I went out my comfort zone by reading mystery but June Hur books captivated me since the first chapter :), she is definitely one of my favorite author now.

#SilenceOfTheBones
#JuneHur
#HistoricalFiction
#MysteryBooks
#HistoricalMystery

I was standing in front of a display that had two fantasy books at @bookmansaz
I was mesmerized by the cover art on both of them.I knew I‘d buy at least one,
if not both of them.
I was about to break the 1st Commandment of Reading - Don‘t judge a book by its cover - LOL, the art was too beautiful !, I choose - The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea. Reading the book ignited my desire to read more fantasy books by Asian Authors.

I had “reader-hangover” after reading
The Poppy War trilogy. 
These books certainly kept me on my toes and forced me not to get attached to any of the characters. I never knew what would happen on the next page, and like Game of Thrones - everyone is expendable!

This Trilogy was amazing, i wish I could read it again for the “first time”.

#ThePoppyWar
#TheDragonRepublic
#TheBurningGod
#Trilogy
#FantasyBooks
#AAPIauthor

A well written brutal reality that most of us are unwilling to acknowledge because ignorance is bliss. It is saddening that some of us experience hardship because of our God given “casing”.

I‘m privilege for the past 5 years i have been living in this country that Ta-Nehisi spoken in the book experiencing a mostly different reality.

“a women‘s life is endless work and suffering. There is suffering and more suffering. It‘s better to expect it, you know. You‘re becoming a women now, so you should be told this. For a women, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely. A good man is a decent life, and a bad man is a cursed life—but no matter what, always expect suffering, and just keep working hard. No one will take care of a poor women—just ourselves”

Gregory David Roberts uses a writing style that seamlessly shifts between poetic description, emotional content and hard street analysis.
The peerless and precise details of every story are masterfully revealed and woven into this masterpiece. 

“Books are filled with human thought and feelings. People suffering, people who are sad and happy, laughing with joy.
By reading their words and their stories, by experiencing them together, we learn about the hearts and minds of other people besides ourselves.
Thanks to books, it‘s possible to learn not only about the people around us every day, but people living in totally different worlds”

#TheCatWhoSavedBooks
#SosukeNatsukawa
#FantasyBook

2 books I had the privileged to read in Sofia‘s #readalong program. I am happy to find and explore the very different views that are shared in class. These are things that were never open to me, and considered immovable doctrines in my home country.

I think May was a great reading month for me,
I was in the mood for fantasy as you may see from how many fantasy book I read on May.

Non-Fiction
* The Veil and The Male Elite by Fatima Mernissi
* Crying in H-Mart
* Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Fiction
* The Vegetarian

Fantasy
* Daughter of The Moon Goddess
* The Girl Who Fell Beneath The Sea
* Six Crimson Crane by
* Reflection
* Spin The Dawn
* Unravel The Dusk

“A book, like a person, remains imperfect, incomplete, during its entire creation. At the end of the gestation the person is born, then grows, but I consider a book alive only during the writing. Afterward, at least for me, it dies” 

The book dies when the author writes “The End” in their books, and yet they are reborn in the minds of the readers.

#Jhumpalahiri
#InOtherWords
#NonFiction
#Fallintononfiction
#goreadyourshelfchallege

What things from your life have led you to love reading fantasy books ?

“I imagined myself years from that moment, confronted by the same emotions. For the rest of my life there would be splinter in my being , stinging from the moment my mother die until it was buried with me”

📖 Let Me Tell You What I Mean.
“I admire objectivity very much indeed, but I fail to see how it can be achieved if the reader does not understand the writer‘s particular bias..”

📖 The Year of Magical Thinking.
“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehension that weakens the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life”

“Part of her narrative poses for the reader the all-too-familiar question of when and why and by whom women‘s stories are believed—and when and why and by whom they are not”

💭

I feel like I need to give my self a pat on my back for this month read 😅… #marchread

“I didn‘t want to tell you about his death, but you and I have seen enough death and violence to know that there‘s only one way we can talk about wars: honestly.
Only through honesty can we learn about the truth.”⁣

Always the straggler

Finally joined the Rooney‘s-bandwagon. I‘m happy that I read her books when the voices in Bookstagram had toned down enough for me “listen” to my own.
It‘s official now - Sally Rooney is my new favorite author!
Reading her books I found fragments of myself in the situations and characters she has created. The power or force in her books compels me to see through people‘s flaws and find the humanity that runs through us all.

…..

dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness. ⁣

First stack of 2022 #tbr

“Today I‘m flying low and I‘m
not saying a word
I‘m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.”

Fairy tale (Sleeping Beauty) re-telling…full of magic..I love how grey it is this book on who the bad and the good people are.

“She‘s got her head in the clouds again.
But it‘s not. Of course I have to give up, but by then I‘m half crazy with the wonder of it — the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches,
the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.”

Black Milk by Elif Shafak

“I like to believe I know all the women in this inner harem of mine but perhaps there are those I have never met. Together they make a choir that does not know how to tone down. I call them the Choir of Discordant Voices.”

Do the Trees Speak?

“Do the trees speak back to the wind when the wind offers some invitational comment?
As some of us do, do they also talk to the sun?
I believe so, and if such belief need rest on evidence,
let me just say,
Sometimes it‘s an earful.
But there‘s more.
If you can hear the trees in their easy hours of course you can also hear them later, crying out at the sawmill.”
.

I love how this book is written. How each chapter stands by it self like a short story or poetry but at the end it weaves together beautifully. Heartbreaking as the story is I could not help but feel a sense of gentle calming. I felt as if I was sitting by a lake watching the movement of the wind on the water. It helped me see the sadness in love and the strength of love that carries one through sacrifices and the most difficult times in life.

“ And I am overcome with envy for the people who live where they were born and raised. Why is it that i have to choose ? “