Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S.

Now, you may have noticed that the global economy isn’t exactly doing well. There’s war. Starvation. All sorts of bad, scary things going on.

So–just for today–how about sharing 7 things that you’re thankful for?

This can be about books, sure–authors you appreciate, books you love, an ode to your public library–but also, how about other things, too? Because in times like these, with bills piling up and disaster seemingly lurking around every corner, it’s more important than ever to stop and take stock of the things we’re grateful for. Family. Friends. Good health (I hope). Coffee and tea. Turkey. Sunshine. Wagging tails. Curling up with a good book.

So, how about it? Spread a little positive thinking and tell the world what there is to be thankful for.

First of all, I want to wish all my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving!

Generally, I am thankful for everything I am and I have! I am happy and grateful of my family and friends (especially Jennifer T., whom I feel we are more like sisters than best friends and despite of the long distance!) who are always there for me whenever I need them. I am thankful that I have a job and that my superior is understanding and treats me as an equal.

Before I end this post, I am also thankful to my bookblogging friends for their friendship and their never-ending book recommendations (although my wallet is complaining!), and then of course to all the writers out there, without them we will not have any good books to read!

Despite her wedding plans and all, she went ahead for the interview thinking this is a chance of a great story she would not missed. She met a fellow young American lady by the name of Clementine "Clemmie" Spence when she stopped over in Bucharest. Along the way, Clemmie told her she is affiliated with an organization called World Ministries Central and their work included a few exorcisms; she also told her terrifying tales about her work in Africa as they shared a rental car to Transylvania. Evangeline does not really trust Clemmie and thinks she has something to hide. Before leaving, Clemmie left a necklace with a tiny metal cross in an envelope to Evangeline but the latter thinks nothing about it and move on. She finally gets to meet the infamous Torgu and he drives her to his spooky hotel where they would negotiate about the interview and his appearance on screen.

• 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 sentences for today [Fangland by John Marks (Pg 30)]:



High atop the wagon, on a bed of aromatic hay, rode a coffin roughly the shade of Clemmie's oxford cloth shirt and about half the size of an adult human being. This was the funeral procession of a child.

I remember those moments when I walked into the bookstores and found many young children queuing to get their copies of the Harry Potter books. I was not a HP fan then, but my initial thought was it is a good thing that these children have not given up reading (given with today's electronic games and all) and that this series must be really good to generate such crazes. It was only through curiosity that I watched the first movie and thought it was interesting. Being a booklover, I always think that books are a better source of storytelling and are more descriptive so I began to seek out this series from then onwards. It was also through this series that started my passion for children/young adult books.

As for the Twilight Saga, I started reading this series before all the hypes. I have yet to watch this movie but I am definitely looking forward to watching it soon. So what do I think about these reading phenomenons? Naturally books which are most read and bestselling often make it to the big screen, which in turn may inspire some non-readers to read the books. And I think it is always a good thing to spark anyone's interest in reading.

How to:
1. Using the Weekly Geeks category here in my blog, find 5 Weekly Geeks you don’t know. The easiest way is probably to look at the Mr Linkies in my weekly Saturday posts.
2. Visit each of your 5 new blogpals and snoop around their blogs to find at least one thing you have in common.
3. In your blog, write a post, linking to your 5 new blogpals, about what you have in common with them.
4. Come back and sign Mr Linky.
5. As you run across other Weekly Geek posts (or deliberately seek them out) if you see anyone mentioned who has something in common with you, pay them a visit.

Hope Jensen is a young, single woman and an aspiring newspaper writer, and when she receives a much-needed but anonymous Christmas gift, she's determined to find her benefactor. That search leads her to an unusual family with a longstanding Christmas tradition. Sensing a front-page feature article, Hope desperately wants to publish their story, but doing so would be a breach of trust. What she decides to do will change her life forever.

Destined to become a classic Christmas tale, Christmas Jars is a heartwarming story that will restore your faith in mankind and make you want to start your own Christmas Jar tradition.

