Crazy Rich Asians | Kevin Kwan

TITLE / Crazy Rich Asians

AUTHOR / Kevin Kwan

PUBLISHER / Anchor

DATE OF PUBLICATION / May 20, 2014

NO. OF PAGES / 527

STARRED RATING / ★★★.5

Bout of Books 20 TBR

Alright, it's Bout of Books time! Here's a quick look at the books I'm hoping to knock off my TBR this week.

Books Mentioned:
Pigeon-Blood Red / Ed Duncan
Under the Tuscan Sun / Frances Mayes
Hawaii / James Michener
Northanger Abbey / Jane Austen
The Garden Party and Other Stories / Katherine Mansfield
Are You My Mother? / Alison Bechdel
Unaccustomed Earth / Jhumpa Lahiri

Bout of Books 20

After missing the last couple of rounds, I'm happy to announce that I will be participating in the upcoming 20th round of the Bout of Books readathon! After the craziness that was BookTubeAThon last month, my reading has definitely slowed down a bit. I'm hoping Bout of Books will help me finish out the month strong!

Sign ups run through Tuesday, August 22nd, so head on over to the Bout of Books website if you'd like to participate.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 21st and runs through Sunday, August 27th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 20 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.

--From the Bout of Books team

I'll be sharing my TBR later this week.

New Books (A Summer Haul)

I think it's safe to say that I've been exercising a lot of restraint over my book buying inclinations lately. As someone who consumes a lot of bookish content and is constantly getting recommendations, I'd say this is a pretty admirable feat! Plus, it means that all of books I have picked up are books I am genuinely interested in.

Books Mentioned:
Pigeon-Blood Red / Ed Duncan
Human Interest / Valerie Bandura
Where the Past Beings: A Writer's Memoir / Amy Tan
A Few Good Women / Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee
Goodbye to All That / Robert Graves

July and BookTubeAThon Wrap Up

Just when I was beginning to lose hope for my reading this year, July turned out to be quite the productive reading month! The credit for this suddenly uptake in my reading must be given to the one and only BookTubeAthon reading event. And while I've just realized that I never actually posted my TBR for the event here on the blog, I hope you enjoy hearing about what I read all the same.

Books Read

Common Sense / Thomas Paine
The Tale of Aypi / Ak Welsapar
The Girl Who Is Getting Married / Aoko Matsuda
Moonraker / Ian Fleming

Currently Reading
Are You My Mother? / Alison Bechdel
The Garden Party and Other Stories / Katherine Mansfield

What I Read Growing Up

I was very lucky to grow up in a household where my parents not only encouraged my brother and I to read, but were also very open to buying us books. As if we didn't get enough to read in our bimonthly library trips, we used to spend hours in our local bookshops, agonizing over which book we would be bringing home. And when we got those books home, we treated them like gold: read them individually, read them together, read them aloud, read them over and over.  And, as you can see, I've managed to hang on to quite a few of them!

One reason these books means so much to me is that we weren't allowed to watch television as children. So with the exception of the occasional Disney or Studio Ghibli film, all of the stories and characters I was exposed to came to me through my books. So I've taken as best care of them as I can and will treasure them forever as my first lessons in storytelling and my first windows into other worlds.