For The Love of Books

For The Love of Books is a blog that I dedicated for my love of books, my everyday journey of reading books, sharing recommendations on books to read and just share a review of what I thought of the books that I've read. And occassionally, there will be some things unrelated to books, but it will mostly be about my love of books.. Enjoy..

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What is your Entertainment Cost you?

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I know this has nothing to do with books, but I thought this is interesting to share. I recently stumbled across an article in the local magazine which prints "Oh My God, my entertainment cost is through the roof!" on the cover. I was intrigued by this title and immediately picked the magazine up from the common room in my office.


According to that article, 40% of the women surveyed said that they spent 15 - 30% of their monthly salary as entertainment cost and 28% spent 30 - 50%. I fall under the 15 - 30% category. What's classified as entertainment for the purpose of this survey is anything that's not primary needs (food, housing, transport and clothing), which includes the following:
  • Salon and Spa - there are actually a large percentage of the women who lives in Jakarta who goes to blow dry their hair at the salon more than once a week. Fortunately, the cost of getting your hair done at professional salon in the city where I live is not that expensive as in other countries, so depending on our salary range, we can actually afford that treatment 3 times a week. And the cost is approximately US$ 100 / month, sometimes even less.
  • Eating out - this activity also contributes a major portion of the entertainment cost. Unlike the first item, this is quite an expensive exercise here, especially if you live in the big major city like Jakarta.
  • Books - according to this magazine, books fall under the entertainment cost and not under shopping :) Well, for me, books are part of my shopping budget.. together with other items that I buy from a store.. Entertainment is more of a service category for me.
  • Movies - Now, this is another activities which are cheap to do in Jakarta. A movie ticket costs you only about US$ 2.50 to US$ 5.50 depending on the theatre, and with certain credit cards, we can get 1 free if we buy 1 ticket, so it costs even less to go to the movies these days.
  • Travel - This is the most expensive entertainment cost of them all. This ranges from out of town travel to out of country travel, which can cost between US$ 100 to US$ 1,000 for a short distance travel.
And the respondents are also surveyed on the reason that they splurge their budget on entertainment cost and they fall under one of the following reasons:
  1. Stress Reliever (27%)
  2. As a way to pamper yourself after hard at work (48%)
  3. To socialize (18%)
  4. Networking (7%)
Well, for me, if I am one of the respondent, my reason would be number 2. I think I deserve to pamper myself after working hard all day or week. And this is acceptable as long as you don't spend more than you can afford, which will bring you into a pile of debt so deep you can't get out of. And you have to have at least 10% of your monthly salary that goes into savings for a rainy day.. If your saving is covered, I believe you can spend the allocated budget for entertainment and shopping, because Girl, You're worth it and You Deserve It!!

Book Review: Sunday's at Tiffany's

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Title : Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson
Pages : 307 pages
Read : 26 - 27 July 2010
Ratings : **** (4 out of 5 stars)

Just look at the book cover.. Doesn't it just make you want to pick it up and read it? It will definitely appeal to all hopeless romantics out there, like me.

The tagline on the cover reads like this, "What if your imaginary friend from childhood is your one true love?" For some reason, just reading this line alone makes me want to sit down and weep.

However, that's not part of the book, that's just my inner romanticism I think. The book is not sad and weepy. It's happy and romantic. It makes me wonder, do all little children have imaginary friends? I, for one, does not even remember if I ever had any. Maybe I don't. But, according to this book, you're not suppose to remember your imaginary friend from childhood. You're supposed to forget him or her after you turn 9 years old. Maybe that's true, I have completely forgotten my imaginary friend. This book definitely started me on imagining what my imaginary childhood friend looked like. I hoped he was handsome, witty and kind as well as a good listener.. Hmmm isn't that the ideal man that all woman dreamed of?

I took a liking to this book from the first chapter. James Patterson has always been a mystery-thriller writer to me, with his Alex Cross series. But he was successful with this romance genre books. At least I loved it. Patterson is an easy, light read. His chapters are usually short and easy to read, if you have limited time during the day, so it's easy to have stops througout the book. However, even though this book has all the short chapter type of Patterson, I still can't put it down.. I finished this book in 2 days with normal working hours and other after office hours activities. I just can't put this book down. I would read it everywhere I can, and even read it late into the night.