Louise Jensen is expecting a quiet and peaceful Christmas Eve, just like it had been for her for the previous years. However, something, or someone unusual expecting for her when she dines alone at Chuck's Chicken 'n' Biscuits, the usual place where she always spent her Christmas Eve dinner. Seeing the abandoned baby behind her booth and knowing this was no random moment, Louise reaches out to her and decides to bring her home, naming her Hope.

Hope Jensen turns out to be a cheerful and bright little girl; she has big dreams of being a newspaper writer and aimed to be the next great American journalist besides Bernstein, Woodward and Graham. Through patience and hard work, she works her way up slowly. Just when things seem bright and hopeful for her, Louise told her she has cancer. But this news does not discourage them any further as they continue to be positive and supportive of each other. Unfortunately, Louise lose the battle in the end.

Though the story a little short in my opinion, the message behind this story is both heartwarming and a powerful one. The Christmas Jar tradition really interests me and I might want to start one myself one day. This is a true Christmas classic which I will find myself reading again and again during the festive seasons.

Suggested by JM:

I receive a lot of review books, but I have never once told lies about the book just because I got a free copy of it. However, some authors seem to feel that if they send you a copy of their book for free, you should give it a positive review.

Do you think reviewers are obligated to put up a good review of a book, even if they don’t like it? Have we come to a point where reviewers *need* to put up disclaimers to (hopefully) save themselves from being harassed by unhappy authors who get negative reviews?

I do not think a reviewer is obligated to put up a good review of a book if he/she does not like it, no matter if it is a free copy or not. If the reviewers are always giving good reviews, then what is the point of writing reviews in the first place? A good reviewer writes in a constructive manner, but this does not mean he/she is slamming the author in a negative way. Reading is a subjective matter and anyway, readers are entitled to their own opinions.

At this point, I do not feel a need to put up a disclaimer since I always try to make an effort to write reviews in a constructive manner. Most of the times, I will ask the authors to send me a synopsis of their books (or I visit their websites to check on them, if any) so that I can make a decision whether or not if I want to review them.

"Love is a form of biological cooperation in which the emotions of each are necessary to the fulfillment of the other's instinctive purposes." ~ Bertrand Russell (Quoted from The Society of S - pg 104)

She often wonders about her mother and though she has lots of questions in her mind, her father either gives vague replies or only indulge little information whenever she asked him about her mother. She only knows her mother has gone missing after giving birth to her. Aside from this, she also has questions about her father's project in his laboratory and then, about her identity since she knew her father is a vampire.

Sensing her loneliness and feeling she is in need of friends, Mrs McG finally convinced Ariella's father to let Ariella come home with her to meet her family. This acquaintance opens a whole new world to Ariella as Kathleen introduced her to things she has not experienced. They soon became fast friends.

Alas, these happy moments do not last for long when murder took her friend away. Feeling loss and with a dozen questions in her mind, Ariella decides to leave home to search for her mother. And so this begins her journey she will not forget as she will soon learn about the secret of her family history and the answer on her real identity.

While reading The Society of S, I was most fascinated by the gothic premise and how it breaks away from the stereotypes. Susan Hubbard has a unique voice and I really enjoyed that anticipation feeling as the story slowly unfolds and the mystery about her mother finally reveals in the last part of the story.

I was most intrigued by Ariella's parents due to their secret past; and Ariella is a likeable character whom I find her intelligent and very independent for her age. She impressed me with her vast knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe's poetries and I enjoyed reading those scenes where she recited them with her father during the lessons.

I am definitely looking forward to reading the sequel, The Year of Disappearances, where this intriguing tale shall continue.

Other blog review:
Bookgirl's Nightstand
(Let me know if I have missed your review.)

• 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 sentences for today [Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright (Pg 7)]:

On her last day of kindergarten, Hope Jensen announced, walking hand in hand with her mother, that she had finally made a decision about her career. "One day I will grow up to become either president of the United States or a famous newspaper reporter."

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is a short meme:

• WHAT ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?
• WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING, and WHAT DID YOU THINK OF IT?
• WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL READ NEXT?
• WILL YOU READ ANY HOLIDAY-THEMED BOOKS SOON?

