A tougher love

Come Unkinder moving facing us, 

Come alive at night and bring us, bring us up, 

Come Unkinder shake the buildings into piles, 

Come Unkinder making eyes, a tougher love.

_____________________________________________________________

Too little time.

Wipe the dust from your eyes

Folk & then some.

Marion - Dan Croll

Open Season - High Highs

Fathers Be Kind - Ivan & Alyosha

I've Got You - Meadowlark

My Love Took Me Down to the River to Silence Me - Little Green Cars

Home - Dan Croll

Selene - Imagine Dragons

Susie - Mikhael Paskalev

Imik si Mik - Hindi Zahra

Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club

The Light Is You - Said The Whale

Ragged Wood (Fleet Foxes cover) - Kate McGill

Youth - Daughter

We Sink - Chvrches

Coolie (Prairie Song) - The River & the Road

____________________________________________________

I haven't been blogging much, or rather not at all, but I've been writing plenty. So much has happened & all of it has been inspiring: catching Imagine Dragons & Dan Croll in Stockholm, going to London & spending hours in antiquarian bookshops & reading outdated poetry journals, & of course, Paris. Paris is perhaps the most inspiring of all. Walking the streets alone is a dream & the lines & melodies come quicker than in most places. I remember feeling so incredibly euphoric that I wanted to stop time if only to savour the moment of actually being there. 

But more on that soon. Everything is going by so quickly & I've learnt that time doesn't stop for anyone, so for now I'm treasuring the little time I have left here & soaking it all in while I still can. Till next time!

Everything in Transit

Songs for Long Train Rides

& places in between

Tiderays - Volcano Choir

Sarah - The New Limb

Everything Is Gonna Be Undone - Band of Horses

She Paints Me Blue - Something Corporate

Seeds - Brooke Fraser

The Midnight Sun Never Sets - Quincy Jones

For Emma - Bon Iver

Byegone - Volcano Choir

Give Me Jesus - Matt Stinton 

Coming Train - The Sam Willows

Big Wave Goodbye - Said The Whale

Grow Till Tall - Jonsi

Sophia - Laura Marling

The Girl - City & Colour

__________________________________________________________

I just came back from a weekend spent in Stockholm a couple of days ago. I went with a dear friend, Jennifer, & we did a multitude of things: visited the amazing open-air museum Skansen, went to the bohemian Sodermalm district to buy new records & tea, & even took a bus up to Uppsala for fika & long walks by the city's river. It was absolutely lovely.

On Monday evening though, we finally had to say goodbye & go our separate ways, her to Singapore & myself back to Linkoping. I honestly loved that entire weekend & all the things we did but as I sat there in the bus, plugged into new music & with a cappuccino in hand, I felt such a strange & undefinable peace. People get restless or bored on long train or bus rides, but I somehow don't. I like how there's a certain kind of music to listen to on occasions like these. I like watching the sun dip across the Swedish horizon, gazing into space as the sky changes from hues of bright orange to pink to dark purple. Travelling, in the verb sense of the word, offers a state of transition, a certain sort of limbo where you're not really in one place or another but somewhere in between, & I love that feeling. It's something very precious, these few hours of solitude for nobody but yourself. People always say that it's not the destination that's important, but the journey & it may seem like a cliché but I agree all the same :)

More on Stockholm & school & a new home & other things soon.

How fickle my heart

Awake My Soul - Mumford & Sons

Who Knows Who Cares - Local Natives

Lover's Rock - The Clash

Ought to Be - Audrey Assad

Martha My Dear - The Beatles

Amsterdam - Imagine Dragons

Waves - Yeasayer

Glasshouse - The Sam Willows

Bones - Hillsong United

No Other Plans - Sunny Levine feat. Young Dad

Troubleman - Electric Guest

You Bled - Rend Collective Experiment

Rescue Song - Mr Little Jeans

Love Is Waiting - Brooke Fraser

_________________________________________________

Songs I've been listening to of late for the good times, the long nights & plainly, for comfort. It's been nearly three weeks since I left Singapore for Sweden & a multitude of things has happened & I promise I will write all of them down soon when time slows down long enough but for now we're all living it, living the moment. I miss home, but am grateful to be here all the same :)

More soon.

Glorious Ruins.