This is the kind of books that you can read over and over again when you're feeling down and blue and need a little pick me up. It makes you believe in the power of love and hope, and also faith. It is truly a wonderful and magical story that all you hopeless romantics out there should read at least once!! :)

Airhead by Meg Cabot

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Title : Airhead by Meg Cabot

Read : 24 - 25 July 2010
Pages : 337 pages
Rating : *** (3 out of 5 stars)

The question is, What if you were being given the opportunity to change your dreary, boring average life as a teenager to a life of luxury, glamor and richness beyond your imagination?

If you were an average teenager, I would bet that you would say yes. The grass is always greener on the other side.

That is basically the theme of Meg Cabot's Airhead series. Emerson Watts, a 16 year old high school girl's life was suddenly changed when she got hit in the head by a plasma screen at the new Stark Megastore's opening. When she wakes up, she is transformed into a supermodel Nikki Howard, which is the total opposite of what Emerson Watts is as a teenager. Nikki is beautiful, popular, fashionista, mean and most of all, a famous and successful teenage supermodel. Em, on the other hand, is your average teenager, with a boring life, not popular at school, interested in computer games. And Nikki Howard is everything that Emerson Watts hates in a girl. So you can imagine how interesting it would be for Em to live the life of Nikki Howard, the worst of them all...

This is a very light read. It's classified as young adult. I actually managed to finish this book in just 2 days among my other activities. I might be able to finish this book in 1 day if I just stayed at home and didn't do anything and not get distracted by television series. I can't wait to read the second book in this series to follow Emerson Watts being Nikki Howard. An interesting read..


Until I Find You

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Title : Until I Find You by John Irving

Read : 12 - 23 July 2010
Pages : 924 pages
Ratings : *** (3 out of 5 stars)

When I bought this book, it was 2006 in Melbourne, and this book was on the 3 for 2 tables at Borders Jam Factory in Chapel Street in Melbourne, during one of my return visit there. I already have 2 books picked up from this table and I only need to have the third one.

I have never read any of John Irving's books, but I have heard of him before. He's the writer of The Cider House Rules which I've always want to read but haven't got the chance to. So I thought I'd try this one. However, due to the size of the book (924 pages), I haven't had the urge to pick this book up. It's too thick and heavy to carry everywhere. So, 4 years later, here I am, reading this book for the first time.

The story is about Jack Burns, who are abandoned by his father since he was a little boy. The story follows him and his mother's search for this estranged dad across countries in Europe. Jack is born to a tattoo artist mother and an organist father. Jack definitely has abandonment issues and this affects his future relationship with women, thus his penchant for relationship with older women. In my opinion, this book covers a lot of the sensitive issues in society that we face today.

Much of the huge size of the book is due to the epic story of Jack from when he was 4 years old until he's 38 years old where he became a famous actor in Hollywood. I don't particularly like the part where the book talks about Jack's career in Hollywood in detail, especially his character (the Jack-as-someone part). I think the book can be shorter with just a brief description of his acting career, starting from his drama or theatre days in school.

However, since the book follows Jack's story for the 34 years of his life, i began to feel like I really know about this Jack Burns character and to my surprise, was a little bit sad when the book ends and felt like I've lost a friend. I stayed up late at night yesterday to finish the 150 pages or so left of this book.

For those of you who doesn't like explicit content in a book, I wouldn't suggest you read this book. There are some parts of this book that are just plain disturbing, even for me, as I like to think I'm pretty much open minded, but still some of the issues that are discussed in this book is a bit offensive.

I gave this book a 3 star, which in www.goodreads.com rating, it translates as I liked it. When I finished this book, my general consensus is that I actually liked this book. But I do not like it enough for me to make this one a favorite or for me to think that this book is amazing.



Despicable ME...

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One of the summer movie release this year is Steve Carrell's Despicable Me. It's an animated movie produced by Universal. I had the opportunity to watch this at the movies yesterday and I LOVED IT...


This movie is so funny that I laughed throughout the movie. The story is about Gru, who's the successful villain in town, whose job is to steal landmarks around the world. However, Gru was faced with a younger competitor, thus facing him to come up with a better steal, so he decides to steal the mooon.

I love the animation, I love the characters... And the little mini minions are so cute, I feel like I want to have 1 one them as a pet :)

This is seriously one of the best animated movie, in my opinion, that I've watched. Definitely a Must SEE movie this summer.

My book splurge

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For the past 2 months, I've been on a book-buying spree. I've bought countless amounts of books, which makes clutters in my room because as you can see from the previous posts, my one and only bookshelf is already overflowing....


