Bookish Escape

escaping life’s relentless pace
with a book in hand and tea to taste
pages turning mind at ease
worries fade, with each chapter’s breeze
lost in tales of wonder is all I need

with each sip of tea, I feel my soul warmed
stress and worries are slowly gone
with every word, I find my ease
as the pages turned, I am free
with my escape, I’ve overcome

for in these moments, peace was found
a break from life’s relentless sound
in this peaceful refuge, I’ll stay
until I’m ready to face another day
with newfound strength, I’ll be ready to fight

as I close the book and set it down
the real world gradually creeps back in
but I know that these moments are mine
a treasure to cherish and I will always find
peace and comfort in this simple retreat

so I’ll return to these pages from time to time
to escape reality and find peace within
renew my strength with a book and tea
for in this world, I am forever at peace
forever thankful for the refuge they give

2016 Reading & Blogging Goals

I’m back and hopefully more appearance than the past few months! Sorry for being MIA, there are just so many things that happened before 2015 ends like the wedding of one of my best friend which makes me super busy being a Maid of Honor, then there’s also the holidays and other life’s obligations. But now that I’m back I’m very much excited to share to all of you my 2016 reading and blogging plans.

Unlike last year where my reading and blogging plans was more “go with the flow” this year I’m actually lay-outing a more detailed plans with the push of my closest reading buddy Precious of Fragments of Life. Together we are organizing a blog event called “Celebrating Debutantes 2016”, wherein we are featuring debut authors of 2016 and their works. Since I love meeting new authors and discovering great talents I am actually excited to host this event with Precious.

Precious and I also targeting literary titles as part of our monthly reads this 2016. With a goal to try different genre than our usual YA fantasy or contemporary read we are trying a more mature/serious tone of reads. We already picked our target tiles for each month so watch out for our reviews.

As for my goodreads reading challenge this year, I’m back to 100 books to read. Last year I tried to cut it down to 50 books expecting for a more lay low reading in 2015, then eventually changed it to 100 since I am reading more than I targeted. I’m happy to report that I did finished the 100 books goals for 2015. Let’s see how I will perform for this year.

That’s all for now, will have to layout other plans too beside reading and blogging for 2016.

I hope everyone’s 2016 is getting off to a great start! Happy New Year to all!!!

2015 Reading & Blogging Goals

Happy 2015 Everyone! How’s everyone year so far? I hope 2015 brings us all good cheers and blessings. 2015 is actually kicking pretty fast for me, it’s just few days since the year started but I feel like I’m in the fast lane already doing all the planning and other work related stuff. I foreseeing the year to be very busy which push me to decide to alter my blogging and reading plans. Instead of pushing myself with all the reading goals and challenges like what I do every year, I decided to cut all the goals for 2015 and just let the tides flow for me. No tight goals or concrete plans but to enjoy blogging and reading.

I’ve already cut my goodreads reading challenge goal to half – from the usual 100 books per year I’m doing a 50 books this year. I’m also hoping to read most the books from my shelves and lessened my habit of acquiring new books without having definite plans or timeline of reading them because I’m usually stack with my for review pile. As for getting books for review, just like last year, I will continue to stop requesting book for review. If I get an offer to review books I will consider them but will only accepts those books I think that I will really like or will definitely love. I’m also cutting joining review tour this year – this one will be bit hard since I’m one of the admins of a local book tour site but I’ll still try.

I’m going back reading more non-fictions books too beside those usual required reading for work. Last time I checked, the nonfiction area of my shelve is almost non-existence compare to the volumes of YA fiction books I have. Even if I add those dozens of self-help titles that I lend to my friends they are still too small compare to fictions books I acquired for the past years.

There are other plans but all these plans and goals are just more of a reminder for me to just removed the restrictions and the usual lines of schedule and target goals. Time to go back reading and reviewing for my own enjoyment and just share the love for written words without the hassle of obligations.

SWEET EVIL Read Along Week Four: Halloween

This is the fourth and final week of Sweet Evil read along hosted by Mindy of Magical Urban Fantasy Reads together with her other co-host bloggers, Rachel of Fiktshun, Jaime of Two Chicks On Books, Tara of Tater’s Tall Tails and Nancy of Ravenous Reader. This week topic discussion is Halloween and we are required to read chapters 26 through 31 (pages 341-447). From these chapters we encounter Kaidan and Anna attending a Halloween Party which is where this week’s theme is based.

As for my Halloween…

Well, truth to be told, my Halloween experiences were as boring as they can be! I never experience attending Halloween party as a kid. Trick or treat doesn’t exists in my location until much recent years when I am too old to participate. My younger memories of Halloween is spending it with my family and relatives visiting the graves of our death relatives, bringing flowers, food and praying for them. On the night of Halloween, my Mom always light candles on our altar and even in our door steps. I don’t understand much what are those candles for, other than each candles represents each of our death relatives. Maybe it’s part of remembering them during this season and sending prayers as well.

