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Tina

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Everything posted by Tina

  1. If I get a book as a present for someone, I usually write a short message on the first, blank page. I also love getting books with little personal notes. It makes me feel that the person who bought the book for me really thought about me while getting it. It's also lovely to flip through old books and spot those little greetings when years have passed.
  2. Provided that I had something with which to read ebooks, like that Kindle thing, I'd give it a shot I'll think about getting one when I have a bit more extra money in my hands. Of course it would be lovely to have a bit lighter bag to carry with me when travelling, so I'm willing to try out an ebook reader if I get the chance. But I think ebooks will never come even close to replacing "real" books for me. It's the same as with music: I want to own the cd or the vinyl, not just a bunch of mp3 files.
  3. Just finished reading the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz - and really liked it. Especially the last 30 or so pages captured me totally. Then I picked up a book that has all the stories of Scandinavian mythology compiled and read the first few chapters. So excited about this one, too!
  4. Wow, people have really disliked this book here. I, on the other hand, pretty much loved it. The footnotes were indeed long at times, but they were necessary and it didn't take me long to start seeing them as tightly knit parts of the story that were just positioned differently. The cursing and vulgar language in general didn't bother me at all: it suited the story unlike in some books that obviously just want to create fuss by using expressions like that. I think The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was an interesting story on so many levels. It had the historical aspect, it was an exciting story of a family, it had some mysterious things going on while it portrayed everything in a very realistic way... Funny, how basically a really sad story can be told in such a humorous way. So, thumbs up from me to this one!
  5. For me Life of Pi was an easy read in the sense that it totally caught me from the first pages and it didn't take long to finish the book. I liked the way in which realistic and unrealistic things started to get mixed - storytelling like that always fascinates me. Yeah, neither I think that Life of Pi can be made into a film very well. The sense of time (how it passes painfully slowly when Pi is on the raft, etc) is in my opinion an important factor in the whole story and from the book it comes out well. But a film, then, just doesn't allow the makers to let the story evolve and pace forward as slowly as it should. Or that's how I feel.
  6. The one from Sons of Anarchy! I occasionally even go on Youtube to listen to it, which doesn't happen often when it comes to TV series theme songs.
  7. Grapes, eating them kind of as dessert. I yearn for something sweet, argh.
  8. To the original question: hardback. I love having a neat row of books with proper hard covers on my bookshelf. I do own quite a few paperbacks as well, they're usually cheaper so if I have doubts whether I'll like a book or not, I'll buy a paperback version. Paperbacks are of course lighter to carry with you, which is definitely a plus in this situation of mine: I travel a lot between two cities and have everything from clothes to laptop with me, so my bags are heavy enough without a couple of hardback books... So I basically like both, but prefer hardbacks when it comes to owning a book. eBooks, then, aren't very familiar to me. I don't have anything to read them with and I can't focus if I have to read a long text from the computer screen.
  9. Started reading Drown by Junot Diaz yesterday. I haven't had that much time on my hands so I've read only about 30 pages of it. Seems very good! I always enjoy realistic and even kind of rough stories.
  10. Hmph, the release of this one has been pushed to 2013. Boo!
  11. I've lately been focusing mainly on some books I need to read for school. Creative Arts Marketing is one of them, been reading it like crazy during the last few days. I hope to finish it in the next few hours so I can get my hands on something a bit lighter. Oh, I did read one novel a couple of days ago. It was a Finnish one, I don't think it's been translated into English.The name of the writer is Irja Virtanen and the book is about some women in Finland during the Second World War. I really enjoyed reading it and the end managed to shake me even though it was pretty predictable.
  12. Yeah, that quotation is so simple yet brilliant. I've read only Fight Club by Palahniuk. That book, then, is actually one of my favourites. I don't know why I haven't looked up any of his other works! The local libraries don't seem to have many of them on shelf, or at least I haven't managed to spot them. Reading this topic reminded me why I should try to get my hands on them.
  13. Some delicious dark chocolate... Saturday is the day when candy is allowed. Yum.
  14. A Mighty Heart. Nothing too special, but worth watching.
  15. Finished a book about Finnish biker gangs and criminal gangs in general earlier today. Interesting and actual one (it isn't long since two men were brutally murdered by two gang members - not bikers though).
  16. Tina