I have just finished reading The Society of S by Susan Hubbard a while ago before writing this post. It is a coming-of-age story of a young girl in search of her missing mother. It is also a vampire story, but yet this is different from the others I read because of the writing style, the gothic feel and there are lots of intrigue and guessing in this story. I will try to post my review on it soon.

For my next reading, I choose Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright since it has been sitting on my pile for some time, and moreover I am currently in a mood for holiday-themed books.

What about you?

ISBN-13: 9780670916382
Publisher: Fig Tree (Penguin Books)
Published: 2007
310 pgs


There is a field - a broad south-sloping field sitting astride a long hill that curves away into a secret leafy valley. It is sheltered by dense hedges of hawthorn and hazel threaded through with wild roses and evening-scented honeysuckle. In the mornings, a light breeze carries up over the Downs, just enough to kiss the air with the fresh salty tang of the English Channel. In fact so delightful is the air that, sitting up here, you might think you were in paradise. And in the field are two caravans, a men's caravan and a women's caravan. ~ An excerpt from Two Caravans


This is a story about a little group of migrant workers and their journey across England in pursuing for a better future. It does not matter that they came from various countries - Ukraine, Poland, China and Malaysia as all of them share the same dream though for different reasons.

Irina, a young Ukrainian girl wants to learn English and find her true love with an Englishman because she finds them romantic. Andriy, another Ukrainian and a miner's son does not want to follow his late father's footstep of being a coalminer. And then, there is Tomasz and Yola from Poland, and Marta who is Yola's niece. Emanuel, an eighteen-year-old boy from Malawi who come to England to look for his sister, and two Chinese girls from China and Malaysia. And then, there is Vitaly from Moldova.

They live in tiny and cramped caravans and feed very little for their meals and worst of all, they are underpaid. Mr Leapish, the field owner is a calculative man and he does not care about their welfare as long as he pays his bills and makes profits. Life goes on as usual until the farmer's wife found out that the husband has an affair with one of the workers and runs him down in her red sports car. Sensing their bleak future and to escape from this disastrous episode, the workers left the field to find other ways to support themselves.

Two of them are lured into the sex industry, while the others find their employment in another strawberry field, a poultry farm and kitchen helpers in a restaurant. They find themselves in woe as the jobs they end up with are either too horrific or unbearable. There are also some descriptive scenes of how chickens are being breed and are badly mauled into the cages before meeting their ends under the butchers' knives that made me shudder.

But not everything is bleak in this story as the two workers from Ukraine find their way out and ends up falling in love with each other. Two Caravans (aka Strawberry Fields) is not entirely a depressing story about the migrant workers' life in other country, but also a gritty and thought-provoking one that brims with comedy. Marina Lewycka has written this novel in a hilarious way that will make you chuckle but yet it tells the true factual life of some migrant workers that they are still facing today. I would also say this is more of a character-driven story than a plot-driven story. I really enjoyed this novel and I am looking forward to reading her other novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian in the near future.

Interview with Marina Lewycka (Loaded Questions with Kelly Hewitt)

1. Please feel free to leave me a comment.

2. When I have flu I can't help sniffing it occasionally.

3. My favorite thing to cook is spaghetti with meat balls.

4. Books is something I can't get enough of.

5. That's the thing I love most about my family - they are always a joy to my life.

6. War and riots always makes me think to myself, what the heck?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family, tomorrow my plans include visiting my brother-in-law's family for their baby shower and Sunday, I want to rest and relax and hopefully catch up on my reading!

I’ve asked, in the past, about whether you more often buy your books, or get them from libraries. What I want to know today, is, WHY BUY?

Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So … why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?

If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?

When I was a child, most of the books I read were either borrowed from the libraries or loaned from friends. Although I love the idea of owning the books to myself, I did not ask my parents for extra money to buy the books because I understand they had worked hard and that money does not come easily; and moreover what is the point of libraries if you do not make full use of them?

It was only during my teenaged years that I began to buy books with my own pocket money. Although these books can be easily get from libraries, it is simply the feeling and the fact of owning them that makes everything so different. I do not have to worry about returning them at a specific time, but most of all, I love the feeling of holding a new book in my hand and inhaling the crisp paper smell. Besides this, I can always re-read them as and when I like and also, share them with families and friends.

