All posts by Ti

Hi, I'm Ti! I blog about books and life over at http://bookchatter.net
Bookish Talk, Life

The Sunday Salon: I. Love. Long. Weekends.

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I have a furlough day on Monday so this is a three-day weekend for me. I love long weekends. I mean, who doesn’t? After our tax appointment today, we decided to check out a bookstore that I had never been to before. The Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House was damaged last year when a big rig slammed into a car and then ran through the front of the bookstore. Unfortunately, two people were killed in that accident. However, the bookstore re-opened and it’s one of the most charming bookstores that I’ve been to in awhile.

We had the best time. I picked up a copy of Catching Fire and two, really neat bookmarks. Here’s a close-up of the bamboo bookmark and you’ll see why I like it so much:

As for today, it’s Valentine’s Day and we may head up to the snow. I’d be perfectly fine just hanging around here. I’ve been so burned out lately that a day at home sounds wonderful to me, but it probably won’t happen. For dinner, I think the plan is to order some Chinese food.

Later on I plan to write-up my last Moby Dick Monday post. Yep, I finished it! I can’t tell you how glad I am. Right now I am actively reading The Weight of Heaven and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I will probably crack open Catching Fire too now that I have it in my hands.

Also, I read this post over at Redlady’s Reading Room about adding your blog to the Kindle store. I went right over and signed up, but then aborted the process when I read the terms and conditions. I’m not sure I like how it’s worded but it pretty much says that Amazon can use the content any way they like and that you have to conform to a regular posting schedule, etc. I post regularly but something about HAVING to do it turned me off.

If you’re a blogger, is your blog listed at the Kindle store? My settings are saved right now until I can think about this a bit more.

Bookish Talk

Friday Finds: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

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 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
Release Date: June 2010

 Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Here’s the blurb from the publisher:

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings.  As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

I’ve not read Mitchell’s other book, Cloud Atlas but many close to me enjoyed it and this new one looks so good.