ward – Numbers
Rachel Ward – Numbers 2
Keith R Lindsay – In The End
Vikas Swarup – Six Suspects
Tabitha King & Michael McDowell – Candles Burning
Dean Koontz – The Taking
Dean Koontz – Odd Thomas
Margaret Atwood – The Handmaiden’s Tale
David Hewson – A Season for the Dead

Ya, really.

Everything except the two Numbers books and Six Suspects came from the Crown Square Book Fair earlier this month. The damage is a little over RM200. I’m officially not buying any more books for the rest of this month and at least for the next three months… unless the third Hunger Games book gets here this year.

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Books – August 2010