Friday Fill-Ins

1. You know you're old when your memory starts to go downhill.

2. My heart is divided between my family and my work.

3. A cup of steaming green tea is what I need RIGHT NOW!

4. I have felt the loss, I have known the depths of pain when a family member passed away two years ago.

5. Gah, won't these people read rather than wasting their time on some other meaningless stuff?

6. Please leave me a comment as soon as you can!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to reading Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer, tomorrow my plans include meeting out with my friends and Sunday, I want to spend some time with my family!

Book Giveaway Winner

I would like to thank everyone who participated in my book giveaway under my Weekly Geeks post last week. It is a great joy to me to host every book giveaway because I just love the feeling of sharing books with fellow book lovers.

Random.org has helped me to draw a winner and a copy of Taken by Barbara Freethy goes to Shana of Literarily.

Congratulations, Shana!

Please email me your snail mail address so I can send the book to you as soon as possible.

Latest Acquisitions

I took an afternoon off from work yesterday (as I mentioned some time ago that I need to clear some of my annual leave), but since I did not have the intention of going home, I visited the bookstore instead. Below is my latest acquisitions:

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer;

Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs;

Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown;

and finally...

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

I was glad I reserved my copy of Breaking Dawn in advance because when I browsed through the shelves, I could not find a single copy of it! (Although I did see a stack of reserved copies behind the payment counter.)

From what I read from some of the reviews circulating around the blogosphere, I noticed there are a mixture of both positive and negative reviews (I avoid those with spoilers though). I cannot wait to read this book, but since I have not read the previous installment, Eclipse, yet, it looks like I have to forgo my plan to read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro next and devour this instead.

Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My teaser is from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (page 32).

"...Do you know, there are two odious young men who have been staring at me this half hour. They really put me quite out of countenance..."

All About Sharing

I found two book giveaways which I though I would share and might interest you. I know most of you are huge Neil Gaiman fan (and this including yours truly), thus I am excited when I read about this great giveaway hosted by Fashionista Piranha. If you are looking forward to reading his newest book, The Graveyard Book, this is your chance to win an ARC copy (as well as other goodies). (Click here for more details.)

I have also read a lot of great reviews on The Gargoyle written by Andrew Davidson, so I am definitely looking out for this one (even though if I do not get to win)! Ruth from Bookish Ruth will be giving away one paperback ARC of this title (click here for more details); and on top of that she is also giving away Kaimira: The Sky Village by Monk and Nigel Ashland (click here for more details).

Onto an unrelated note, has anyone read Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer? This is the final installment of her Twilight series. Based on some reviews I read from blogs and on online bookstores, readers who had read it either love it or hate it. If you ask me, I can tell you that I have not read the previous installment Eclipse yet! But I am definitely getting this copy today.

Finally, I would like to thank Alice and Julia for passing this Bunch of Tulips Award to me. Both of them are good friends of mine and I really treasure our friendship despite the fact that we have not met one another. And this, I think is the wonderful part of blogosphere, because you do not need to travel to know new friends. To spread the love of friendship, I would like to pass this award to all my book blog friends (you know who you are!). Thank you for your wonderful book recommendations, and for reading and leaving comments on my blog. You know I really appreciate them!

Thank you, everyone!

Musing Mondays #3: Why Join Reading Challenges?

MizB wrote: Again, my good Book-a-Week group friend, SuLu, has asked a question that sparked some blogging fodder! She wanted to know WHY people join in on reading challenges… what’s so appealing about them?

First, I enjoy the excitement and fun of joining a reading challenge! It is always a pleasure to find out what other participants are reading and reading their reviews. Most of the times, I get my book recommendations from them. Moreover, I have this 'bad' habit of buying more books and having them stacked in my TBR pile, and I need some motivation to read them. That is where these reading challenges comes in! They help in clearing the TBR pile (even though not in such a big way since I will be adding new ones anyway) but at least they will clear some of the older books which I have neglected in the past. And finally, getting to know more book blog friends!

Weekly Geeks #13

This week’s theme is a sort of meme. The basic challenge is to post author photos.

Using the meme-like list below, post photos of authors in response. Please feel free to skip any you don’t like. You’re also free (encouraged!) to add your own, but if you do that, please be sure to indicate which are yours, so that people can credit you if they use yours.

But don’t put words/names with your photos. Ask your readers to guess your answers! If you have a book to give away, you may want to offer a prize, maybe draw a name from those readers who guess correctly.

# # #

1. Photos of your favorite author(s).

2. Photo(s) of the author(s) of the book(s) you’re currently reading.

3. A youtube of (an) author(s) you’ve heard speak. (I attached the picture since I couldn't have it linked.)

4. A photo of the author of the book you’ve most recently finished.

5. Photos of the hottest author(s)!

Bonus Question:
List any title written by this author. (Hint: She writes historical fictions. One of her works was shown on the big screen this year.)

Note: You will stand a chance to win a copy of Taken by Barbara Freethy if you can answer this bonus question correctly. Please send your reply to melreadingcorner (AT) gmail (DOT) com; deadline is Thursday, 7 August (GMT +8.00) and the winner will be announced on the following day.

Good luck!