I’ve read another book for the SEA Reading Challenge! I actually heard about this a while back but was a bit intimidated to pick it up because it’s supposed to be immensely important in the world of Filipino literature. So bear in mind that I’m writing this as an ordinary person who’s just trying to… Read More Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal
Happy Lunar New Year everyone! Hope you had a great festive season with family and plenty of feasting! I’ve been very happily eating lots of steamboat and catching up with extended members of the family (and spending some time reading and drinking tea, of course) I loved The Bear and the Nightingale and I thought… Read More The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
I know I said no more teas for a while, but then I saw Kittea’s Year of the Pig tea and I was like “my gastric can’t get any worse”. Plus, this is a seasonal tea and I am such a sucker for seasonal items (living in Japan was so dangerous to my wallet). The… Read More Kittea’s Year of the Pig Tea
I found this book at the annual Popular Bookfest, where it was being sold at a 73% discount! Since I love fairytales and myths, I had to pick up this book (I was actually pretty good at the fair and only bought two books – the other being How Not to be a Twit, a… Read More The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends by Peter Berresford Ellis
I picked this up because, as I’ve probably mentioned before, I have a family vacation coming up (I am definitely not going to be able to shut up about this) and while part of my preparation is figuring where to go, another part is figuring how I’m going to tell stories about my trip when… Read More Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing by Don George
If you’ve been to a Chinese restaurant (especially one in Hong Kong), you’ve probably had puer. It’s a post-fermented tea and is said to aid digestion. I heard a lot of things about puer, about how Malaysia (and I suppose by extension, Singapore) are great places to age it, about how people buy them for… Read More Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic by Jinghong Zhang
As part of my research into the world of Genji, I decided to read up about the history of Kimono. Unfortunately, most library books are for reference, so I borrowed the only one that wasn’t – The Kimono: History and Style. This book is a very beautiful book that takes a pictorial look at the… Read More The Kimono: History and Style by Ito Sacico
So this was a pretty fun read (and may mark me rereading more cozy mystery books if I can find them). Dry Bones is the third in the Village series, staring retired Colonel Hugh, who lives in the village of Frog End. By the time the novel starts, he’s already solved two cases and settled… Read More Dry Bones by Margaret Mayhew
I once took a course on how to wear kimono, partly because I thought they were lovely and partly because I owned two sets and didn’t know how to put them on. The course definitely helped me get the basics down, although I definitely need to practice, but one ‘side-effect’ was that I ended up… Read More All My Kimono
After I borrowed this book, I realised that I’ve already read it 6 years ago. But all I know about what I thought then was a four-star rating on Goodreads and the line: “It’s definitely not the kind of mystery I was used to, but it’s interesting in its own way.” I was definitely way… Read More Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
