I made a renewed attempt at a TBR (to be read) jar. You can see it in the photo above. Let me tell you, it was a feat stuffing all those folded sheets of paper into the jar. Jumbling them up is a futile exercise. Looks like I need to make a TBR box instead because I’ve only added the fiction titles I own. I still want to add the non-fiction titles and library ebooks I’ve bookmarked. They’re available 24/7, so totally made for TBR jars, unlike physical library books which would require me to actually make a trip to the library to borrow a title I pull from the jar. Not ideal TBR jar material.

Beginning of the week Jon @ Bookish Antics wrote an exposé, BEWARE: Catfished By A Fake Penguin Employee. Publishers Weekly later picked up on the story. Corinne Rosanna Catlin (who also goes by her author name Corinne Catlin) contacted several bloggers claiming to be a publicity assistant from Penguin Random House. Turns out it was an elaborate ploy to get her own book into the hands of reviewers.

Long weekends are always great to relax and hang out with friends, which is exactly what I did to usher in the new year. We had dinner around town, after which we just checked out the happenings around the Singapore River. Every night this month there’re free open air performances organised by the Esplanade, so we listened in on one of the local bands.

’Twas a merry, merry Christmas. While my family isn’t surrounded by relatives living nearby, we enjoyed the festivities anyway. Besides, it’s neat having a stress-free holiday too since we don’t ever have to get up in crazy masses shopping for presents. We did brave the crowds on Sunday though to see the Christmas decorations at Gardens by the Bay. As I already tweeted, basically, that is how I imagine Luna to look like in The Lunar Chonicles. Just that now it’s the Winter Wonderland season with little huts set up for a Christmas market and a stage for performances and loads of extra lights.

I got to spend a week on vacation in Penang, Malaysia. It was a “do nothing” sort of holiday with my parents. We didn’t do much travelling around, opting to simply enjoy having no commitments. While there was very heavy rain on some days, we still had some sunny days, perfect for the beach.