Stories

“Stories have changed, my dear boy,” the man in the grey suit says, his voice almost imperceptibly sad. “There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognize for what they are. And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep overlapping and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there in no telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl. And is not the dragon the hero of his own story? Is not the wolf simply acting as a wolf should act? Though perhaps it is a singular wolf who goes to such lengths as to dress as a grandmother to toy with its prey.” 

--

“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that... there are many kinds of magic, after all.”

 ERIN MORGENSTERN, The Night Circus.

 “I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” 

--

“Books were safer than other people anyway.”  

--

“I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.” 

NEIL GAIMAN, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Stories are important...They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.”  

--

“Stories don't always have happy endings."

This stopped him. Because they didn't, did they? That's one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn't expect.” 

--

“Stories are the wildest things of all. Stories chase and bite and hunt.” 

PATRICK NESS, A Monster Calls

 

Secrets

“Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.”

-ERIN MORGENSTERN,  The Night Circus

The Grey Area

“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.”
--

“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.” 
--

“Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers' daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You'd be surprised.”

-PATRICK NESS, A Monster Calls

Completed

At the beginning of the new year, I set out on a Goodreads Challenge.
To read 22 books in 2013.

Last year, 2012, I had a goal of 10 books.
to read 10 books in 2012.
10.
I only managed 9.

It's so easy to stop reading.
Hence, I took up this challenge.
Read 22 books in 2013.
My children will emulate what I do.
If I want them to read, I have to read.
They have to see me reading, and loving it.
I do so love reading.

I may not always have time to read.
That's why it may take me weeks or maybe months to finish a 300+ page book.
I don't care. It's not a race.
As long as I get to read.

And today, Alhamdulillah, I finished my 22nd book of 2013.

The 22 books read in 2013

Abe and Henry

Henry

“Judge us not equally, Abraham. We may all deserve hell, but some of us deserve it sooner than others” 

-

“Without death,' he answered, 'life is meaningless. It is a story that can never be told. A song that can never be sung. For how would one finish it?”

-

“Living men are bound by time... Thus, their lives have an urgency. This gives them ambition. Makes them choose those things that are most important, cling more tightly to that which they hold dear. Their lives have seasons, and rites of passage, and consequences. And ultimately, an end. But what of a life with no urgency? What then of ambition? What then of love?” 

Abraham

“There are but two types of men who desire war: those who haven’t the slightest intention of fighting it themselves, and those who haven’t the slightest idea what it is.”

-

“The true roll in determining to embrace or reject anything is not whether it have any evil in it but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.”

-

“But I am happy. And happiness, I have decided, is a noble ambition.”

 -SETH GRAHAME-SMITH, Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter

Giant Wisdom

“Do not forget," the BFG said, "that human beans are disappearing everywhere all the time even without the giants is guzzling them up. Human beans is killing each other much quicker than giants is doing it."

"But they don't eat each other," Sophie said.

“Giants isn't eating each other either, the BFG said. Nor is giants killing each other. Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats.

'They kill mice,' Sophie said.

'Ah, but they is not killing their own kind,' the BFG said. 'Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.'

'Don't poisonous snakes kill each other?' Sophie asked. She was searching desperately for another creature that behaved as badly as the human.

'Even poisnowse snakes is never killing each other,' the BFG said. 'Nor is the most fearsome creatures like tigers and rhinostossterisses. None of them is ever killing their own kind. Has you ever thought about that?'

Sophie kept silent.

'I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said.' You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?'

'Right,' Sophie said.

'But human beans is squishing each other all the time,' the BFG said. 'They is shootling guns and going up in
aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.'

He was right. Of course he was right and Sophie knew it. She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants. 'Even so,' she said, defending her own race, I' think it's rotten that those foul giants should go off every night to eat humans. Humans have never done them any harm.'

'That is what the little piggy-wig is saying every day,' the BFG answered. 'He is saying, "I has never done any harm to the human bean so why should he be eating me?'"

'Oh dear,' Sophie said.

'The human beans is making rules to suit themselves,' the BFG went on. 'But the rules they is making do not suit the little piggy-wiggies. Am I right or left?'

'Right,' Sophie said.

'Giants is also making rules. Their rules is not suiting the human beans. Everybody is making his own rules to suit himself.”

- ROALD DAHL, The BFG

Oh So Pretty

You see, when you are very pretty, people tend to remark on your looks. They smile at you more easily. They are more permissive of your faults. Soon, you come to believe that your prettiness matters, and that you are better because you are pretty, and that all it takes to get through life is batting of your eyelashes and a twisting of your hair around your little finger, and that you can scream and pout and shout and tease because everyone will still like you anyway because you are so unbelievably pretty. This is what many very pretty people think.

Beware, then, for this is how monsters are made.

ADAM GIDWITZ, In A Glass Grimmly.

Stars

"Some war," he said dismissively. "What am I at war with? My cancer. And what is my cancer? My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They're made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me. It is a civil war, Hazel Grace, with a predetermined winner."