It's been a while & I reckon it's time for a regular, good old-fashioned update on what's been happening... I've always been a big list-maker, so here's how life has been in the past couple of weeks in five parts:



1. Old friends, food, drink & live music.  


Five more weeks till Sweden & I'm treasuring every moment I have with the people here before I leave. Lunches at Marche & dinners at Saveur, watching the Goodfellas at Timbre with Tiara & Kieran whilst getting drowsy from the multiple LIITs & of course, the inevitable late-night suppers. Have also been spending a lot of time at the movies (Great Expectations, Now You See Me, World War Z & hell, even that monsters university animation), which is great except that I keep falling asleep halfway. It's been lovely, nonetheless.

2. Church Camp 2013: Serpong, Indonesia.


Wow. I can honestly say that this has been the best church camp I have ever gone for in the sixteen (yes, sixteen!) years of being an NLCCian. This year we had a combined camp with one of our sister churches in Serpong, a small township outside Jakarta. Church camp is always refreshing & something I look forward to every two years but there was just something special about this years' camp, a combination of certain events & the relationships built with people that made it different & perhaps even ground-breaking.

The highlights:

Churros from a shop called Churreria. We went after these deep-fried treats & their range of chocolate dips like rabid dogs, rushing to the mega mall (right next to our hotel) every night after service to get some. In all honesty, they weren't that fantastic, but somehow sharing these warm, sugary snacks with a bunch of people whose company you genuinely enjoy made them taste so much better.

We also patronized a very hipster cafe called d'journal (or 'DJ ournal' by most of us, coined by Schist) that served pretty good cafe lattes & an assortment of teas every single day. Great hangout spot & plus, they didn't kick us out till 2am.

Had the privilege to be a part of the craziest team in church camp, proudly named 'LIGHTLY SALTED', an eclectic mix of odds & ends: teenagers, little kids & a bunch of parents. It's amazing how we managed to do the wacky night item & the cheer, thanks to our leaders (Alex & Bea) & frankly, because of how creative the parents were. Always ended up in stitches at the end of each rehearsal & enjoyed every moment together. What an awesome bunch of people!

This was the other youth team lead by Pat & Megan (my cool roomie since 2012 lol) that was so amazing, both in their cheer & name & wacky night item. Pity we didn't get to spend much time together though.

Another amazing part of church camp was the worship. I remember just feeling so overwhelmed & partially frustrated before camp at the thought of doing/leading worship for four services, worrying about practice times & music sheets & the biggest headache of all, setlists. Oh, dreaded setlists. It didn't help that my throat felt as raw as sandpaper &that I could barely string a sentence together without a hacking cough. Really could not see how church camp could be enjoyable with so much to do, but God really came through in a time of desperation & weariness & did something so powerful through us in the praise & worship sessions. It seems surreal to talk about it now, about how everything just came together & about how people abandoned themselves fully to worship despite the crackling sound system & power failures. & this was regardless of whether it was a full band or just a guitar & two voices leading. It just showed me how much God could move when we fully relied on Him! I'm beginning to understand what people mean when they say that excellence in worship comes not solely from our skills but from the trust that each musician had in each other, & the trust that a worship leader has on his or her team & vice versa. I just have to say that I'm part of an amazing, amazing team.

It's a crazy rant, I know! It was just cool to see the church, particularly our youth group, be so deep in worship night after night. Not caring about what another person was doing, not caring about how he or she looked like to another. It was as if a dam had broken, as if a wall had come down. What a privilege it was, to be a part of it all.

Besides worship & all the team stuff, we didn't do much else except hang out at DJ-ournal or each others' rooms, talking late into the night. The last night, after megs & I invited a bunch of meandering youth to our room, word unexpectedly got around that everyone was gathering at 1106 & by 1am, there were about twenty people squished in our tiny hotel room. It was a little insane, how we managed to order room service & play bridge & the classic 'animal' game despite how exhausted everyone was... Great great fun though.

Though it was mad tiring with all the music rehearsals & team rehearsals & planning for a birthday surprise (Happy birthday Anthea & Beatrice! Love you both.) while also attempting to squeeze in time with my family, I had a real blast. Church camp has just barely passed but I'm already eager for youth camp 2014 & what new things it'll bring!



3. Work.

After deliberating on work opportunities for a while, I ended up helping out at Oops Asia again this summer. It's always a privilege & joy to go back because everyone feels like family & we always have a good time together, whether if it's at a ministry event or jamming spontaneously in the studio or just laughing over something during lunch.

Particularly excited for our new media videos that we're currently experimenting with & shooting. I love little artsy ventures like these where it allows our team to get creative & create something uniquely 'ours'.

(P.S. what I wore to work sometime last week. Love the chill office vibe, something I often take for granted!)




