In My Life
Christmas
At Gardens by the Bay
’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.
Food
Being back home from my week-long holiday also means I got back into the kitchen. I baked gingerbread cookies and popped corn on the stove for the first time this week. Mixing caramel into the popcorn was a bit tricky but I managed and it tasted so much better than the ones sold at movie theatres.
Book Haul
My last book haul of the year arrived! I’m not expecting any more books in the coming week, so this is it — the books that round up 2015.
The three fiction books came in for review. I’m particularly stoked about These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly because it’s a signed copy! After listening to and enjoying the audiobook of Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, I very badly wanted to read These Shallow Graves soonest, which I will. I also received Counting Stars by Keris Stainton and The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood.
The recipe books I ordered from Book Depository also arrived. I almost bought Step-by-step Desserts at the Frankfurt Book Fair but didn’t due to airline weight limit concerns. I figured paying the extra 25% would be cheaper than potentially incurring overweight charges at the airport. While I was at it, I also ordered Mediterranean Cookbook and Bread by Eric Treuille & Ursula Ferrigno.
On the Blog
Book Review
Keeping up with the season, I posted my review of The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder. I’m so glad I made it my Advent calendar this year and read it.
Blog Posts
Georgie and I announced Bookish Scene: Project 52. This is a book photography challenge that we’re hosting in 2016. It’s open to anyone with a platform to share their photos, such as blogs, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. If this is something you would like to participate in, do sign up!
On the discussion front, I talked about comparing different books written by the same author. I’ve come across more and more people who’ve mentioned that they couldn’t keep comparing main characters across such books and how this has been impacting their enjoyment while reading.
Very few books were released last week. It’s the end of year lull, so that’s expected. The Mise-en-scène theme is.
Around the Blogosphere
It was a dark and stormy week during which not many bloggers deigned to venture into discussions. Most of us cozied up at home to keep warm or stepped out of the house to celebrate Christmas. Naturally, the blogosphere was a little quieter the past week.
Books
- Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense yearns for better book trailers that do their books justice.
Ebooks
- Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books blogged about her e-reader experience.
Book Covers
- Cee @ The Novel Hermit showcased book covers of the vast starlit night sky.
Readers’ Lives
- Beck @ Pretty Deadly Reviews shared how she uses Goodreads. She added a hack on how to use groups to track personal reading challenges. I might just try it out myself.
- Alexia @ Pretty Deadly Reviews talked about battling being a mood reader alongside the love of schedules.
- Fiona @ A Girl Between the Pages listed some bookworm dilemmas you surely can relate to.
Hype
- Kit Cat reminded us to respect readers’ opinions of books, especially when they oppose the hype.
Blogging
- Amanda @ Nellie and Co. suggests 5 areas to revamp your blog in for the new year.
- Tonyalee @ Lilybloombooks doubts the benefits of blog tours.
- Paul @ The Galaxial World reflected on how blogging has changed him.
- Ashley @ Nose Graze explained how to feature one post on your WordPress homepage.
Reviewing
- Lisa @ Lost in Literature considers if her ratings are too generous.
- Michelle @ The Writing Hufflepuff wondered if a 5-star read equals to a favourite. I count some 4-star books to my favourites but don’t count many more 5-star books, so that’s a no from me.
Miscellaneous
- Amber @ The Mile Long Bookshelf asked, can yo live without your phone?
