The Bookiest time of my Life

found out that my $30 book voucher expired few days ago. Panicked. it totally slipped my mind mayb becuz i was too busy in bankstown. regretted for procastination for the pass few mths (well i was waiting for the newest edition of lonely planet-western europe)
went down to unibook shop today. asked the shopkeeper if i still can use it. the shopkeeper was so nice that i almost fall in love with him on the spot. haha " of course he said i can still use them lah!"
yonxian said i am so cheapskate and thickskin to use an expired voucher , but i totally dont' feel like it in anyway.... it's such an foreign idea to me that using an expired voucher =cheapskate....hahaha mayb i m born cheapskate. haha....y shld i throw away the 30 dollars i earned with my sweat and skin

linger around the med books section, concluded that i shld not buy a med related bk becuz:
1. i have had enuf of medicine
2. they are juz not worth buyin in OZ when i can get so much cheaper in msia
3. i have tonnes of e-books and the INTERNET google and medline.
4. even if i bought one, i m nt sure whether i will utilise it fully.
at the mean time i regret my decision of buying some med books the past few years due to my ignorance

then i wandered to the scientific writing section
saw the FAMOUS richard dawkins section and the notorious God Delusion....wanted to own it....(wondering what's all the fuss about) tried to borrow it last year during hols but it was so sought after that i didn't manage to hold it for more than 3 days before someone reserved it.

Read more about him Here

but then after watching the richard dawkin's documentary on God's Delusion recently which sorta gives the summary of the book. i agree with him with most of the points but disagree with how he interviewed the religious people, he shld hold a more open poliate perspective instead of being so intrusive, disagreeing and confronting when he was interviewing people. obviously he is going to agitate and offend people and make people look bad on the tv. when you disagree with people so strongly why bother interviewing them in the first place -_- (at least be fakishly polite when you interview them lah)

so i decided that i shall not buy his book
no point buying a book that tells me things that i have already known juz thru my logical thinking , reasoning and various encounters through my short 23 years of life

then i wandered to the Travel section
and found that the Lonely planet western europe is still not updated.
call bro for opinion. call the lonely planet office to ask for the date of the release of new edition
only found out that it would be january/feb nex year. by that time i'll be in europe d.
so no point buying. at the mean time, bro suggested me buying the china or eastern europe version. but figure not worth buying. I figure could easily get around in china by getting the travel pamphlets. no big scale drama

Fiction is my last solution
and i chose the final 2 :D after figuring i shall not waste my time on crime/romance fiction tho they still have their attractions

1.INFIDEL by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
read bits of it in MPH bondi
Hirsi Ali writes about her youth in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, about her flight to the Netherlands where she applied for political asylum, her university experience in Leiden, her work for the Labour Party, her transfer to the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, her election to Parliament, and the murder of Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the film Submission. The book ends with the controversy regarding her citizenship, which helped bring down the Dutch government.

The launch of the book in the Netherlands was a great success, with the initial print run selling out in two days. ^[4] A review in de Volkskrant concluded that "anyone who discovers Hirsi Ali's tumultuous history can only sympathise with her". The German edition of the book, Mein Leben, meine Freiheit, debuted in the top 20 of the bestseller list of Der Spiegel.

The book was also well received upon the release of the English edition in 2007. Reviewing the book for The Sunday Times, Christopher Hitchens called it a "remarkable book."Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum, writing in The Washington Post, said "Infidel is a unique book, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a unique writer, and both deserve to go far."A review in The New York Times described the book as a "brave, inspiring and beautifully written memoir". In an interview, Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria described it as "an amazing book by an amazing person".

-adapted from wikipedia
Click to know more about this Book and the author

2. ZADIE SMITH on Beauty
by recommendation of the shop keeper. he picked this amidst all the shortlisted books
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2006
and has a orange sticker of "a Great Book for a Rainy Day" *winkz*
i would like to add on a cuppa hot choc with it :) or free flow of Black Label Orange Juice
. seems like a interesting girl kind of book . i like the fact that it involves daily lifes
On Beauty centres on the story of two families and their different, yet increasingly intertwined, lives. The Belsey family consists of university professor Howard, a white Englishman, his African-American wife Kiki, and their children Jerome, Zora and Levi, living in the fictional university town of Wellington, outside Boston. Howard's professional nemesis is Monty Kipps, a Trinidadian living in Britain with his wife Carlene and children Victoria and Michael.

The Belsey family has always defined itself as liberal and atheist, and Howard in particular is furious when son Jerome, a newly born-again Christian, goes to work as an intern with the ultra-conservative Christian Kipps family over his summer holidays. After a failed affair with Victoria Kipps, Jerome returns home. However, the families are brought into proximity again nine months later when the Kippses move to Wellington, and Monty begins work at the university.

Carlene and Kiki become friends despite the tensions between their families. Rivalry between Monty and Howard increases as Monty challenges the liberal attitudes of the university on issues such as affirmative action. His academic success also highlights Howard's inadequacies and failure to publish a long-awaited book. Meanwhile the Belsey family is facing problems of its own, as they deal with the fallout of Howard's affair with his colleague and family friend Claire.

Zora and Levi both become friends with Carl, an African-American man of a poorer background than their own middle-class lifestyle. Zora uses him as a posterchild for her campaign to allow talented non-students in university classes. For Levi, Carl is a source of identity, as a member of a more 'authentic' black culture than Levi considers his own background to be.

~adapted from Wikipedia

click to know more about this Book and the author

you can see some similarities in both. Basically i want something that is empowering and strengthen my self belief through pple's life experiences.


i am actually looking forward to read them tho I dont' have the time yet.
As you know i dont' usually read but if i read i want to read something good and worthwhile
will definitely review on them once i m done. which could be well after my elective trip.