Books Read and Unread....

I was reading through Josette’s blog Books Love Me, and saw this meme. So here goes….

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. + The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. + Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. + To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. + The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. + The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. + The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. * Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. * A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. + Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. + Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. * A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. + Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. + Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. * Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. + Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. + Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. + The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. + The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. + Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. + Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. * Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. + 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. * The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. * The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. + The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. * The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. * Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. + The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. * The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. + Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. * The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. + Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. * Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. + Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. * The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. * The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. * Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. + Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. * Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. * Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. * The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. * Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. + Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. * In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. + Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. * The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I didn’t cross out any, because there might always be the possibility of my picking it up in the future….

What's with the attitude?!?

I have a grouse of sorts…. It’s been bugging me every time I’m faced with it, but I keep forgetting to write about it. So here goes….

Hubby and I - we like to go gallivanting here and there. And most of the time it will take up most of the day. So because of this we often perform our prayers at suraus or prayer rooms provided at the various shopping malls.

Every time I go to these suraus, I will feel like a hypocrite - my intention is to pray and yet I will leave the surau with bad feelings. You see, whenever I meet anyone there I’ll try to look at them and catch their eye and the very least smile. Sometimes the ladies who are there smile back. Most of the time, they don’t. And I’m like wtf?? Isn’t smiling a sedekah?

It also pisses me when some people come into the surau and proceed with their prayers oblivious to others who are there. I’m not saying that you should be a chatterbox and try to talk to everyone, but what’s wrong with smiling, nodding your head or even giving the salaam. Odd isn’t it? Aren’t all Muslims brothers and sisters? And yet here, in the place where you come to perform your solat, you look at people from the corner of your eyes. And when we all share the mirror to put on our tudungs, you jeling-jeling and tengok orang semacam. Apa masalah kau? Ini surau, tempat beribadat. Tempat merendahkan diri, bukan tempat hipokrit. Solat tonggang tonggek, dengan sesama muslimah pun tak tau nak senyum.

See, I’m so pissed that it’s got me rambling in BM.

That Boyz II Men Thing....

This entry is so long overdue. But nonetheless, I’ve got to put it in as it marked a special moment in my life.

Two weekends ago, hubby and I went to Genting to catch the Boyz II Men concert. We went on Saturday, the 27th and took the bus and skyway up. We got there at about 2.30 p.m. and collected our tickets at the Arena of Stars. Then we checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Theme Park Hotel, which was merely a stone’s throw from the Arena of Stars. I’d purposely avoided the First World Hotel, coz the last time we were there (in 2004) we were not so happy with the room. It was so minute! Okay, so I digress….

We went to the First World Plaza and had a fun time taking loads of pics, which incidentally you’ll not see here (to keep my anonymity as mudslinger). We went back to the hotel at about 5.30 p.m., just enough time to rest before the concert. Doors opened at 7, so we wanted to be there by then - which meant we had to skip dinner, and have supper.

The show it self was amazing. We were so ecstatic and we had fun singing and dancing to old faves like On Bended Knee, Four Seasons of Loneliness, I’ll Make Love to You, and newer stuff from their latest album. They ended with a great performance of End of the Road, and an even greater rousing rendition of Motownphilly for the encore.

All in all, it was a great performance and we left the Arena with sore throats (and hungry tummies). We were lucky that there was a Coffee Bean at the lobby of our Hotel. So that’s where we had yummy chicken pie and lasagne. And we sat there and chit-chatted the night away, reliving the experience.

The next day, we had breakfast at the Resort Hotel. It was so cold that day in Genting! It was freezing and misty. After breakfast and a short tv watching session, we packed our bags, and checked out at noon. Then we headed to First World Plaza again for lunch, before heading back to the skyway station to take the cable car and bus down.

It was so much fun. The weekend seemed longer than two days, probably coz of the many activities that we did. Fun fun fun!