- Augustus Waters

"Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin."

-Doughy, bald, Dutch cab driver.

JOHN GREEN, The Fault In Our Stars.

By far, one of the best books I've read. The most honest and intelligent, heartbreaking and hilarious book I've read. And definitely, one of my favourites to date.

Two weeks...

"That makes two weeks, she would later write in the basement.

Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it."

MARKUS ZUSAK, The Book Thief

Another

Alhamdulillah.
Another year.
So blessed to have seen 27 years, praying for more in shaa Allah.

I took the Goodreads challenge for 2013.
To read 15 books.
I failed my 2012 challenge.
Pledged to read 10 books, only managed 9.
The number pledged is low because I'm being realistic.
I have a newborn and a 3 year old.
I'd be lucky to get to read at all.

And it's Colin Morgan's birthday.
Every new year should always be greeted by this gorgeous face.

Source [x]

Reading List... Growing

Remember this post?
Remember how I was supposed to remind myself to NOT buy anymore books?

Yeah.

This post is to tell you, I've failed.

Bought these books online during the Black Friday sales.
All hardcover.

Itu pun Husband goaded me to buy more.
I was tempted to.
But, I digress.

Tiny Stories

I absolutely adore this book.
It's genius.
It's passionate.
It's just... wonderful.

As a booklover and a bookworm, this is one of my favourite tiny stories.

I am definitely getting Volume 2.

*Disclaimer: Posting photos as a fan. I do not own the story or the art*

Reading List

Dear self,

These are the books who've yet to read. Please finish them first before you buy some more books.
Please.
Please.
Please.

Dear Husband,
You are an enabler. Your "It's ok. It's always good to buy books" and "You can never have too many books at a time" is NOT HELPING. I love you, though.

Reading with the Leapfrog Tag

 
Faris' recent birthday, his wonderful Aunty Julia bought him the Leapfrog Tag reading system.
I've seen it in stores but never really had the idea of what it actually is.
I'll tell you what it is; It's all kinds of awesome.

The Tag reading system is a smart pen-like device that helps your child read.
Once you've synced it with your computer, you can store up to 5 books in the Tag reader.

You point the pen/ Tag reader onto the page/sentence/word and it'll read it aloud for you.

Now, the Tag books.
With the Tag reader, there are so many things you can do:
1) the Tag reader reads the story for you/your child
2) you can read along with the Tag reader
3) there are interactive games/quizzes on each page, if not, most pages.
4) the Tag reader says/spells/phonically sounds out words - teaching your child to read and spell
5) or you can just read the book aloud with your child, without the Tag reader.

It's just really wonderful. And with repetition, Son can already read-along a little bit of  "Click Clack MOO!".

Looking forward to expanding the Tag books library in this house. I'll be cataloguing all of the Tag books at Faris' digital library blog: Knight's Books

If you have a younger child, and would like to introduce reading at an early age, you should try the Leapfrog Tag Junior reading system.

Underground

Underground. Which I hate. Like mines and tunnels and 13. Underground, where I dread dying, which is stupid because even if I die aboveground, the next thing they'll do is bury me underground anyway.

Katniss Everdeen

SUZANNE COLLINS, Mockingjay

Love; The Selfless Kind.

This is love as I've derived from Charlie's letters:

"I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think that on my next birthday, I'm going to buy her a present. I think that should be the tradition. The kid gets gifts from everybody, and he buys one present for his mom since she was there too."

"I never once thought that it would mean Sam might start liking me. All I cared about was the fact that Sam got really hurt. And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter."

-STEPHEN CHBOSKY, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The October Country

The man pictured above introduced me to "The October Country".
And consequently, Ray Bradbury.
I've since grown to love Ray Bradbury; his stories. His prose.
And I love that man for it.

And coincidently, I finished reading "The October Country" today (on August 22nd), which is Bradbury's birthday.

"I was only twelve. But I know how much I loved her. It was that love that comes before all significance of body and morals."

- RAY BRADBURY, The Lake (from "The October Country")

Picture of Matthew Gray Gubler courtesy of Terry Richardson

The Beauty...

...of being an English Literature major is that we were exposed to so many briliant works that there's never enough time to devour them all.
To have read World Literature in English opens one's mind to others' worldviews and cultures, which is simply extraordinary that it somewhat beats traveling.

...of being an English Literature major from an Islamic-based university is that we were exposed to the remarkable (translated) articles written by accomplished Muslim scholars from the golden years of Islam.

...of being an English Literature major is that our journey through the world of literature doesn"t end once we've received our degree.

[source of image]

Parenting Motto

Our parenting motto is simple:

There can neither be too many books,


nor toys.


But still, it's not about the quantity.
It's about the time and lessons you, as parents, impart on your child(ren).
Toys and books are just aids.

Real

"Everything you can imagine is real."

- JOHN CONNOLLY, The Book of Lost Things