Last month, there was a SALE period for the local bookstores that I go to in my hometown. So that's where all my purchases are coming from. Plus, one of the bookstore is offering a 15% discount on all books anytime of the month using one of the bank's credit card here. So, I just so happens to have that brand of credit card on hand. It doesn't really help much in terms of tidying up my bookshelf or reducing my To-Be-Read pile.. LoL..

Anyway, the books on the picture are my latest splurge, which I bought on Amazon.com... I love Amazon.com.. they have such good deals on books, I just can't resist sometimes.. What I don't like is the shipping and handling charges, which is outrageous if you happen to live in my part of the world. It's CRAZY.. It's as much as the cost of the orders itself... Amazon.com should open a branch in South East Asia, so that it would be easier and cheaper for this part of the world to order books online. I suppose they must be getting quite many orders from here.

And not to mention the time it takes for me to receive the shipment. This one in particular takes around 3 weeks to arrive. I was already worried that it might be lost or someone might have stolen my books.. which would be a disaster to a book addict like me.. LoL.. I was impatiently waiting for my shipment to arrive... And suddenly when I was about to send another email to amazon.com to find out what's going on with my shipment... It's there on the table when I get home from work.. It's finally arrived... Oh Yay... Well, it's not like I don't have anything on stock to read, I have huge To-Be-Read pile... but I'm just happy and excited when it finally arrived.

I then take the shipment, which arrives in a little cardboard box, to my room and slowly opened it up, just like opening up a birthday or Christmas presents... And there they are... the books that I ordered. I now have added the following books to my ever growing pile of to be read books:
  1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  2. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  3. The Surgeon by Tess Gerritssen.

Gilmore Girls

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I used to watch Gilmore Girls episode on TV, back before the series are available to watch continuously on DVD. It used to air on Sunday at noon in my town. I remember that I diligently waited for the show to air and watched it. I always... well almost always... decline any invitations to go out of the house on Sunday at noon. Everytime there's an invite to go to the mall, I would always say, "After Gilmore Girls".


It is by far, one of my favorite show on TV. Gilmore girls follow the story of Lorelai, who has a child, Rory, when she was only 16 and she's been raising Rory as a single parent until Rory goes to Junior High, which is when the show starts. The story tells the ups and downs of being a single parent, living in a small town, having parents with money. As with most TV Show, there are also some romantic involvements for both Lorelai and Rory.

I've watched Gilmore Girls from the first episode until the last. I was so sad when the series ended. No more stories on Lorelai and Rory, but both character lives on in my memory.

What I like most about this show is that both Lorelai and Rory is so likeable and we can actually relate to the characters. And also, I love the fact that Rory is a book addict and she loves loves loves to read. I remember in one episode, Rory was confused on which book (I mean novel, on top of the text books) she would like to read at school. Like me, Rory brings a novel with her almost everywhere she goes, except on a date I suppose :) And in that episode, Rory not only brought 1 book with her, but she brought several books for different occassion, 1 book for the bus ride and 1 to read at lunch time. Well, I'm not like that. I can't read several books at a time. I always read one book and wait until it finishes before I move on to the next one.

And through goodreads.com, I found out that I'm not alone in my love for the Rory Gilmore characters. Rory attracts other audience who are an avid reader and a book addict. I found a group titled "The Rory Gilmore Book Club" on goodreads and I instantly joined. I was so happy to find that these people are just like me, we love books and we love Rory because she loves books :) And I also found that there is a website that lists all the books that Rory supposedly read.

Imagine That :) I mean, I don't particularly have the same taste in reading as Rory's. But the fact that people devote their sites and times to a fictional character taste in books and reading, is amazing. I would bet that this fictional character even inspired and motivate people to read more. I know she did inspire me to read more books..


The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh

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Title: The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh

Read: 9 - 12 July 2010
Pages: 328 pages
Rating: ** (2 out of 5 stars)

One thing about historical romance is that the books usually has a nice cover, which is what attracted me to this book in the first place. A friend of mine lent me this book along with many others.

It's been a long time since I last read historical romance. From memory, I think it must be about 9 - 10 years ago. So, to diversify a bit of the genre of the books that I'm reading, I thought, why not try historical romance.

And as always, it's a boy meet girl story. The Earl of Severn said that he will marry the first plain girl that he sees. Along came Abigail, whose intention at requesting a meeting with the Earl was to get a character reference as she was dismissed from her current employment because the employer thinks she's flirting with the teenage son.

