Book Thongs & the Weekend

Monday, I received the Book Thongs that I won at BookSnob's blog. They are gorgeous. As promised, here is a picture of all three beautiful book thongs:

On Sunday, I went to Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center to donate blood. This was my second donation. My first donation was on January 19 this year (parents' anniversary). Both donations were eventful. First time I donated blood, I fainted twice afterwards. I think that was because I had fasted the day before. After the donation, I did not drink lots of fluids as instructed by the nurses. On June 27th, I was better prepared (learned from my past mistakes). I had a good breakfast and drank plenty of fluids all day so I did not faint. It was the donation process that was eventful.

First, the nurse could not find my veins. The whole process was slower for me because my veins are small. On top of that, the needle stopped withdrawing blood after 5 minutes into the process. The nurse did not want to mess with the needle as it was barely in my arm. Another nurse came by and she tried messing with it, but she also did not want to touch the needle. Then they called another nurse over. I think he was more experienced. He checked to tube to make sure it was not clogged. Then he checked the needle (that was painful). He pushed it a little bit more, and the needle started pumping blood again. Another five to ten minutes and I was done. I have a real nasty bruise now, but it will go away in few days.

They withdrew about a unit (about one pint) of blood. I got a cool T-shirt and 600 points for their online store. I can donate again in August, and I am going back for sure.

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I leave you with today's "10 Sec Read: Kings" on Paulo Coelho's Blog:

The Kingdom of This World

An old hermit was once invited to visit the court of the most powerful king of the day.

“I envy a holy man, who is content with so little,” commented the sovereign.

“I envy Your Majesty, who is content with less than I. I have the music of the celestial spheres, I have the rivers and mountains of the whole wide world, I have the moon and the sun, because I have God in my soul. Your Majesty, however, has only this kingdom.”

The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg

This is one of those books where I want to jump up and down and say, "Read it." It was cutely good. The novel is about a 40th high school reunion. There are five main characters: Dorothy Shauman Ledbetter, Pete Decker, Mary Alice Mayhew, Candy Armstrong, and Lester Heseenpfeffer. There are other characters but the story mainly revolves around these characters.

The novel starts with each character discussing the reunion and the reason they are going. It is cute how some characters start acting like teenagers and decide to go to the reunion to "hook up with an old flame." The book then shifts toward the reunion, which starts with the arrival at the venue. The last part of the novel is about characters' lives after the reunion.

The story was cute. The reunion served as a self-awareness retreat for the characters. The characters are portrayed a certain way and the readers can see the development in the characters as the story progresses. I felt that at the end of the novel, the stories of the characters are also wrapped up nicely. I liked the ending. Overall, I enjoyed the entire novel and looked forward to listening to it every time I got in my car.

Secondly, the overall theme of a 40th reunion was an interesting topic. I graduated high school 5 years ago and a 10-year reunion sounds exciting to me. Imagine going back for 40th reunion. Nowadays, it is easier to keep in touch with friends through social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, etc.

Lastly, the book was read by the author. I am a fan of audio books that are read by the author. It gives the authors an opportunity to present the characters exactly how they imagined them. Same goes for Elizabeth Berg. I think she did an excellent job with the audio book, and I really enjoyed listening to it. Just from listening to Berg, I could make out that in the novel, Mary is the calm one, Peter is the impulsive one, Candy is lonely, Lester is satisfied with his life but he is missing something, and Dorothy is like a child.

I highly recommend this book and give it 9.5 out of 10.

This book qualifies for the Audio Book Challenge.

I Won!!!

Booksnob was hosting a Follower Contest and I won!!! I won three Book Thongs.

In celebration of topping 25 followers this week I am having a contest. I am giving away Three BOOK THONGS. Each one will be hand made by me and my children. The winner gets all three unique designs. My kids are super excited about the contest and making the Book Thongs. Good Luck everyone and thanks for being a follower!

I am excited and can't wait to receive them. Whenever I get them, I will post pictures of them.

Thanks Booksnob!

My Second Book Blogger Hop

 

Every Friday Jennifer of Crazy-For-Books hosts The Book Blogger Hop. The Hop is a great way to meet new bloggers and introduce your blog to others. This is my second time entering the hop. Last time I came across many interesting blogs (listed here).

 

For more details, please see Jennifer's post.

 

Reading update:

 

I am currently taking a short break from books. Before the break, I had just started Half Life by Roopa Farooki. As for audio books, I am really missing listening to Audio books. My brother carpools with me to his internship and we listen to the radio. If anyone knows of a good audio book that would interest a teen boy, please leave it in the comments. I don't have a preference, and I am open to listening to any book. Maybe I should just accept the fact that I won't be listening to audio books until August and deal with it, instead of forcing him to listen to audio books :)

 

Happy Blog Hopping!!!