4. Rest.

There isn't much time for this at all, but when there's an hour or so to spare, I love delving deep into old comforts: poetry, song-writing or best of all, afternoon naps. Can't wait for the couple of weeks just before I leave where I can have tons more of this!

Also, having tea in my lovely, new, firetruck-red tea set! Back story: Last tuesday after a gruelling day of work & before young adults lifenet, I met Andry alone for a quick talk at the coffeeshop because he said he had something 'urgent' to discuss with me. After the talk (which had made me slightly anxious the preceding days but turned out to be about nothing much at all), we walked over to church in time for lifenet to start. But when andry opened the door to the main sanctuary, I got a whole lot of poppers & noise & a rousing 'SURPRISE' thrown at me by a combination of youth & young adults...! What a crazy surprise. Turns out that lifenet was but a farce & that Jenn & Jordan etc had been planning a surprise 21st birthday party for me for a while. The rationale was that I would be in Sweden during my actual birthday & they couldn't celebrate it with me, but it was still totally absurd because my birthday wasn't for another six months. Still, it was really, really sweet (until Circle of Death happened... HAHA). I received a tea set & a double set of TWG teas from everyone, which shows how well they know me ;) I can't believe how fortunate I am to have such thoughtful & amazing friends, & I'm grateful for them everyday.

So thank you all, it was incredible.



5. Sunsets & stuff

Photos taken during our nature trip to chek jawa last Friday, which I had to wake up at 550am for. I surprised myself & a lot of other people simply by getting up at all & staggering out of the house. Interesting trip & good fellowship & took some nice photos, but it's going to take much more than this the next time I wake up before dawn.

That's about it for now. It's currently 6am & I've spent the past two & a half hours just putting this together... somehow, it just felt important to do so. I could go on, but it would be mad to continue & so ends the longest post ever.

Will write again soon, but for now, good night!

It is what it is

Most of my friends
are musicians in the subway stations
Making amends with a dark and different world
Paying their dues like a faulty underwater mortgage
Taking the cues from a nonexistent fantasy girl


_______________________________________________________


Gold Motel's latest, brimming with good summer vibes, as always. As if one needs a reminder that we're right smack in the middle of the hottest season of a calender year. Currently living under the oppression of a colossal heat wave, one which I can barely walk straight in.

Time's passing quicker than I could have ever imagined, which is strange, because the days seem fuller as compared to the past academic semester & I'm wondering why my weeks fall through my fingers faster than I can flip through my daily planner. Just came back from church camp a couple of days ago, which was an amazing but mad tiring experience, one I'm sure to blog about if time allows (great worship, lovely people, 3am nights). Then there's the endless parade of paperwork for Sweden, decorating up the studio for our acoustic sessions that's launching in July, time with family & friends & of course, church stuff. There's always something to do.


Everyday's an adventure; I'm wondering when things will finally slow down, slow down enough for me to catch up.

Out of bed, out of comfort

Antlers - We Were Evergreen

Tell Us Your Name - The New Limb

Drifting In & Out - Porcelain Raft

Overjoyed - Bastille

Build Your Kingdom Here - Rend Collective Experiment

Collective Mon Amour - Éléphant

Entertainment - Phoenix

Pompeii - Bastille

Everything's Gonna Be Undone - Band of Horses

No Other Plans - Sunny Levine feat. Young Dad

Big Parade - The Lumineers

Towers - Bon Iver

Charleston - Set Sail

Son My Son - Milo Greene

Wild Things - San Cisco

Cousins - Vampire Weekend

______________________________________________________

Here's what I've been listening to lately, songs plucked out from youtube obscurity & also my Facebook timeline (!): The latest from WWE, tracks from the Celeste & Jesse Forever OST & the lesser-known from Coachella. These are the songs I could spend entire rainy days listening to, days like the ones we've been having, falling asleep beside melody & lavender tea.

I also received my We Were Evergreen package I blogged about earlier this year (x), all the way from London! I had to stifle screams of excitement as I ripped apart postage paper & airmail bubblewrap to get to its contents: a signed poster, handwritten lyric sheets for Penguins & Moonboots by Fabienne & best of all, their first album from 2010! Every track is different, slightly incomplete, but beautiful. There's a fifty-second demo at the end of the record entitled Verano ('summer', in Spanish), a mere fragment of a song which begins with nothing but whistles & a plucking guitar & repeats the lines 'Hang on to summer / Don't let go / Don't let go' over & over. It's perfect in its simplicity. I love how much you can fall in love with a song & how much comfort it can give & how it never asks for anything in return.