As with other historical romance books, this one is no different. The plots are the same, the character is similar, but it's still an enjoyable read if you're looking for something light to read.

Show Us Your Bookshelf

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One of my favorite threads to look at in Goodreads is the show us your bookshelf thread. In this thread, members of the group can put in pictures of their own bookshelves to show to the other members. And I'm so thrilled to find that there are many people who have the same passion as mine, or as crazy as me (as some of the non-book lovers might call me).

One of the first thing that I see when I look into someone's home in real life or in the movies is the bookshelf. Unfortunately, in the country where I live, it's not always noticeable, because firstly, reading is not a favorite past time of the majority of the society and secondly, even if we do, because books cost so much over here, we tend to shelf it in our bedroom or rooms that most guests don't have access to. I guess in my society, books are not an accessory to be shown off to guests in your house hee hee..

So you can imagine my excitement upon finding this thread. I love it!!!!!! And most of the bookcases in this thread is amazing, they have so many books, some even have books piling on the floor in 3 stacks high because their bookshelf is already overflowing (like mine LoL). And some people have books laying around in all the rooms in the house (except the bathroom of course haha). Some are tidy, some are messy. Some are organized according to genre, some are organized according to the read status.. In short, I LOVE IT!!!!

And I would have participated by showing my bookcase in the group as well, but I can't seem to get my pictures the right size and uploaded into the internet. And my account on Goodreads is connected to Facebook, which means that I can't edit the settings whatsoever until I resolve the matters and disconnect them from Facebook. So I won't be able to show them in the group anyway.

However, here are a few snapshots of my bookshelf that I took with my Blackberry phone and upload it in this blog. So here it is... tee hee..

As you can see, my bookshelf is overflowing.. there are 2 layers at least to every shelf. And some of the books are piled on the floor, which means that I really need to have a additional second bookshelf, because I'm not going to give the books away... well, maybe I will, for the really old ones that I didn't like. Some of this books are on my TBR (to-be-read) pile. I have currently around 114 books on my owned to be read pile on my shelf.

At the moment, I'm trying really hard to be able to reduce that pile to an acceptable number before buying any new books. However, the drawbacks of that is, in my country, the bookstore rarely place a second order for the same book, so when that one runs out, there's no more stock and you have to order from amazon.com at a higher price with shipping. So, when I see a book that I like at the local book store, I tend to buy it first LoL..

And there is no public library that I can borrow these books for free, except for the occasional lending from friends. So I will never run out of stocks for books to read.

I guess the only way I can significantly reduce the numbers of owned-to-be-read books is by not making a visit to the bookstore, or amazon.com, which I'm trying really hard not to.. *fingers crossed* we'll see :)

What is Pompe?

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My question exactly. I've never heard of Pompe disease until I watched this movie recently titled Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser.


Pompe disease is an inherited disorder caused by the buildup of a complex sugar called glycogen in the body's cell, the accumulation of which in certain organs and tissues, especially muscles, impairs their ability to function normally.

Pompe generally affects children and can be detected from infancy. Pompe disease affects about 1 in 40,000 people in the United States.

This makes me count my blessings that I've been born normal, and can live my life normally until now.

I love watching movies based on a true story. You get to learn about other people's life. People who are real, not fictional character. And you learn that the world is not always good and beautiful.

This movie tells the persistence of a father in finding the cure of Pompe disease for his children who are affected. Through his hard work and persistence, he managed to give medicine to his children, which was not available before.

I would really recommend watching this movie for those who likes drama, but be forewarned, you may want to keep a few tissues handy, just in case :)

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

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I was actually excited to read this book as I enjoyed Fight Club, by the same author, so I had high hopes for this one. However, I was so relieved when I finished reading this book last night. I didn't like this book. The way it's written is a compilation of interviews with the people who knew Rant "Buster" Casey when he was alive.


I gotta say I didn't like the oral biography type that Chuck used to write this book. It's told in the interviews of so many characters I got confused with them.

The topic is actually quite interesting and controversial, much like Palahniuk's other work. This book tells the story of Rant Casey who is a Party Crasher (whatever that means LoL), who enjoys being bitten by bugs (euugghhhhhh...) and is spreading rabies among his community. This book is a bit disturbing in parts.

However, I wouldn't based my judgement on Palahniuk's books based on this one. There are others that receive rave reviews and also the fact that I liked Fight Club, if I happen to come across his other books, I might attempt to read it.

Reading Progress So Far..