Other than those usual ceremony, I also spend Halloween watching scary movies with my cousins, or simply chatting in dark with ghost stories scaring each others. Stories I never discover the authenticity which makes it harder to believe as I get older. I never really get scared by their stories anyway, no matter how interesting and convincing they delivered it. I like watching scary movies especially Japanese horror films, but I haven’t found one that really scared the hell out of me.

I never experienced attending costume parties for Halloween until when I was much older to organized one for others. My parents, especially my Mom doesn’t really approved of partying during Halloween, unless you are a kid. That she can tolerate more. She think Halloween should be spend more for the dead people, than attending party. Kids now a days are way luckier than me. They got the chance to do trick or treat with their friends, get candies or sweets and attend Halloween costumes parties.

Back to the book…

I already finished reading Sweet Evil during the second week of the read along. But I still do a re-read once in awhile as I love re-reading Kaidan’s scenes. Some of the quotes I like from this week required chapters read are:

“I’ve got a joke for you,” Kaidan told him. Jay nodded his head, ready.
“What’s the difference between a drummer and a savings bond?”
“I don’t know. What?” Jay beamed bright yellow.
“A savings bond matures and eventually makes money.”

“What do you want from me, Kai?”
“For starters?” His voice lowered to sexy, dangerous depths. “I want to introduce myself to every freckle on your body.”

For those who haven’t read the book yet, I hope those two quotes above will be intriguing enough to finally push you to start reading. You don’t want to miss Kaidan and Anna’s story. And since this is the final post for the read along, let me thank you once again the organizer/host and co-hosts of this event. Without their effort I wouldn’t discover Kaidan and Anna’s world or simply met Kaidan.

Catching Up with Reading and Blogging

It’s been almost a month since my last update here. Forgive me but I am just too busy with the other part of my life lately, doing a lot of travelling and exploring. Still I don’t leave any single chance to read, though. I always bring my Kindle with me wherever I go. May it be beaches, mountains or just anywhere I went. Problem is since I’m too ecstatic with my travel adventures I could not focus on writing any book review for the life of me. Sometimes things are just too much to handle at once.

Now, I’m trying to catch up updating, reading, and blogging. I won’t bother you all discussing my travel adventures because even if I try I’m sure I won’t be able to write those coherently. There are things that are just too much to share. So let me update you instead with my reading lists, after all this is a book blog right?

Since my last book review post, Rapture by Lauren Kate. I managed to finished reading eight fictions titles, one is The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg and the complete seven books of Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. Currently I’m reading three titles from different genre. One is The 360 Degree Leader Workbook: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization by John Maxwell which is way overdue already. The other one is The Elephant Vanishes: Stories by Haruki Murakami and the last one and my priority read for today The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I’m hoping to finished reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower before I see the movie adaptation this weekend. I actually started it last night but I ended reading only the first chapter before I fall asleep. Hopefully I can get back reading it tonight after the party I needed to attend to.

My next reads after I finished the three books above will include another J.K. Rowling book, which is her latest novel, The Vacancy as well as Mitch Albom latest novel, The Time Keeper. These two books are part of my most awaited title list before their released on the market. Other than these there are few books that are part of my required reading such as Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins for the read along this coming October 1st, The Man Painter by Melissa Turner Lee for review, and some PM books for works. 

Other than reading and blogging I’m also behind with the latest news and books releases. I haven’t hit any book stores for quite awhile and I haven’t much online too, so please so update me via comments below about what the things I’ve missed when I’m gone.

How Fast Do You Read?

Do yo know how fast reader are you? How many books can you finished in a day? Just awhile ago I came across an apps from staples.com that can test reader’s reading speed. Being my curious self, I tried and took the test. The result of my first try said that I am 29% faster compare to the US readers average speed. I also got the three questions correct. Then I tried a different sets of passage and length too, which just resulted to a higher reading speed than the first. I think the first try is more accurate, though. In my first try I don’t know about the test style or format, no expectations or anything.

I usually read word per word, unless I’m in a hurry or I just feel that some parts aren’t really important. I don’t consider myself as a fast reader. Compare to other readers I think my speed is fairly average or maybe a bit slower than others. One reason is my vocabulary. English isn’t my native language which makes my vocabulary not that vast compare to others. Even I understand and can fluently speak English I still encounter words that are beyond my comprehension. I don’t usually search the meaning of those words, I just try to understand it by context but still it makes me pause my reading in few seconds.

Also, I think my reading speed vary depends on what I’m reading. I read faster when I am reading fictions or stories especially when the story is really interesting. If the story is dragging tendency is I am more lay back with my reading. If I am reading non-fictions, reference books or any informative article, my style is to try to absorb most of the details and contemplate which make me read a little slower than reading fictions.

How about you? How’s your reading style? Do you have idea how fast do you read? If you are interested in finding out your reading speed, you may try the application from staples. Simply click the image below and you will be redirected to their site. There will also a quick questions after so make sure you understand what you read and don’t just screen the words. There is also an option to change the test length, book passage and font size. Take the test and let me know what results you got. Have fun!

Source: Staples eReader Department