#BookADayUK 27 and 28: Want to Be One of the Characters and Bought at My Fave Independent Bookshop

I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter. I've been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and felt at home. I know I'm not a Muggle. Enough said.

My fave independent bookshop is in Bangkok, Thailand, and it's called Dasa Book Cafe. I've been to tons of indie bookshops in the US, and I've really fallen in love with them, but Dasa still remains my fave. This may be because it's the first indie shop I've ever been to, and because I've bought more books there than anywhere else (Kinokuniya is a chain, so it doesn't count). And because every time I walk in I smell coffee and old books, and I know the people who work there, and they know me, and there's always something to talk about. Over the years, Dasa and I have built such a strong sense of friendship (if I may call it that) and familiarity that no other bookstores can hope to be comparable to. 

And I was just there yesterday! I didn't intend to get anything, but like always, I ended up with something.

Recently I've been listening to Wallace's speeches, and found he's a well-informed, smart, interesting person. My teacher's been sending me his essays to get my feet wet, which I haven't read. Wallace's Infinite Jest has always intimidated me. I don't know if I'm intellectually ready to take on this giant of over one thousand pages, but I'm definitely eager to. And now I have a copy at home to remind me to keep climbing up the literary ladder. 

#BookADayUK 25: Never Finished It

Hey, hey!

I was just thinking about bailing today and going straight to bed (without even showering) because I feel so tired, but then I heard a voice in my head saying: procrastinator. Now wait a minute. I am so procrastinating, and I need to stop it already, otherwise it's gonna be all I'll ever do. So here I am. Fighting my inner laziness. Keeping up with #BookADayUK.

It's actually funny to think about how a lazy person that I am rarely ever not finishes a book. I always try to finish whatever book I start, no matter how bad it is, just so I'll at least know it's really bad and I didn't miss out on anything because there's really nothing amazing waiting to happen in the book. So when I looked at today's topic, "never finished it," I had to consult my Goodreads what book I have started but never finished. Goodreads wasn't so useful, because those I listed as DNF (did-not-finish) are books that I never should've started and never wanted to read in the first place. So I racked my brain for a book I actually wanted to read, started reading, and just never felt invested in it enough to want to go on. I couldn't think of any. (That's why I wanted to bail and just go to bed.) But then I went to my reading room slash library, and looked through all the shelves, and found one book I haven't thought about at all in 8 years ever since I've bought it.

I started Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada after I saw the movie in 2006, and left it before I had a Goodreads account, and that's why it's just marked as "to-read." That means I was hoping to finish it one day. And that also means when I added it to the shelf I didn't even remember that I'd started it. And if I had to go through the book finding where I'd left off, I wouldn't even know. All I know about the story comes from the movie. Yup, that's "never finished it" for you. Though "never had it cross my mind" sounds more like it. Sorry, Devil, I was too young for chick lit at the time. And now I'm not interested in chick lit at all. Maybe someday.

#BookADayUK 24: Hooked Me into Reading

Hiiiiiiiiiiii, it's B again.

In an attempt to keep the blog alive, I'm here again to continue the #BookADayUK posts. Today's topic is: hooked me into reading. As soon as I saw that, I had only one book in mind--or one book series, to be precise. 

I wasn't much of a reader when I was younger. I read only in small chunks, or read really thin books about nothing in particular. I remember I loved reading trivia, because things are listed out and you can leave it whenever and pick it up again whenever. And whatever reading I did when I was younger was all in Thai. I grew up in a country with its own national language, and my English proficiency was very limited. In kindergarten I learned to sing the ABC song. In 6th grade I still couldn't quite grasp how the three basic tenses worked, let alone all the 12. And with the language barrier taken into account, I didn't have enough knowledge and confidence to start reading books written in English until I was in secondary school. Grade 8 was the critical time when a lot of things began in my life and affected me in positive ways and have stuck with me until now, shaping who I would later become. Like how my devotion to German football motivated me to study German. Like how the first book that I read that was written in the English language was Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries, and I had to wait a year for the next books to come out, and by the time I finished the 10th, I realized I was already a reader. When I knew the next book was coming out, I had to reread the whole series from the first book up to the latest one to refresh my memory. If my memory serves me right, I've read the first three books 4 times, book 4 and 5 and 6 three times, book 7 and 8 and 9 twice, and the 10th just once. Yep, it was this series that hooked me into reading.

This is actually a funny pile to look at. First of all, I forgot that V is before VI. Second of all, notice how only two books match? That's because like every two year Macmillan and Harper Collins reprinted the series in new editions. That's why I don't have the latest edition; I completed my collection before the new one came out. Lastly, I love tiaras. I couldn't resist.

#BookADayUK 23: Made to Read at School

Hi guys! B is back!

After three months away from home, I can tell you what I miss the most is reading, and I'm finally trying to get back in the game. Throughout my time in the States, I went to many, many amazing bookstores, and I hope to find the time (and effort) to share what I've experienced. But that's for later.

Yesterday I stumbled upon something called #BookADayUK on Prettybooks. It looks like a fun thing to do, so I'm joining right now, even though I've missed the first 22 days. Ha!

So, a book I was made to read at school? My high school reading list wasn't all that interesting. Things started to get real when I became an English major at Chula's Faculty of Arts, where we have to read an average of 5 books for one literature course. One of the best classes I've had here is Mythological and Biblical Background to English Literature, which we call "Mytho" for short. For this class, we studied the whole Edith Hamilton book (yes, that one). I actually had to memorize everything for midterms and finals. EVERYTHING. Stories, date, characters, family trees, places, and you know how crazy Greek names are, right? Reading one book had never been that exhausting... until this course. It's super useful, though. Now I don't have to draw a blank every time an allusion to classical mythology shows up in serious literature, and it tends to appear here and there very often.  And I can now pretend to be smart by alluding to Greek myths. Fun. No, seriously, it's really useful.

Some of my friends couldn't hate it more, but I actually enjoyed it. I haven't read other books on mythology, so I cannot really say if this one is the best one out there. But judging from what I've read, this book is really comprehensive already, and it's not even that thick! Hamilton sure does have a gift for retelling stories.