The rules are:

• Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share seven random and/or weird book facts about yourself.
• Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I was tagged by Alice for this meme.

#1 - I have very few hardcovers in my pile (mainly because they are pricey and too heavy to carry around), and whenever I read them I always make sure to remove the jacket covers as I am too afraid of wrinkling them.

#2 - I was a librarian by chance during my secondary school days. At that time, all students had to join a uniform group or a club as part of their extracurricular activities and I was a St. John Ambulance member initially. Later it then dawned on me that those first aids training was too much for me so I joined the school library since coincidentally they have an extra room for another librarian (which of course was a bonus for me since I got the privilege of borrowing an extra book!).

#3 - I try NOT to leave a bookstore empty-handed.

#4 - I remove the price tags from the books after buying. I get annoyed when the tags are extra sticky and leave marks on the books after peeling them off.

#5 - I do judge a book by its cover. Here what I mean is, I will buy the same title with a different cover if it attracts me.

#6 - I received my first ARC from author, Lori Foster when I won a contest at her forum. It is also an unedited copy.

#7 - I only started my book collection during my secondary school days, although I started reading when I was in primary school and was hooked by Nancy Drew and Enid Blyton's books. I was a frequent patron of the school and public libraries then. When my classmate introduced me to the Sweet Dream young adult romances and Dark Forces horror series (printed in the 80s and 90s and written by several individual authors; they are currently out-of-print), I could not get enough of them so that is when I started buying them at the bookstores and used bookstores. Unfortunately I gave them away during the move and now I really regret it. It was also at that time that I began to explore other genres and the book piles just accumulate from there.

I tag the following friends:

• Iliana from Bookgirl's Nightstand
• Stephanie from Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic
• Shana from Literarily
• Jen from Up Close & Personal with LadyTink
• Trish from Trish's Reading Nook,
• Matt from A Guy's Moleskin Notebook
• Gautami from Reading Room

• 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 sentences for today [Two Caravans (aka Strawberry Fields) by Marina Lewycka (Pg 10)]:

The first thing I noticed was the light - the dazzling salty light dancing on the sunny field, the ripening strawberries, the little rounded caravan perched up on the hill and the oblong boxy caravan down in the corner, the woods beyond, and the long curving horizon, and I smiled to myself. So this is England.

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS is about the giving & keeping of books!

If you keep your books, where do you keep them? And, if you give them away, who do you give them to? Do you participate in Bookcrossing, BookMooch, PaperbackSwap, or the like? Do you give your old books to family & friends, or donate them? Are any of your books in storage due to not having enough space for them all? Or, are you one of the lucky ones who has their own “library”? Feel free to share pictures, if you have them!

I keep most of my books because I love them too much! I keep my TBR books in the bookshelves in our study room, but as they are currently filled to the brim, I stack the others (together with my current ones) at a corner of our storage room (I also put some of my read books on a built-in shelf here). Since our storage room is not that big, you can imagine how much this pile of books took up the space. As for most of my read books, I pack them into boxes and stack them above my bookshelves (some on the shelf in the storage room as mentioned).

As much as I love my books, I do weed them once in a while if I do not have the interest of reading them anymore (it is a little tricky here because there are times I regretted my choice due to my ever changing reading moods and reading preferences). Also, sometimes I will buy the same book due to my short memory and I will keep them with the books to be given away. It is a great thing I participated in BookMooch because I can always exchange these with other BookMoochers for the books I want.

So where do you keep and give away your books?

1. My blueprint for success includes working hard and never give up.

2. Grape flavour lollipop was the last candy I ate. (My eldest daughter insisted I ate it with her the previous day.)

3. The best facial moisturizer I've ever used is nothing as I believe our lifestyle and what we eat will affect our complexion in a way.

4. Have a nice break and having the day to yourself can be good therapy.

5. I'd like to tell you about my books collection and how it all begins.

6. Persistence is my strongest characteristic.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching some late night shows, tomorrow my plans include doing household chores and catching up on my reading and Sunday, I want to spend some time with my family!

