The Infinite Book Challenge!!!

There is this very interesting challenge going around on YouTube and I decided to do it too because it looked like fun…and it is. All you have to do is recite as many book titles as you can remember in one minute. Here is my poor attempt.

Updates

I know you are probably tired of reading I’m busy and don’t get enough time to blog. I also have a YouTube channel now so I tend to balance whatever time I have.

As I mentioned in one of my posts, I’m studying for Diploma of Graphic Design and it’s almost the last stretch now. I’ll be graduating in 3 months time and thing have been really busy with me trying to finish up all the assignments for the final academic review. It’s stressful but I’m enjoying it so far. I will have to start looking for an internship in January. But I’m not going to worry about that now.

We are going to India for Diwali, we’ll be leaving on 10th Nov. I will get back on 18th because I hae work to do but my husband will stay on a little longer. I’m really excited about the holiday and hoping to get some work done.

I’m also designing  my Portfolio website as part of the diploma and will let you know as soon as it’s up. It might take up to a month though.

My aim is to get a Graphic Design job and eventually design book covers in the future. Lets see how that goes.

We also moved into our new house because the lease for our previous house was up. We moved to the extreme west of Singapore. We lived in the extreme east before. So it’s a good change. But packing/ unpacking is a real pain. On a brighter side, this is the view from our house now as opposed to the kitchens we saw from our previous house. The thing that the arrow points to is the Bukit Timah Hill which is the largest hill in Singapore. Yeah…I know. But I’m kind of excited over it, no idea why. I guess 2 years of looking at the insides of people’s houses does that to you.

In spite of the lack of time, I have been reading quite well. I notice I read more when I have lots of work just to take time off from it even for 15 mins. I’ve read some very good books that were on my shelves. Obviously I haven’t reviewed all here.

I also read 50 shades of Grey and didn’t like it at all. I’m still thinking if I should review it here.

In spite of all that is going on my husband and I do find time to do things together. Last weekend we tried Rock Climbing for the first time and we also attended a Level 1 Climbing certificate. It means that we can now Rock Climb without any supervision from professionals

Also,  a few weeks back, on my birthday, we went to Desaru, Malaysia for 2 days which was short but rather fun. Here is a video I did on my YouTube channel if you are interested.

Books and Vacation and trip to Desaru

BookShelf Tour!!!!

I don’t think a bookshelf tour is something I can write about, so here’s a video for you. Sorry if it’s too shaky.

It’s uploaded on my YouTube channel which is called ‘BookShelved’ so don’t get too surprised when you see the intro.

New feature series: Book cover design: Jurassic Park: Chip Kidd

We all love to look at beautiful book covers and we love to adorn our shelfs with them. There are many blog series around that talk about different book covers – how similar are some covers among other things. We have book cover reveals as well. But what we overlook is that there are people who have designed these covers. There are people who have tried to understand the story and the intention behind the book and try to design a cover that reflects that. I have been attracted to the art of book cover design for a long time and I thought this would be a perfect platform not just to show you a nice cover but also let you know the process behind it and also introduce you to the designer while I’m at it.

For today, let me introduce you to Chip Kidd, one of the most influential and famous book cover designers today. The cover I’m going to talk about today is this

jurrasic park

I’m sure you all know what book this is about. The design process goes something like this.

Chip Kidd went to the library to find books on dinosaurs and found this page.

He put this in a photostat machine, took a piece of tracing paper, taped it over the tracing paper with a scotch tape and took a rapidograph pen and reconstituted the dinosaur and came up this which was used in the final book cover.

When it was sent to Michael Chrichton and he responded with this :)

The image was bought by Universal and was used in the movie which in turn was used in a lot of the movie memorabilia when it was released.
movie

Thats the story behind the cover of Jurassic Park. I hope you enjoyed reading this post.

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chip kiddChip Kidd (from Wikipedia): Chip Kidd (born September 12, 1964) is an American author, editor, and graphic designer, best known for his book covers. Kidd is currently associate art director at Knopf, an imprint of Random House. He first joined the Knopf design team in 1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant. Turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 a year, Kidd has freelanced for Doubleday, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Grove Press, HarperCollins, Penguin/Putnam, Scribner and Columbia University Press in addition to his work for Knopf. Kidd also supervises graphic novels at Pantheon, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art Spiegelman on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole, Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. His output includes cover concepts for books by Mark Beyer, Bret Easton Ellis, Haruki Murakami, Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Frank Miller, Michael Ondaatje, Alex Ross, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka, David Sedaris, Donna Tartt, John Updike and others. His design for Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel was carried over into marketing for the film adaptation. Oliver Sacks and other authors have contract clauses stating that Kidd design their books

Obviously I have to get this information from somewhere. There are a few youtube videos on this so if you are interested you can watch this videos but for these feature series I’m going to break it down so that you can go through the process in less than 5 mins instead of watching a 20 mins or an hour-long video. All the references will be given alongside.

References:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC0KxNeLp1E (17.17 min long video)

Library Haul

I went to the library after a long time and got a little carried away. The library also had a borrow 12 books within a certain period which did not help. Most are YA because I find YA to be easy reads when I have a lot of work to do. I also borrowed Scandal in Spring and Wallflower Christmas by Lisa Kleypas but I already finished those and returned to the library. Anyway…these are the books I got…

iron kingdragonswoodundercurrent

grimm legacyconstant heartcleopatras moon

physick book of deliverance danebetween sky and seamermaids mirror

Randomness…

Hello everyone,

Long time no see. I haven’t written on my blog for some time now and I do feel bad. I have been super busy though. If I havent mentioned it before, I am doing a Graphic Design Diploma which runs for 11 months and just because it’s a 3 year degree cramped into 11 months, its very hectic. But I’m having fun. I wont say I haven’t had time at all because I did but I just didn’t feel like blogging anymore.

But here I am – refreshed and ready to blog again. I have read some really good books meanwhile and it’s a pity that I didn’t do a review or something for them and now I feel it’s too late to remember the details even. I do have 4-5 review copies which have been on my shelf for a couple of months now. I should stop ignoring them and get to them soon enough. I accepted them because they seemed interesting and something I wanted to read, so I have no excuse to not read them. I just received this book called ‘Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar children‘ for review. I didn’t want to accept any new books until I started reading the ones I already had but I couldnt resist this one since it’s already been on my Wishlist and I really wanted to read it.

Anyway, for non-bookish randomness, I just bought Samsung Note. If you havent seen it before it’s this big brick of a Cell phone which seems way too big when you first use it but then after using it for a couple of days the iphone seems like a toy. I’m loving it so far.

The wordpress interface has changed so much. I’m not sure I like the new look.

I am really really really missing home. I wish I could drop everything and visit for a few days. I will probably try and go sometime during the break in August or something.

We watched Snowwhite and the Hunstmen and I found it really boring, My husband fell asleep during the second half. The effects and all were amazing but the movie just wasnt that captivating. I wish they had taken someone else instead of Bella (Sorry dont remember her real name) as I think she did not suit the character well. Someone like Amanda Seyfried would have done more justice to the role.

I havent bought new books for sometime now…oh except Insurgent…I did buy a few YA books for my younger sister but thats all.

Oh I’m on Instagram now but it’s under my real name so cant put it here. But if you’re on Instagram as well let me know so I can follow you. We can then get to know each other in the real world as well :)

Back to bookish things  – I am reading The Pagan Stone at the moment which is the third book in the Hollow series. I enjoyed the first 2 books but this one is really difficult to get into because it seems kind of repetitive. Anyway, I might abandon it and start Miss Peregrine’s…not sure what to do yet.

I haven’t been on Google reader for like forever but I need to see if there is an app for Google Reader on my phone which will really be helpful in catching up. I don’t mark read-all I just read the latest couple of posts from each blogger and then mark read-all.

Anyway, I am hoping to post atleast once a week if not regularly here. Tell me how have you guys been?

11 question meme

So Melody from mel-reading-corner tagged me some time back for this. I had to answer 11 questions, come up with 11 questions of my own and tag 11 more people. So here we go.

1. Who’s your idol? It can be anyone and don’t have to be a celebrity or a public figure.
My Father. He didnt have much growing up and Im inspired by the way he overcame all the obstacles in his life. I hope I can be as strong as he was if I ever face anything difficult.

2. If you can be someone famous, who do you like to be?
I would most probably like to be either a singer or a dancer. Or maybe a famous author, someone like J.K.Rowling or Suzanne Collins whose books people eagerly await to read.

3. What are your favourite TV shows or movies?
Grey’s Anatomy. Thats the first show that comes to my mind. I saw the first four seasons back to back since I was late catching up. I also like Graham Norton show. I think he’s hilarious. I like Don’t tell my mother which comes on NATGEO. I even have a little crush on Diego Bunuel.

4. Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? Why?
I haven’t read any of these books (I know) but I have seen the Harry Potter movies. So Harry Potter.

5. Popcorns. Sweet or salty? Why?
Salty. I don’t like sweet in anything except deserts.

6. Facebook or Twitter? Why?
Both but I prefer Facebook.

7. What are your pet peeves?
I do have a few but can’t recall any.

8. Where do you like to go on a vacation?
Egypt, Africa, Spain. Basically the whole world. Bt practically I would like to go to Combodia. In fact, I do have a trip planned to Combodia in May.

9. Your most wonderful memories you had last year.
Many to mention

10. What’s your favourite holiday?
Diwali: The festival of lights.
Holi: The festival of colours.

11. Finally, I couldn’t resist asking a bookish question: Would you read a book which has received lots of hype and positive reviews, even though the storyline isn’t what you like to read?
I would probably borrow it from the library and give the first few pages a try. I most probably would not buy it unless it’s on super sale or something.