I don't know... I'm feeling strangely content right now, just listening to fresh music in my room. Haven't felt like this in a while & it's nice.

In paper & ink

Sometimes, stories are the only things that matter.

1957

The scent you wear moves in lines 
From your apartment into mine
You act like you don't know me 
My god you tempt my anxious mind


__________________________________________________



Soaring, transcendental, liquid, breath-taking. 

And God knows

Fred Astaire's the man for me!

The tide is going home.

Going for a music festival is nearly always a tiring affair; the waiting, the jostling with a sweaty throng of people, and standing for hours on end. It hardly seems worth the effort, and there always comes a point where, out of frustration & pure exhaustion, I inevitably question the reason I came at all.

But then there is the singular moment that comes, unpredictable & sweeping as a tidal wave, a moment so elusive and mysterious that up till now, I feel ill-equipped to describe it. It comes, strong & tactile & palpable, & then ebbs away as if it were a dream. It is the electric moment where everyone stops whatever they are doing, the shoving or screaming or slugging beer or making out, & the air becomes filled with something that I can only describe as the spirit of harmony. It is the moment where in the three-minute space of an otherwise ordinary song, a thousand individuals are transformed into a single body with a solitary pulse.

And this is the beautiful thing: In that instant, no one cares if you are singing off-key or if you don't know all the words or how different you are from the next person, because all that matters is that a piece of music has brought us together like no one & nothing ever can. Sometimes, in the spirit of it all, I take a look around & nearly say aloud to no one in particular, What a strange world we live in. I want to be present in it all. It is then when I realise what a song can do, & suddenly remember why I always come back.

Away with the Lights!

This is a brilliant work of art. I've never loved We Were Evergreen more. Once in a while there's a band like this that emerges, whose music is so exciting that it challenges one lyrically & artistically, and We Were Evergreen is one of those bands. What's even more exciting is that after five years of touring & the release of several EPs, We Were Evergreen is finally recording a full-length album this spring! I couldn't be more excited.

As an unsigned indie band though, Michael, Fabienne & William need loads of help from fans. And now it's possible. It's pretty amazing to me, how lesser-known artistes can make use of this age of technology to create art music, like how Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls managed to raise over a million dollars in a month for her first solo record. It's so easy for musicians like these to just dissolve or disappear altogether due to the lack of funding, and I believe that there's a certain responsibility that music lovers have to ensure that this never happens, particularly to the bands that we love & that inspire us.

Through this self-started kickstarter campaign, you can donate as little as one pound to help fund We Were Evergreen's recording as well as get really wicked band merchandise such as autographed EPs & posters. Great deal, aint it? Look at it this way: a couple dollars is really a small investment for the great music that lies ahead :)

Oh, did I ever have it!

I like simple things. I like street shows & the hum of a train station in Paris. I like music with good &  honest lyrics. I like a song composition which musical backbone consists of only a ukulele, a xylophone & three voices. I like simple things, & it's been too long a time since I've heard such a unique sound... it's absolutely refreshing.

Paris' very own We Were Evergreen has a dynamic tome that never goes out of style; Their lyrics & melodies have a naïveté-like quality to it that is endearing, but not over-sentimental. It's something quite special to see... A beautiful song that emerges when a couple of chords on a ukulele are put together with a bass-line & slick vocal harmonies. I always think that the appeal of indie music comes from the sum of its parts, rather than soaring powerhouse vocals or a huge brass section, because it shows such creativity in complex arrangement while remaining relatable to music-listeners. That's why I will always prefer Andrew Bird whistling a simple tune for a pre-chorus, or Edward Sharpe making a song out of claps and twelve voices over more chart-toppers. We Were Evergreen is a perfect, perfect example of this kind of music. Give it a listen, won't you?

You can listen to more variations of their single, Baby Blue, here & here, and also watch this crazy awesome stop-motion video of one of their earlier songs, Penguins & Moonboots. 

Brand New Bass Guitar

Updates.

Blues guitar, bass guitar.
Nature / Creation
Hipster art exhibitions
Food, as always
Books, as always
Extravagant teas
Non-existent study sessions (oops.)
ROYALTY: Will & Kate
Discovering fresh, brilliant, vibrant music
New things.



Elaboration on the above will have to wait till I've actually had six straight hours of sleep & actually have the mental strength to write a decent blog entry. Till then, my (three to six) readers.

