Almost Favorite Books

I've finally finished making the reading page (link is below the header - reading) to look as I wanted. For no reason, other than to fulfill my blog's first part of the tagline (reading & scribbling) I thought I share a list of my favorite books and some favorite quotes. It's not a definite list as I might find more favorites later on. Making this list has made me realized my reading taste has changed but I'm not sure if it's for the better. Anyway, I thought I share a list of the books that didn't make it on the list. You can say these are almost favorites books or maybe past favorites.

01 - The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis - I enjoyed the series but not all the books or how the series ended. My favorite or at least, the book I like the best in this series, is The Horse and His Boy.

02 - The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw - I guess I kind of ignored the sometimes complicated writing which sort of make the story less enjoyable. I didn't completely mind the ending was depressing as I really liked the story.

03 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - This used to be a favorite but now I find it a bit depressing with an undertone of something unsettling that I cannot place.

04 - The Princess Bride by William Goldman - Honestly, I like the movie better but mostly because the grandson is less intruding and the ending ended at the point where all is happy rather than the depressing one in the book. When I re-read the book, I stop where the movie stops.

05 - The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - I remember I really liked this when I read it but now I find it too depressing to even re-read.

06 - The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - As much as I like Sherlock Holmes, I didn't really like the stories all that much. Too much focus on the victims and the culprits' lives, not enough of Sherlock and Watson. And I guess I got spoiled by all the tv/movie adaptations.

07 - Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - Maybe I outgrew this but it's definitely the only book from an animal's point of view that I liked.

08 - Any Agatha Christie books - I read tons of Agatha Christie last year (or it could have been the year before) but I don't have a favorite among them even though I did enjoy Miss Marple and Poirot's company. But mostly because I find murder mysteries are rather harder to be a favorite. Certainly, it's not so great for re-reads.

How about you? Do you have almost favorite books?

Fiction: Flying toasts, irritable cats, three-legged witches, a duck and a funeral wake

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by David M. Gascoigne and is hosted at Elephant's Child's blog over here. This week's prompts are: solar, polls, true, people, indication and/or celestial, temperature, concern, obvious, surreal. I used the second half of the prompts.

Fiction: Flying toasts, irritable cats, three-legged witches, a duck and a funeral wake

The funeral wake, for it was a funeral wake, was held in Aunt Tella's 100-year-old, three-story Victorian house. Mrs. Sigh, Aunt Tella's housekeeper, explained it must be a funeral wake as Tella liked to combine things to save time though she was not religious but she sometimes attended church when she was in a bad mood. As Mrs. Sigh put on a record of celestial music, she said the cool temperature and the half dark sky was just right for a burial.   
    It was a small gathering consisted of the priest, Father Thyme, four men from the funeral service, Mrs. Sigh, Dimple Caroline Small, niece and only relative of Aunt Tella and if you counted the corpse, Aunt Tella.
    Standing beside the opened casket, Father Thyme was making his speech about life and death. On his left, Dimple stood. She eyed the piles of toast across the room on the large table full of breakfast food. The toast was another thing Mrs. Sigh said was what her aunt would want. Mrs. Sigh also insisted there would be no bright red orange things as Aunt Tella disliked the color. Dimple wondered if that was all Mrs. Sigh's concern - what Aunt Tella would want - she spoke of nothing else. It was obvious Mrs. Sigh had a fondness for Tella though she was old enough to be Tella's mother but still called her Aunt Tella.
    A group of strangers entered Dimple's peripheral view. She turned her head to get a better look. There was the three pairs of old women who were bond to each other by their legs and walked as if they were three-legged. The seven old men looked like models for mens clothing all dressed in well-pressed suits with well-groomed beards and mustaches. The six white cats with one having a black spot on its back loitered with eyes full of intentions. The little girls and boys all appeared as if they had been rolling in mud while wearing their finest. They left muddy prints on the wooden floor. All appeared comfortable as if they were at home.
    Father Thyme was still talking. His drone voice seemed to have no pause even as the strangers came closer. It took a while to get any kind of answers from Father Thyme. When you asked him a question, he would think it over for about a minute or more and sometimes fell asleep with eyes opened but he did say Aunt Tella was a recluse so who were these strangers? Dimple wondered.

Is it still a blog if commenting is turned off?

I'm so used to blogs that allow readers to leave comments that when there is no such option, it's odd to me. The commenting is the interaction between blogger and readers (and sometimes reader to reader) and that's what makes a blog a blog, at least, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
    As a blog reader, I don't want to be sending emails or filling out a message box to make a comment on a post. It creates a detachment from the post. Also, without comments, you don't get to see what others said nor interact with them. It feels like there are no readers or that everyone's invisible except the blogger and that's weird. But maybe it's a matter of preference?

What do you think? Is it still a blog if commenting is turned off?

