PHILIP PULLMAN, the most talented and well spoken man on earth, my literary tutor if I could have him and my storytelling hero, was actually born in Norwich — where I live right now! How this piece of information could possibly elude me, I cannot fathom!
Posts Tagged ‘books’
Philip Pullman is from Norwich
Sunday, October 10th, 2010 by KiyuSecond year in England
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 by KiyuSo I just realized I need to blog more often about my daily life in England on this blog now that one of my best friends just went to Beijing, China for half a year and can’t access any networking sites. Yes, that means facebook and twitter are down, so the best way for me to communicate with her about the jazz of England would be through my blog. Bear with me people, I’m afraid you now have to read about all the whimsical and unimportant little things (that might not make sense to many of you) about my life.
I’ve been spending the last month in Norway catching up with my friends and helping out here and there anywhere I could be of some help, and soon my summer ends as I am booked on a flight back to England on Wednesday 22nd September. I am so very excited to start my second year as a pharmacy student at the University of East Anglia. I probably will be moaning about the crazy truckload of work in a few months time (trust me, they work us hard over there), but right now I am very very excited to go back. I’ve been going through a rather difficult period where I actually had to question my future, but now that I’ve emerged from it successfully I feel fit to fight. Bring it on, baby!
I’ve also bought quite a few books this summer/fall, and one of the books I’ve been anticipating for a while now is Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. I loved her Mortal Instruments books, and thought Clockwork Angel would definitely be a good read. So far, so good. Oh, and if you’re wondering from looking at the cover; yes, the story is set in London.
Btw, is it just me, or are the covers for many YA books moody, ugly and plain depressing (not including Cassandra Clare’s covers, I love them)? A lot of YA and childrens literature is amazing (His Dark Materials), but it’s a real shame about the covers. I’m also checking out Garth Nix and Diana Wynne Jones at the moment, I have a good feeling about these two authors. Also, I’m looking forward to getting started on my copy of the new Artemis Fowl book: The Antlantis Complex. How can you NOT love the genius boy Artemis?
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one on this planet who isn’t madly obsessed with anything vampire
Monday, August 9th, 2010 by KiyuI can understand it, appreciate it even, the insane obsessiveness of the combination fangs + hot guys that is vampires. Being a fan of the fantasy genre myself, I am genuinely happy that this wave of undead heroes has brought more supernatural and out-of-this-world literature to the spot light. However, that’s also where my appreciation start to diminish.
I would classify myself as fairly open-minded when it comes to literature — as a child I would read anything I could get my hands on, I always preferred reading a book over playing with other children (my parents feared I had no social antenna) and my close friends usually like to tease me with reminding me that I’ve probably read half of the local library — but I can’t help but frown whenever I stand in front of the top 10 shelves in book shops. About half of the space is occupied by a variation of paranormal romance, and being the romantic sucker myself I should rightfully be thrilled; but I’m not. Picking up a title with anything suggesting vampires makes me feel slightly uncomfortable as I’ve never been a big fan of paranormal creatures such as vampires and werevolves. Don’t get me wrong though, I won’t disregard the books just because of that dislike. Like I said, I’m fairly open-minded so I will still bring the books over to the counter and dish out the cash.
There are a few vampire series that I think are fabulous such as The Morganville Vampires and the Darren Shan saga, and I used to be such a big fan of Twilight as well. With that said I believe it was the well-developed characters that got me sucked into the story (alright, no more bad puns) and not the fact that there were vampires present. I’m pretty sure that had you replaced the vampires with some other badasses it would still have been great.
Don’t worry though, I’m working on it. For now I will feel uncomfortable whenever there’s a vampire title in my hands, but I will still give it a try.
On a different note; I know I’ve been rather absent from this blog and perhaps too lively on facebook, but that’s only because I use facebook as my update space of what’s going on in my life while KIYU-SHII.NET is reserved for thoughts on different subjects. Of course I will occassionally sprinkle it up with some casual updates about my life because some of my friends from Norway don’t have facebook, but in general I like to think of this blog as my quality space ;)
Attempting to read “Pride and Prejudice”!
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 by KiyuI went to the library to do some much needed work.
But was soon distracted by Floor 2 (floor 3 in Norway), shelve PR 4034 where this love was found;
I’m going to ignore Lutten’s complaints about the language in classics being far too ‘stiff and boring’ to enjoy, and give the book a fair go. So far I have nothing to complain about; the language is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L.
Later in the evening I headed over to Sol’s flat for some sushi, even though I knew sushi would ignite my gagging reflexes. I had fun nonetheless, just had a mini-buffet instead by stealing the sushi ingredients while they were busy rolling up the fillings in seaweed. We all ended up in Sol’s room chatting, listening to beautiful and funky music, and fighting over bed space while Derek was behaving ridiculously funny. Had a lovely evening indeed.
Sol is my Korean friend I told you about in an earlier post. PGGANG, if you have decent sense, you should envy me: if I go to Korea, I can stay at her house!
Brisingr travelling
Thursday, September 10th, 2009 by KiyuI got my BookCrossing supplies today, and Released my very first book. Left it on a bench in Porsgrunnsparken (close by the Sinnataggen statue):
Say, wouldn’t you have wanted to pick it up as well? Wouldn’t the flashiness of it intrigue your curiosity? I also tucked a piece of paper with one of my poems written on it, inside the book. Shamelessly promoting my works, I am! I did not, however, provide the link to my blog, for what if he or she thinks the poem sucks? D: (Yes, I’m a coward..)
I came back to check on it two hours later, and was very excited to find the bench empty. Whoever found the book, please go to bookcrossing.com to leave a journal so that I can track it! I’m going to Release more books tomorrow morning :D
To see the books I have released or am about to release, follow this link: http://bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Kiyu/page_1/statusfilter_0
Listening: Alison Krauss – There Is Life (Bambi II OST)
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