Music for rain

Postcards from Far Away - Coldplay

Holocene - Bon Iver

The Giant of Illinois - Andrew Bird

That was Your Mother - Paul Simon

Your Bones - Of Monsters & Men

Go Out All Night - Givers

Blackbird - The Beatles

English House - Fleet Foxes

Winter '05 - Ra Ra Riot

Come On - Rend Collective Experiment

What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood - The Mynabirds

Birds of a Feather - The Civil Wars

In The Sea - Ingrid Michaelson

Lost Cause - Priscilla Ahn

Passenger - Lisa Hannigan

Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground - Coldplay

______________________________________

It's been raining a lot lately. This weather is far from what most call winter, but it's good enough for me.

Cicada summers

Tomorrow will be the end of summer as I know it. Holidays are coming to an end! It's crazy. It feels as if the last exam of Y1S2 ended yesterday and I was just getting ready to relax with friends & a stack of good books. The thought of fourteen more weeks of assignments & stress... geez. Apologies, it's just the regular school blues. It's been a good summer though.

Every since seeing the scene in the movie Bridesmaids where Annie is handed a tall glass of pink lemonade by the classy waiter (so good that she had to stop & say, 'God, that's delicious.'), I've been trying to fabricate the summery beverage. God knows we need a drink for weather like this. The base recipe for lemonade is dead simple right? A mixture of water, lemons & sugar that you bung into the fridge to chill & twenty minutes later, voila! Lemonade. It's a bit harder than it looks though: the key to getting the perfect lemonade is to get the right ratio of ingredients to suit your taste. In my case, I like my drink more tart than sweet, the light pink shade that cranberry juice gives, & I love the extra fizz that soda water gives, unnecessary as it might be. Most of the time, the best things in life are the non-essentials.

I've been making this since summer last year, huge quantities at a time to last for as long as a week. It can easily be turned into an alcoholic party drink as well, just add a splash of schnapps or light rum, whatever you have in your fridge really. Garnish with lemon & orange slices, turn on a Beach Boys / Gold Motel album (or anything from this summer playlist), & sink back into relaxation.

Pink Fizzy Lemonade

You can halve, double or triple the recipe as long as you remember the base ratio (mine is 1:1:4). Remember that not everyone likes it as tart; you may have to add more sugar to make it sweeter, or more water to make a less-concentrated drink. Also, if you are serving this quite some time later, add the soda water to the mixture just before serving or all the fizz will be gone by then.

Ingredients

12 medium lemons (enough to make 2 cups of lemon juice)

2 cups of white sugar

8-9 cups of club soda

Cranberry / Raspberry Juice

Orange slices

Ice cubes to serve

1. Squeeze most of the lemons, leaving at least one to be sliced for garnish. Put lemon juice aside.

2. In a large pot, heat up 2 cups of club soda under medium-low heat, adding in the 2 cups of sugar slowly till it has dissolved into a thick sugar mixture.

3. Add the lemon juice, stirring constantly for about 3 - 4 minutes till everything has melded together. Allow to cool for a while

4. Pour the warm mixture into two large pitchers, and add the soda water. Add the appropriate amount of cranberry or raspberry juice to colour the liquid a light pink shade, while constantly stirring with a wooden spoon.

5. Put in the fridge to chill for about an hour. Add ice cubes, and garnish with lemon & orange slices.

Makes approx. two 1.5l pitchers 

Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 18

'Give a brief description of yourself.' 

'My name is Dylan (Chan). I'm 16 & I attend SOTA, a local arts school. I specialize in visual arts & even more specifically, graphic design (typography!). I consider music my hobby, an unprofessional art form. Both are things I'm highly passionate about.' 

'Do you have an artistic role model?' 

'I am not really a fan of any human being. Most of the time you develop your own taste & style. But one ultimate designer I look up to is God the creator of the seas & the sky. Like good design, everything has its function & aesthetics. From the intricate nephrons in your kidneys to the expanse of the milky ways, it is impossible to ignore all the beauty around us.'  

'Why do you love the Beatles so much?' 

'The mere mention of their name makes me smile. The Beatles are wonderful! They're legendary. I can say without a doubt that they are the best musicians in the world, although to some people their sounds are a bit outdated, coming from half a century ago... But their melodies, tunes, lyrics & arrangements are just so skilful & thoughtful. 'Foot-tapping beauty'. Some lyrics are frustratingly simple. Simple chords, simple lyrics, all add up to an enjoyable experience of music. Great arrangements credits to the fifth Beatle, George Martin.' 

'What is music to you?' 