My 11 questions are here
1. Describe your dream profession
2. Who is your fav anti-hero or villain in literature?
3. How many books do you own?
4. Do you prefer windows or MAc?
5. If there was one place you would like to live for a year or 2 which place would it be?
6. which is your fav Disney movie?
7. How many languages can you speak?
8. Which is the song you have been listening to a lot recently?
9. What is your fav TV show?
10. Which is your fav season
11. Which is your fav drink?

It’s really difficult for me to tag 11 people, so I tag whoever wants to do this tag. Feel free to do it and let me know in the comments if you do. I would love to read your answers.

NOTE: Wow,  wordpress seems to have drastically changed in the past few days I was away. I don’t think I like it though. Maybe I need to wait and see or blog more so that I can get used to the changes :)

Romance Month at Tasha’s (Heidenkind) – Hathaway Series by Lisa Kleypas

Tasha is having a Romance month in December and becaus I love Romance I thought I could take part too. If you haven’t visited Heidenkind yet, you should.

When I think of Romance, I think of Nora Roberts as she was one of the first I read. But Lisa Kleypas was someoene who introduced me to Historical Romance. It’s not that I hadn’t read any before but her books were the first that made me want to reach out for other Historical Romance books.

For today, I would like to tell you about one of my favorite series by Lisa Kleypas – The Hathway Series.

I was introduced to this series and Lisa Kleypas when I won the second book, Seduce me at Sunrise, in the Hathway series. I loved the book (I’ve even reviewed it here) and was surprised by how witty and funny the book was. Needless to say I looked up the series and bought the first and the third book from the series which I ended up loving as well. (The review for Mine till Midnight is here). I recently bought the last 3 books in the series and gobbled them up.finished them in a couple fo days. Thats how much I love this series.

The Hathaway books are about the Hathaway family that consists of 5 members – Amelia, Luke, Winnipen, Beatrice and Poppy. This family is very different from other families in the sense that they are very eccentric, don’t follow social norms and are generally unconciously set out to break every rule out there. Each of the characters have a distinct personality which in turn also shapes the story of the respective books. I was very surprised over how independent and strong each of the women in these books are. The dialogues are witty and there is not a single boring moment in any of the books. Of course, I like some books better than the others, but overall I simply love this series.

I won’t go into the plots of all the books but suffice to say I have ever followed a series and made it a point to buy and read all the books. So that definitely says a lot.

Reflections!!!

I am going through a lot of contradictory emotions lately. At times I feel like buying a lot of books. I cannot wait to have a house of my own one day and have a small book corner. I want to devour every book from every genre out there. But at times I get very sad or weird. I ask myself what’s the point of all this? What’s the point of buying so many books? I don’t even know if I can read all the books I own in my lifetime. If I have a son I most probably won’t be able to pass them to him because he might think all my books are very girly. If I have a girl she might even hate reading (gasp). Yes, they make me happy when I see them arranged on my shelves. But sometimes I feel that’s not enough. What’s the point in spending so much time reading when I could be doing other things? Yes, it enriches my brain, it makes me happy and all that. But sometimes even that doesn’t register.

My logical side of the brain knows that this is not true but sometimes it just shuts off. The only thing I can do at times like these is not read anything for 2-3 days or until I realize what I’m missing which invariably happens when I’ve read the bus ticket or the back of a cereal box too many times. Sometimes I just open my Google Reader and read all the blogs out there and it makes me realize why I read so much.

Thankfully I don’t usually question the existence of my blog. Because I know if I don’t have any bookish things to talk about, you guys will still show interest and comment on my posts while I get my reading mojo back. This is what makes me come back to my blog and keep it running. I know I can say almost anything that comes to my mind and not be judged. We book bloggers are a compassionate and patient lot. We encourage each other and understand each other as well. Thank you for that.

All kinds of Randomness…

Work is getting more hectic as we are approaching the go live date in May. Just today I had a big discussion with my Manager because I told him I cannot come to work on the coming weekend. Whatever!!!

Anyway, my husband and I are going to Kuching, Malaysia tomorrow. Soooooo excited. I desperately need a break and some time alone with my husband. I’ll post photos if possible.

I think I am slowly finding a balance to work and blogging and personal life. It will still take some time to adjust, but I just have to plan my time properly.

My husband and I watched ‘Hall Pass’ the other day. I enjoyed the movie but I also thought there were a few unnecessary things in it.

I’m loving my new Blackberry. I can keep track of emails and reply instantly instead of waiting to reach home and find time to log on to the internet.

I’m at a phase in my life when I really don’t feel like making new friends anymore. You don’t get friendships like the ones you form in schools and colleges.

I fell bad that I don’t get to watch any Hindi movies here although I’m glad for the ones that do release. Something is better than nothing right?

I bought a small 6 shelves rack for my shoes but when I got home from work I found that my husband had unpacked it and arranged it with my books. I was so pleased with the way it looked that I’ve kept it. It means I need a new shoe rack.