Massive Book Haul, In my Mailbox/ Monday Mailbox or Library Loot

My First Vlog ever…It’s funny talking to a Camera but it is what it is.

If you want to know the Library books I borrowed, please skip to the 7th Minute.
I’m posting everything together because I’m not sure I’ll have time on Monday and since there wont be any new books in the house until Sunday, it doesn’t matter.

Let me know what you think of it.

Library Loot

On a normal library day I can borrow either 6 books or 4 books and 2 AV material. But libraries here are awesome at doing promotional things often enough. This time I could borrow 12 library items till January end. Obviously I have been taking advantage of that. Unfortunately I saw the promotional announcement just recently so that doesn’t give me a lot of days to take advantage of it.
Anyway, I borrowed 9 books and 4 AV’s.

The witching Hour is about a girl Maggie whose grandmother was burned for being a witch. She runs away from her town but disaster follows her.
Sea is set in the days after the Indonesian Tsunami in 2004. It’s YA and looks real interesting.
Candor is a book I had wanted to read for a long time. I think it’s a YA dystopian novel.
The Great Elephant Escape follows the life of 2 elephants and their journey in a Thailand Orphanage.
Memoirs of a Monster Hunter is obviously a memoir. I really don’t know what it’s about but the title was very interesting.
Jellicoe Road is another YA book I have been wanting to read for a long time. But after seeing it on a number of ‘Best of 2010’ lists, I thought I should just pick it up already.

I also borrowed a couple of calvin and hobbes books for my husband and a couple of audio books for him as he listens to them while jogging.

I also borrowed 2 movies

I’m not sure how many books I will actually read before the due date but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Title: The Forest of Hands and Teeth.
Author: Carrie Ryan
Genre: YA
Source: Library
Rating: 5/5

My thoughts:
I was thinking of doing a mini review for this one along with 2 other books, but then this book deserves a post of it’s own. I knew I would like this book but I didn’t think I would like it this much, love it actually.

Mary lives in a secluded world, a village which is surrounded by forests on all sides, forests that are infested with zombies and hence make it impossible for anyone to travel to and from the forest. Apparently the whole world is infected by zombies and Mary and her village believe that theirs is the only place that still has people, all because of the fences that guard the forest.

The sisterhood and the church has a very strong control over the village, so much that the villagers believe and follow everything that is said by the sisterhood. But Mary has different dreams. She dreams of a world outside her village, a world where there is an ocean and a world where there is no sisterhood to control every aspect of her life. But she is trapped in her village because of the zombies.

But one day, everything changes, the zombie defenses are broken and the zombies enter the village. What ensues is a journey to find a safe heaven and another village like her own, to look for her dream and find out if it exists.

I have one word for The Forest of Hands and Teeth – Intense. Other words I can use are dark, creepy, thrilling and beautiful. I would never have thought I would call a book that has Zombies in it beautiful, but trust me it is. The sheer beauty of Carrie Ryan’s writing and her ability to induce such emotions in a zombie story is what gives the story a different level altogether.

Although it’s YA, I would recommend it to everybody. The next book is called Dead Tossed Waves and I’ll definitely be reading it.

Updates…from Singapore…

Hi everybody, how are you all. I just thought I would post an in general update before resuming with regular blogging.

We reached Singapore on 8th Dec after a lovely week in Goa.

• We spend the next week setting up house, buying grocery and house hold stuff. My husband (I had wanted to say this for so long 🙂 ) went to work on Monday and I spend time cleaning up the house.

• It’s weird sitting at home doing nothing, I’m going to resume my job hunt asap.

• Singapore is a cool place, very systematic and organized, I feel it even more aswe flew directly from the chaotic Mumbai.

• We visited the Night Safari here and it was beautiful and like everything else very organized.

• I love the weather here, it’s warm, just the way I like it.

• And you know what? I got my Library card from a regional library here and I’m so excited. It’s on my husband’s name as I don’t have my permanent visa yet. There are not many English books but I still love it. It would take me some time before I’m going to be tired of it. I got these, they were all in my wishlist :

• I really like the way Singaporean women dress, they are chic and stylish without being over the top. Not many people wear Jeans here though, so I guess I’ll have to slowly change my wardrobe. It kind of makes sense since it’s hot here.

• Singapore is expensive and I really have to stop converting dollars to rupees everytime we shop.

• We saw 2 movies since we are here:

New Moon: Boring, I mean really:  we couldn’t wait for it to get over. I kept telling my husband there is some really nice climax to the story but everything was kind of meh. Jacob was good though and so was the forks background.

RocketSingh-Salesman of the year: Really good concept and a good movie overall. We really liked it.