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Update:



I came across some interesting blogs:

• Books by their Story by Diana 
• Book Snob
• Read it, See it by Megan
• Life With Karma by Amy
• Chick Loves Lit by Shanyn
• Always With a Book by Kristin
• Bookend Diaries by Kelly
• Primo Reads by Janna

Super Mario: BP Oil Spill Edition

No description needed :-)

More Books

My parents returned from India on June 5th. Guess what I got? I got books. I had asked them to bring all the books by Chetan Bhagat. So far, he has written four books:

• Five Point Someone (Movie: 3 Idiots)
• One Night @ The Call Center (Movie: Hello)
• The 3 Mistakes of My Life
• 2 States

I am super excited about reading these books. I have yet to watch Hello and 3 Idiots and I think I will read the books first and then watch the movies. These books will go on my TBR list because I have couple of books that I would like to read first.

I am currently reading Half Life by Roopa Farooki and Last Time I Saw You (Audio CD) by Elizabeth Berg. Next to read is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender only because it is on hold at the library. I won't be listening to any audio books for a while since my brother and I carpool to work. After this, I will read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This book has been on my nightstand for such a long time. This is one of those books that I would like to read without any breaks, and lately I have been taking many breaks while reading a book. For now these books will do. I have other books that I would like to read soon. I want to read Sophie Kinsella's other books, Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, and Vish Puri Mysteries by Tarquin Hall. There are just too many books and too little time.

Last time I went to Barnes and Nobles, I saw this really cool bookmark called "50 books to read before you die." I think I will get it next time I go there.

While searching for this bookmark, I came across a really cool blog named Bookmark Kingdom, a blog managed by Vaida. She collects bookmarks from all over the world. I have not had a chance to view them all. I really thought this bookmark was cute. I tried putting the picture on here, but it is too big.

Time to go...I will be back!

As It was Written by Sujatha Hampton

This book has been on my "Reading Now" shelf since February of this year. Due to hectic study schedule, I read about a page a day. After I finished the book, I could not decide what to think about this book. Before I write anything else, here is a short synopsis from B&N:

The epic journey of an Indian-American family which unfolds when men and women, Hindus and Catholics, histories and curses, collide.

 In McLean, Virginia, Dr. Raman Nair lives a life of abounding satisfaction with his tiny wife, Jaya, and his harem of enormous and beautiful daughters. He has been away from his native Kerala, India for so long that he has happily forgotten the ancient Brahmin curse that follows his family like a black cloud, killing one girl for love in every generation. But his wife hasn’t forgotten, nor has his baby sister, Gita. Suddenly his daughters are up to no good and Dr. Raman Nair doesn’t know which way to turn.
 
Initial attraction to book was due to the cover. I am a sucker for books with cover that had something related to India. Then I read the short synopsis on the inside of the front cover, which made me want to read this book even more.
 
I was very disappointed with the book. I felt the story had so much potential. The story of five sisters and Gita was too much to handle at one time. The story is mainly about two of the five sisters, Veena and Dhanya, Gita, and Omanakumari. Veena and Gita's portions were okay but every time Dhanya's story was mentioned, I cringed. I wanted to skip those portions. However, the way the whole book was formatted, I had to read it. The stories jumped around too much. I felt there was no organization to the book, which made it confusing. The only part that was somewhat organized was when Omanakumari's story was mentioned, but even that became confusing at times. There were bits that I enjoyed, which is why I finished the book. I don't even want to talk about the ending. I think Sujatha Hampton was inspired by M. Night Shyamalan when writing this book. Hopefully everyone gets this reference. I was expecting so much more from this book.
 
I give this book 6 out of 10.
 
So overall, I would not recommend this book; however, if you have spare time, you can pick up this book. It is an easy read. I would not say that I wasted my time reading this book, but I could have read something better. I think this is one of those books, where a week is enough. More than a week is waste of time. This is Sujatha's first book. I would give her another chance and read any books she writes in the future.

The Graveyard Book Movie

Awesome news for all Gaiman fans: The Graveyard Book is going to be a movie. There was a rumor that the project was dead. Neil Gaiman posted this article on his Facebook page last week. Here is a piece of the article related to the book:

The Graveyard Book is being adapted as a live-action feature to be written and directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The Brave One, Ondine). The story is Gaiman's nod to The Jungle Book where a young boy is raised by the ghostly, ghoulish occupants of a graveyard, instead of animals. It sounds like the project is moving forward the exact same as it was earlier this year. Wayfare Entertaiment, Framestore (the visual effects company) and Gaiman will also produce, and CJ will co-finance the film and distribute in Korea and Japan. "The projects we are developing together meet our shared goal of producing movies for the global audience," Columbus said. "We see this as just the beginning of many terrific movies together." I hope so!

I am too excited and cannot wait for this movie.

 

I finished As It was Written by Sujatha Hampton today in lunch time and will review it soon. I also started The Last Time I Saw You (Audio Book) by Elizabeth Berg this morning.

    

Now back to work, something I get paid to do.