It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It's a great post to organise yourself. It's an opportunity to visit and comment, and er... add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. And here we are!
First of all, Happy Year of the Dog to everyone out there!
The lunar calendar made it's round to the new year on Friday, and obviously Baby approves of the occasion, as it is going to be the Year of Baby! Or, well... you know...
The weekend was kind of filled with a bit of fun and festivities, although not as much as we used to have when I was younger. With everyone busy, busy, busy these days, it's hard to find a good time to get together for much. At the very least, our immediate household did our thing with yummy, traditional feast food that always seems to grace the table whenever we celebrate anything!
There is always roast duck, roast pork, a lovely seafood soup, the big pot of tofu and veggie stir-fry, and various other savory dishes of the seafood variety (or not). And then to top it all off, we have our steamed white rice that was cooked with the very flavorful Chinese sausage--with all of that sausage oil being dripped into the rice, it gives it a delicious touch.
Everyone, this food is not for the light of heart. We Chinese love to eat flavorful and savory... and apparently we also love to eat oily and anything that will probably give us high cholesterol.
But, hey! It's just so, so yummy!
I suppose the diet will finally start after this last holiday is over... *crosses fingers*
What I Read Last Week
Meanwhile, in bookish news, I've been slacking on my reading, which makes me extremely glad that I hadn't truly made a lot of reading challenge commitments. I started reading two books this week, but didn't finish Cold Image until just this morning, in the wee hours a little after midnight. It took longer than it should have, for many reasons...
Cold Image is bite-sized, and I typically would have flown right through it like it was nothing, being a romantic suspense with a lot of factors I liked, and a premise that was quite promising. But time got away from me... and the book wasn't what I'd expected from Leslie Kelly after reading others of her works, and I was sadly disappointed. There will be a review to come at some point.
Aside from getting sucked into an online multiplayer RPG with my brothers, I've also been indulging in a YouTube vlog called 'Strictly Dumpling.' The host of this vlog introduces you to a lot of wonderful cuisines in places such as New York, San Francisco, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and most recently Vietnam. And if it's one thing I love just as much as books, it's food, and Mikey Chen, the host of this vlog, does a wonderful job of showing us great places to visit and eat.
His focus is on Asian cuisine, which was how his vlog started off in the beginning, but I like that he's trying to branch out as well, as there is a food vacation tour of Peru as well. I mainly have been loving this YouTube channel because this guy is strangely funny, with weird descriptions and analogies that sometimes make no sense.
Meanwhile, I don't always agree with a lot of his opinions pertaining to Chinese food, but I still love the way he presents them at his channel. If anyone is interested, hop on over and watch a few if you like. I highly recommend his most recent Vietnam vacation, as he features a lot of really awesome looking food for uber wonderfully affordable prices... well, after the plane ticket, I suppose.
Anyway... now back to our not-so-regularly scheduled bookish news...
What I'm Currently Reading
Meanwhile, I have a feeling I might have started loving All I Want because of our heroine, Zoe, but I tend to forget that Jill Shalvis is best taken in small doses. As I had already finished listening to two other books in this series... I think I might be a bit Jill Shalvis-ed out. I'm going to go ahead and continue listening to this book, as it is also narrated by one of my favorite audio book voices, and it's not like things are getting too tedious. There are just always some Jill Shalvis elements that I will find a bit... repetitive, as well as frustrating.
On the other hand, I also started reading the third Tremaine Traditions book by Kylie Brant, Truth or Lies, and am immensely enjoying, having already breezed through the first quarter of the book. The main hero, however, is annoying the heck out of me, and I'm hoping some development will come about rather than our heroine falling for him just because he's supposed to be badass. She's smarter than that, and if it's one thing Kylie Brant is good at, it's writing smart heroines who aren't always losing their panties just because a man has a smoldering gaze.
What I'm Planning to Read Next
Other Plans On the Blog
As you can see above, I'm hoping to finish the rest of Kylie Brant's Tremaine Traditions, hopefully all this week, or at least by next week. In which case, I'll have a full series review ready to publish at some point. Following, I'm interested in continuing on with my Author Love challenge and hit another Jayne Ann Krentz book, or two. Light in Shadow and Truth or Dare are books in a duology called Whispering Springs, and I'm looking forward to it... also I've checked out the second book from the library, so it needs to get read.
The blog has been sadly quiet lately, but with all the holiday "festivities" over, I'm hoping on getting some more posts planned and ready to go. Maybe I'll be able to start some more books and have more reviews ready. Maybe I'll just work on transferring more previously written reviews to Ani's Book Abyss. Or maybe I'll just start filling out weekly memes again, just to have something to blog about.
I've already started drafting a few future posts, and am trying to figure out where to go from there.
Either way, like I keep promising, I really want to start being more active once again. It feels oddly depressing to be away from the blogging community for so long just because I can't think of anything to write about. And a lot of the time, I'm really just lurking, reading posts and commenting randomly.
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