'Admittedly, I get excited at the topic of it. Music is immensely powerful. It determines mood, emotion & atmosphere. By nature, it travels through air, which makes it formless & free. What I love about music is the fact that it is there to keep. Forever & ever & ever. Today's technology has made that even more so... Music is unique in form, it exists in sound. It is unseen, which makes it even more real. To me, it's a whole new sense.'

Dylan C, 16

Art student, musician, & clearly suffering from well-known Beatlemania 

Dream

Moon river,

 wider than a mile 

I'm crossing you in style someday 

Dream-maker, you heart-breaker 

Wherever you're going, I'm going your way 

Two drifters, off to see the world 

There's such a lot of world to see 

We're after the same rainbow's end 

Waiting 'round the bend, 

My huckleberry friend, 

Moon river and me 

____________________________________

I've seen loads of Moon River covers, most mediocre & some even terrible. This is the first that made me tear up (just a little!).

This is an interesting band by the way. The Honey Trees are made up of real-life couple Becky Filip & Jacob Wick, who together create beautiful, dreamy, indie-pop music. The best way I can think to describe their kind of music is this: if music were colours, The Honey Trees' songs would be sepia-toned, with a hint of velvet. The feeling one gets from listening to them or watching their videos is that of nostalgia, almost a longing, for days past... music that seems to have slipped from another time or era, & made itself comfortable here. I'd like to leave them on all day, have some tea, and fall asleep into dream...

Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 15

'What inspired you to start dancing?' 

'It started off as more like an extension of my love for music. I wanted to connect to music on another level... but now dance is on a plane of its own.' 

'What does dance mean to you & can you imagine life without it?' 

'It is definitely hard to assign a specific value to dance as it encompasses so many aspects of my life. This may sound like a cliche, but I feel alive when I dance. It means happiness & fulfilment but also challenge & mental strength. It has also given me a chance to be in a community of great dancers who have taught me many things, not just about dance, but about life. I can't imagine life without it.'

Jayne Y. 20

Dancer & music enthusiast

Currently Reading (3)

 1. Paris to The Moon - Adam Gopnik

'Paris, carrying on in a time of postmodern immateriality,when everything seems about to dissolve into pixels. We love Paris not out of 'nostalgia', but because we love the look of light on things, as opposed to the look of light from things.' 

A series of almost-academic essays from a lesser-known New Yorker journalist. We've all read the odd epistolary novel on the Parisian experience by an expatriate, who is more or less in love with the idea of Paris but doesn't address it for the true city that it is. This one's different though. It took a bit of time to get through, but Gopnik's reflective novel on Parisian culture & community & politics is beautiful, & breathtaking.

2. Great House - Nicole Krauss

'There are moments when a kind of clarity comes over you, and suddenly you can see through walls to another dimension that you'd forgotten or chosen to ignore in order to continue living with the various illusions that make life, particularly life with other people, possible.' 

Known for quite a while as the wife of Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated, Eating Animals), well, at least to me, Krauss has come out as her own as a writer. The prose is almost poetic, with swelling rhythms & sweeping phrases, heavy, yet dream-like. She writes an impressive, albeit slightly-confusing novel, about an imposing desk & the puzzling array of characters connected with it. 
Other notable works: A History of Love & Man Walks Into A Room

3. Wilderness Tips - Margaret Atwood 

A collection of ten short stories. Not Atwood's best, but good enough. 

4. The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno - Ellen Bryson

Rubbish.

5. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby 

'What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholic person?'

This cult classic, written in Hornby's trademark wit and narrative voice, isn't ground-breaking, but I like it all the time. 

6. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

'Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.'

Have never been a fan of Murakami's writing. Sure, I've read the big ones: Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I've never seen what the big deal was. And this book on marathon running - Well, I don't really relate well with anything involving physical activity. But strangely, this book was pretty enjoyable. Not a bad read, especially if you're into the sport itself. 

7. 1984 - George Orwell

'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.'

Classic utopian novel. Enough said.

Today... I just felt like writing about books I've read/been reading. Summer holidays haven't really felt like holidays at all, with full-time work, youth camp & the American trip, all following neatly behind each other. And college starts in two weeks. It's been nice though, having these snatches of time: half-hours on trains, whole days in a newly-discovered clandestine cafe, or sprawled on the bed at home, to read. 

Also, I've been banned (by anti-hoarder mom, who else?) from buying any more books till I've read all the ones in my room. We're moving again soon (surprise!), and all I want is a separate room to be modelled into my own library. With the requisite scarlet easy chair, and cosy fireplace.

Too much?



Other book lists from other times
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(2)