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Hmm okay, here's the list of books that I've read so far to make it to my 50 books a year goal:

  1. Baltimore Blues - by Laura Lippman
  2. Violets Are Blue - by James Patterson
  3. Club Dead - by Charlaine Harris
  4. The Bone Collector - by Jeffery Deaver
  5. Remember Me? - by Sophie Kinsella
  6. Amazing Grace - by Danielle Steel
  7. High Noon - by Nora Roberts
  8. The Last Coyote - by Michael Connelly
  9. Lightning - by Dean Koontz
  10. The Rule of Four - by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
  11. Sweet and Deadly - by Charlaine Harris
  12. Barefoot - by Elin Hildebrand
  13. Dead to the World - by Charlaine Harris
  14. Dear John - by Nicholas Sparks
  15. Ship of Magic - by Robin Hobb
  16. Eat, Pray, Love - by Elizabeth Gilbert
  17. Jinx - by Meg Cabot
  18. A Mother's Way: Romance Anthology - by Lisa Cach, Susan Grant, Julie Kenner & Lynsay Sands
  19. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - by Stieg Larsson
  20. The Boy Next Door - by Meg Cabot
  21. The Gargoyle - by Andrew Davidson
  22. A Babe in Ghostland - by Lisa Cach
  23. Pirate Latitudes - by Michael Crichton
  24. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - by Mark Haddon
  25. When in Rome: A Novel of Piazzas and Passion - by Gemma Townley
  26. The Girl Who Played with Fire - by Stieg Larsson
  27. And Then you Die - by Iris Johanssen
  28. Cruel and Unusual - by Patricia Cornwell
  29. Thanks for the Memories - by Cecelia Ahern
  30. Rant - by Chuck Palahniuk
It's July now, and I'm already 30 books in. 20 more books to go. I'm confident I think I can reached my reading target.. woohoo...

Out of all 30 books that I've read so far, there are a few favorites. One obvious one would be the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, a swedish author. His books have become the best seller around the world. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2 books in the trilogy. I'm still holding on reading the third one, knowing if I read it now, there won't be any others from Larsson, which is unfortunate.

As I just started this blog this month, it would be a bit late to post a review of all the books that I've read this year. I'll try to put in some of the reviews which i think is worth posting in due course. But I will certainly post reviews on the future books that I'm going to read, which I hope can be recommendations for other book lovers.

The Most amazing bookshelf

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I found this picture in one of the groups that I joined on goodreads.com. The title is "Now THIS is a library". This apparently belongs to one author called Neil Gaiman, who is famous for his work in the science fiction and fantasy genre. You can find out more about Neil's private library in http://blog.shelfari.com/ronbrinkmann/20...


You can sort of imagine my amazement when I see this picture. He must have thousands and thousands of books in his shelves. Now, this is what I'm imagining I would have if I had a lot of money to spend on books. This is a true book addicts dream. If these were mine, I would create a cozy reading corner in this room, with a comfortable sofa, home theatre system to play the jazz music quietly in the background while I read.. oooooohhhhh how nice.. :) I wish I could have something like this some day..

The 50 Books A Year Challenge

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I consider myself a book addict, from reading, buying and collecting them. I love to read and I read everywhere and anytime I can. To me, books are a good waiting friend, whenever you're waiting for someone or something or on the road, or even just to past the time, you can never be lonely with a book to keep you company. When I was in school and in college, i used to read more, but nowadays, what with work and other activities, my reading has been really slow.. In average I read only about 30 books a year, and sometimes less.


However, a few months ago, one of my friend, who is also a book lovers, introduced me to a website called Goodreads (www.goodreads.com). This is a social networking site for book lovers around the world. I instantly like this website and I gotta say I'm quite addicted to it. I love books and I love to read and I also like to see what other people are reading to get recommendations. And I also like to know that there are a zillions of people who likes books as much as I do, and for some, even more...

As a result, there's a group thread on Goodreads called "50 books a year" and I was intrigued by the name and I joined the group. It turns out that the group is for people to post their reading challenge to 50 books a year, and I thought, "hey, I might be able to do that, why not?" and when I joined the challenge, it was already March and I found that the books that I've read haven't matched up the challenge, I'm still way behind on my reading.

One of my friends have kindly lent me many of her books for me to read, including all the easy reading chic lit and romance books.

I have then decided to try and create this blog to post on anything to do with books and also on my progress and reviews for the 50 books a year challenge. I hope to be able to reach the goal this year and also for the next two years, to get me motivated to get back to my old reading speed.