Nook in the Universe - Spot the Difference

Here is a new-ish art titled Nook in the Universe which I turned into a Spot the Difference game. I worked on this for months using Affinity Designer which I'm still learning how to use but I think they turned out pretty good. Can you spot the 12 differences between these two drawings? Answers are here.  (Click on images for a larger view) (M. Faith is my pen name in case anyone is curious.)

Here are the individual drawings:

Fiction: The Fighting Lodge

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are provided by David M. Gascoigne and is hosted at Elephant's Child's blog over here. An additional prompt from Charlotte (MotherOwl) is bright red orange. This week's prompts are: decent, necklace, ecosystem, money, ground and/or armed, way, lodge, willing, guardians.

Fiction: The Fighting Lodge

Everyone was armed or it seemed but Eva didn't see the need but then again, her weapons weren't the kind you kept in holsters or pockets. Fighting wasn't her way as she came from a long line of natural pacifist or so her grandmother used to remind her. Generations of their families were against all forms of violence but that didn't mean she should stand still and let herself get hurt.
    The lodge used to be a haven for visitors and tourists but now it was a place for fights and misdemeanors. Of course if you named the place The Fighting Lodge, who wouldn't feel the need to fight? Everyone — tourists, visitors, regulars, locals — was willing to defend themselves even for the most trivial matters. This, of course, go against Eva's family's stand on violence but then her grandmother was the one who renamed the lodge to The Fighting Lodge.

Seven Things

01 - I've been reading nothing but book samples and that's okay — I guess I'm not interested in reading much these days. Reading slump, reading fatigue, reading pause, whatever you call it, is not something to make a big deal of. I'm a moody reader who don't always want to read and there's no changing that. Reading is reading even if you never finish a book.

02 - A book I'm never going to read: The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud — Why are there cannibalism in a children's adventure book? I was going to read this but decided I can't deal with the above matter. One reviewer said it was intense and in real time - just no to this. This is not a spoiler. I guess this is content awareness of a sort. But what's irks me more is the wholesome cover - the girl is blowing bubblegum for goodness sake. See the cover here.

03 - A book sample that I'm not sure I should have read — A book started in the point of view of a 2-year-old but his age wasn't mentioned in the beginning so when he mentioned soiling himself, I just go what? He may be a baby genius but I just cannot believe his brain would be that developed that he can understand what he sees or thinks in a comprehensive way although judging by the writing, it seemed to try to make him a bit dumb about things but at the same time, not really. Was I prejudiced because of his age? Maybe. I don't know. I just found it kind of unbelievable. So, yes this is fiction but if I can't even believe it on a general level, then what's the point? Is this author reaching for the way-way-way youth market? Baby geniuses aside, if the author had made him 4 or even 3, I might believe it more. Even though this was a prologue (the rest of the book is told from his adult view), I still don't like this introduction to this main character enough to read the book. (I can't remember the title but it was the first book of a series.)

Signal the movie

04 - Recent film I watched: Signal The movie: Cold Case Investigation Unit > link
This was okay although I wondered why the policeman (Saegusa) went to battle three guys while his fellow two policemen are in the control room staring at screens. Saegusa got stabbed, shot at, punched and pretty much almost died but no one was there to help him. What is the point of being in a team when your team members aren't doing anything while you fight like crazy with the bad guys? In the end, Saegusa dragged himself to where the culprit was, all bloody and wounded, why? So he can be the sole hero? But no, the solution is something else which means his fighting was kind of in vain. I'm not going to spoil it for you but if you have seen the show, then you know how this movie would end. Watch this movie for free with commercials at youtube here.

05 - It's kind of odd the way Blogger now only works with tracking protection off. You can't sign into other Blogger blogs to comment unless you turn off tracking protection. I don't know why that is when it wasn't like this before they changed spam filters (or whatever it was changed that had to do with spam). Of course my browser remembers my options so I don't always have to turn tracking protection off but why do we even have to anyway? You can leave comments without signing in (assuming the blogger had chosen to allow anonymous commenting) but I don't like using anonymous to comment when I have a Blogger account. (To turn off tracking protection in firefox, you just click on the shield icon next to the url address bar.)

06 - Because of region restrictions or region block, I cannot watch the last season of Vera. The company that mades the show didn't allow digital purchases in the U.S. which was how I watched the show but I didn't get to watch all the seasons because of region restriction. So yes, I can subscribe to Britbox to watch the episodes I missed and the last season but I refused. I'm not going to subscribe just to watch one show. I guess I'll have to read episode recaps to find out what happens or maybe not.

07 - Firefox keeps asking me to update even though I have updated a million times already — Why don't they just make it that you update to the very latest version whenever you update? Why does it work in increments? So yes, apps needs to be updated for security reasons and such but come on, how much update can they do anyway? I can download the latest, greatest version but then I would have to rebuild bookmarks and preferences but that won't solve the update problem because there will always be updates. Why did firefox removed the option NOT to check for updates? Why don't users have a choice to check for updates and then choose when to update? Why are app makers (and computer makers) keep removing options that allow users to make choices? Are users so dumb that the choices have to be made for us?

What's on your mind these days?