    Your sports

    I've never been exactly a couch potato, but it still took me a while to really find my thing. I'm totally hooked on pole dancing nowadays. This is the first time I really look forward to every lesson and have goals. And I've never been this fit! Though I'd need to be much more fit and flexible to be able to do some of the more challenging tricks, but I'm getting there... (And just because the term pole dancing always manages to confuse people: no, it's not the same as stripping or just walking around the pole all sexy and stuff - the name pole acrobatics would actually be more suitable. ) I also go jogging every day. I'd love to start riding again, but I'm not sure if I could afford it... Same with badminton, haven't been playing in a couple of years now. Should find someone to play with. I'm also planning on trying yoga and/or pilates this spring.
  17. Leonard Cohen: First we take Manhattan (Spotted this one from the film Watchmen, it's been kind of stuck in my head since that.)
  18. I've been continuing Anna Karenina, but I'm keeping a rather slow pace with it. I just love thick books, it's nice to read just a few chapters a day and so keep the book as a long time companion. I think I'm going to finish Eevan tyttäret today (Eve's daughters, a non-fiction book about the history of women by Kaari Utrio, a Finnish writer). And yay, the eight books I ordered a while ago have been shipped yesterday! I finished Catch-22 a couple of weeks ago. Funny, I loved it as well, but it was still somehow slow to read indeed.
  19. Travelling is in my books probably one of the best ways to spend money. As a student I can't afford too many trips a year, but me and a couple of friends have this tradition of travelling somewhere in the spring. Last year we flew to Bergamo, Italy, stayed in Milan for a while, took a train to Venice and stopped by in Brescia to meet a friend of mine. We had a great time! This year we'll most likely visit Croatia. Should start planning the trip soon. A little weekend trip with my boyfriend would be nice as well, we were thinking about Poland or something. So as you might have deduced, I'm not very into beach holidays. I prefer interesting cities, some culture, historical spots, beautiful nature... Though a day or two on the beach won't do any harm either, haha. Croatia might be a nice mixture of a bit of everything. I'd also love to see the world outside Europe a bit more, but maybe next year then. If my financial situation is good enough, that is... It's just so temptingly cheap to travel inside Europe.
  20. Watchmen was on TV yesterday, which was nice since I've wanted to see that film. Good one, definitely. I loved the way music was used in the film. Surprising song choices that even carried the story at times. Don't know why, but somehow the end was a tiny bit disappointing, or somehow I felt that the movie kind of ended without a proper end, you know. Or then it was just me, it was getting late and I was getting tired towards the end, heh.
  21. The Hobbit for sure. I've loved the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit since I was a kid, and if the Hobbit is even half as good as the LOTR film adaptations, it's gonna be totally worth the wait. Hansel and Gretel: the Witch Hunters sounds definitely interesting as well - kind of a twisted fairytale, and that's what I like. Then I spotted a couple of promising ones from Kell's list above there. Snow White and the Huntsman and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter sound like films I'd like. Ah, year 2012 seems to be a better year than 2011 when it comes to movies.
  22. I've been reading Tolstoi's Anna Karenina yesterday and today. I decided to stay away from libraries until I've read at least most of the unread books that sit on my shelf, and one of them is Anna Karenina. I've been looking forward to picking this one up. So far so good.
  23. I can't imagine myself reading the Twilight saga. I was almost a fan of Anne Rice's vampire series, liked Stoker's Dracula and the like - so nothing against vampires, but this Twilight hassle and fandom... No, thanks. I just can't get over the hype and, uh, vampires that glitter in the sun and the basic storyline of a girl that has a crush on a vampire but it's oh-so-difficult. Though maybe I should read at least one of the books to see what they're really like, but then again there are so many brilliant sounding books awaiting that I think I'll rather spend my time on those.
  24. Mine was a book called Populaarimusiikkia Vittulajänkältä by Mikael Niemi (in English it's apparently called Popular music from Vittula). I had a pretty busy Christmas time, so I wanted to end the year and start the new one with a book that wasn't a heavy read. This one was a good choice, easy but interesting.
  25. I just ordered a nice pile of books, can't wait to get them! They are both fiction and non-fiction and seemed super interesting. There's - for example - one about the current situation in Africa and the ways we should and shouldn't help the continent, there's another one about the things going on in the Middle East, there are a novel and short stories by Junot Diaz, there's the first novel by Doris Lessing, some Finnish novels... Gotta love the sales. I finished reading Life of Pi last night. Loved it! The story captured me totally. I was planning on visiting the library today, just even because I need some books for school, but all the libraries are closed today. They're apparently updating something in their loaning systems. Boo.
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