Today, I have the pleasure of having Marsha Altman, author of The Darcys and the Bingleys as a guest on my blog.

Two days ago, I approached Marsha and asked if she is interested in making a guest appearance on my blog after receiving a reviewer copy of The Darcys and the Bingleys from her. I was thrilled when she said yes.

Now please join me in welcoming Marsha Altman!

More about Marsha Altman
More about the book The Darcys and the Bingleys

Today is Deb's birthday, and she asked this question:

What, if any, memorable or special book have you ever gotten as a present? Birthday or otherwise. What made it so notable? The person who gave it? The book itself? The “gift aura?”

I love receiving book(s) on any occasion. I think my most memorable present would be Black Beauty by Anna Sewell given by my aunt during my primary school days. What made it so special is, this is the first book I received as a birthday present. I remember she had asked me what I wanted for my birthday, so I told her I wanted a book. Just a book, it is that simple. I did not even tell her what book I want because I love reading and any book would make me very happy. I still have this book in my bookshelf, and everytime I look at it it always bring me fond memories of that day.

Side note: I invited Marsha Altman, author of The Darcys and the Bingleys to be my guest at my blog today. Click here to read more about her and her book.

• 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 sentences for today:

I am vampire. How I became, and what is the nature of my existence, is the reason for this story.

~ The Becoming by Jeanne C. Stein (Pg 1)

To you I shall say, as I have often said before,
'Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last.'
~ Jane Austen

(Extracted from Me and Mr Darcy)

I am sure fans of Jane Austen will know of this literary well-known couple, Elizabeth Benneth and Mr Darcy, in one of her novels Pride and Prejudice. In this book, author Alexandra Potter featured the famous Mr Darcy into her story and cleverly weaves a humorous yet romantic story of Emily Albright and her other self.

Emily is in her late twenties and works as a bookstore manager in New York. Being a true romantic and a big fan of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, she yearns for a relationship with a gentleman like Mr Darcy but alas, most of the men she met are either losers or are too self-centered.

Her subordinate, Stella, could not stand her losing faith in men and herself, thus she asked her along to a trip in Mexico so both of them could let their hair down and perhaps meet someone along the way. No doubt both women are good friends, she however does not share her younger subordinate's enthusiasm in fashion and views when it comes to men and relationship so she told her she had booked a Austen's literary tour to England as an escape. But the tour turns out to be a disappointment for her as the participants who signed up for the tour are mostly older ladies except a young, arrogant journalist who never fails to infuriate her throughout the whole trip.

Spike Hargreaves, on the other hand is perplexed over why Mr Darcy is being viewed as every woman's fantasy, thus he joined this literary tour as a chance to interview these participants for an article he writes for The Daily Times. Although the tour group fascinates him in a way, he is finding a hard time getting along well with Emily as it seems both of them are at loggerheads over some opinions they had for each other the moment their tour begins. Like a scene taken straight out from Pride and Prejudice, Spike thinks Emily is dull and average-looking, while Emily thinks Spike is nothing but an arrogant man who thinks he knows it all; and to complicate matters, it seems to Emily that Spike is also incorrigible and an unreasonable man based on an incident that involved one of their tour mates and the coach driver.

But as the tour continues and when Emily gets to meet the real Mr Darcy in a subconsciously manner, she could not help but compare him with Spike and towards the end, she will come to a conclusion that pride and prejudice are the factors that ruined her judgement on Spike and what she would do to overcome their differences.

Being a reader and fan of Pride of Prejudice, I find Me and Mr Darcy original and what's more, the bookstore setting and the tour the author described in this story made it a real pleasurable read (especially the museum visit). The subplot story of Stella and her so-called husband is another fun and delightful read. However, one of the things I find most enjoyable about this story is that the author had taken a different scenario and meaning of pride and prejudice and recreated it into a modern day love story. The author has also written another book, Be Careful What You Wish For and I will be looking forward to reading this in the near future.

Other blog review:
Hello, My Name Is Alice
Stephanie's Written Word
(Let me know if I have missed your review.)