What We’re Good At?

(Click for full size)

Look for our country, then the USA, then the UK, then any other country that you like.

[Source: Information is Beautiful via Comment Central]

Finally!

I finished reading the last few pages of The Centauri Device yesterday morning before going to work. PHEWW! It was one slow, depressing book I am glad to get over with.

Then, last night I picked up The Lost Fleet: Victorious and basically couldn’t put it down until I finished the whole book at about 4.30 in the morning! Victorious is supposed to be the last of the (original) Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell a.k.a. John G Hemry, which is quite a downer because it’s such a wonderful series; fast paced and full of action. The good news, however, is Hemry wrote on his website that he’s got contracts for follow-on series. YAY!

I’m reading For the Win next, I think. The book arrived yesterday (May 25), after less than two weeks, which is simply wonderful. I don’t know how they do it – shipping books for free – but I definitely love it. The Book Depository is quickly becoming my new favorite online bookstore.

:D

Story-telling

A little late, but I think this one’s pretty cool/funny.

Campfire @ xkcd

The past month or so has been rather busy, but I do hope to find time to post more updates soon.

:P

Books to Read

I bought some new books: A Mighty Fortress by David Weber, The God Engines by John Scalzi, and The Lost Fleet: Victorious by Jack Campbell. I’m so excited about all of them, particularly A Mighty Fortress, but God knows when I’ll actually get around to reading them. Instead of buying them from Amazon as usual, Afi introduced me to The Book Depository, which offers free shipping worldwide!

Oh, I also bought Cory Doctorow’s latest release, For the Win, to be delivered separately to Malaysia. As usual, you can also download the book for free.

PHEWW!

In the meantime, let’s hope that I won’t walk into a bookstore, for there are also The Windup Girl (by Paolo Bacigalupi, the latest Nebula Award winner for Best Novel) and Boneshaker (by Cherie Priest) I’ve been meaning to have a look at.

Not to forget the books I left at home! I have The Centauri Device with me, reading it ever so slowly. On the bedroom wall shelf, The Walls of the Universe and Anathem (still, from ages ago!) await. Until I left for the UK, I was also in the middle of reading The Malay Dilemma, finally.

Wonder which one of these books I’ll finish reading first. It’s already the middle of May and I haven’t finished even one book this year!

Summertown

It’s cold!

It’s the middle of May, so I thought it’s supposed to be warm, with temperatures in the 20s. Instead, when we touched down at Heathrow on Monday it was 11°C. The sun rarely ever shows itself; it’s 11 degrees as I am typing this too, in the middle of noon.

Oxford reminds me Cambridge, MA, but with less people.

We saw Robin Hood yesterday. I expected better from Ridley Scott, but this one’s sadly a miss.