Sunday Salon: Nostalgia and reading

Now there's some old books...
Image copyright: Kath Liu 2011

I don't know if it's a result of coming face to face with my long-lost past during The Big Trip or if it's just one of those things that comes around once in a while but right now I have a serious case of nostalgia. I've been looking up all of my favourite tunes from the 90's and enjoying a good little bop down memory lane. I've been singing along with Eternal, dancing around my living room to En Vogue and re-living the best of Tupac Shakur. For a bookish British girl, you might think that I have a very unexpected taste in music, but I'll bet you didn't know that Tupac was, according to one of his biographies  Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur by M. Dyson, a huge reader.

In any case, this attack of the nostalgic got me thinking about the books I had read and loved as a younger person. More specifically, books I had read and loved 10 or more years ago that I hadn't re-read. Would I still love them? Is it possible for the books we loved in our youth to ever going to stand up to us reading them again as adults?

I mean, I'm only 28 years old but already my perspectives have shifted significantly in the single decade it took to get me from only-just-adult to only-just-figuring-out-life. Goodness only knows what changes, lessons and wisdom will come in the next decade or two! So I wonder - are the books I loved then bound to be a little tired now? Or is good literature just plain good no matter how old you are?

I guess it depends on the books and to be really sure I'd have to go back and road test a few old favourites... but with the mountainous To Be Read pile staring at me balefully from my bookshelf, I should probably spend my time on discovering new favourites rather than trying to re-spark something that I may have already outgrown. Sometimes it's kind of like your first love - you look back with fond memories and sometimes you allow yourself to wonder 'what if...' but going back is rarely a good idea. It's better to keep it on the treasured memories shelf rather than let is slide into the what was I thinking bin.

Have you lost any happy memory books by re-reading them at a later stage? Or have you found something fresh and new in old favourites?

Me? I'm just happy re-living the musical moments of years gone by. Good tunes never get old!

Taiwan Book Festival 23rd and 24th April



View from the top of Taipei 101
Image copright: Kath Liu 2006



For those of you who love books and are located in Taiwan, there is a Book Festival happening in Taipei this weekend. It is being organised by Mark, of Alleycats Huashan and John, a long term Kiwi expat and author. There will be group discussions on pre-set topics, question and answer sessions, presentations from local authors and, most importantly, the chance to stock up on hard-to-find and second hand titles. It is also going to be the launch of the Taiwan Book Exchange. Can I get a "whoop whoop"?!

The details are as follows:

When: 23rd and 24th April, 12-6pm both days

Where: Alleycats, Huashan Creative Park,

No. 1, Section 1, Bade Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City

More information: http://taiwanbookfest.com/

I am going to be there in both an official and a buying armloads of books that I'm not entirely sure where I will put when I get home capacity on Saturday. In my official capacity I will be at the Community Services Center table helping to sell our range of fabulous publications and provide resources and information for the International Community in Taiwan. Hopefully I will be able to get sufficient time in my second capacity to have a look around, take a few photos, check out a few books and report back here once the event is over. If you're in Taipei that weekend I might see you there!

My new toy!

I found this awesome Macbook cover by Twelve South after reading this post on the Books on the Nightstand blog. It was love at first sight. Luckily, after observing me drooling over my laptop keypad, hubby decided to get one for me. Isn't he just awesome?! You see why I married him!

The inside is velvety and soft and the outside is leather hardback. It looks and smells divine - like you just dusted off an old classic from the top shelf in your library. Perfection.

I'm so in love with it that I organised a mini photo shoot, the results of which are below. Enjoy!

Best Blog Awards

This cool award button is from: Tales from our crib

So December has hit like a freight train and I've been completely snowed under by a sudden onslaught of things to do! As if Christmas wasn't enough I have also recently taken on an editing project which I'm really excited about but it's taking up a lot of time and mental energy. Hence the severe lack of posting lately. But! I was revitalised, honoured and oh so chuffed when I saw that Caroline from Caroline By Line had awarded me a Best Blog award! Talk about a shot of encouragement right when you needed it! The timing couldn't have been better and has gotten me back on the laptop tapping away. 


So, to pass on the love that Caroline has shared with me, I want to post my Best Blog Awards. 


The recipients are:
1. Greg at The New Dork Review of Books
2. Brizmus at Brizmus Blogs Books
3. Amanda at The Zen Leaf
4. Alessandra at Out of Blue
5. Helen at Helen Loves Books


Winners, please select five further winners and so the chain of love can continue!!

The most awesome wedding invites. Ever.

As anyone who knows me will know, I am a complete nut for not only books but stationery, pens and all things paper-based. I was that kid who couldn't wait for summer to be over so I could buy new exercise books and colour-coordinate my folders. My favourite thing about planning my wedding was making the invitations. And I thought my invites were pretty darn cool.... until I saw these on Jessica Claire's website/blog:

If you'd like to see the genius behind these invites, have a look at her website.

I take my hat off. In fact, they're so beautiful I almost want to cry.

E-Book vs actual book

Photo credit: Here

I learnt a new word today: Kindle.

Kindle /'kIn-dəl/ (n)

The device upon which e-books and other digital media may be viewed. Weighs about the same as a light paper back and can (without additional storage devices like SD cards) store about 200 non-illustrated titles.

I heard about this on The Strand, the weekend edition of the BBC's global arts and entertainment programme, last week. Immediately I was driven to wikipedia to find out what on earth this thing was all about and see for myself the very thing that was apparently threatening to wipe out my beloved paperbacked friends and the havens that shelve them. I found this article - apparently the Kindle and other devices like it such as the Sony Reader are the "iPod moment" for the publishing industry according to Miguel, an assistant in a London bookstore being interviewed for The Strand. He said that he thought this was "the future of literature" as books were clearly not sustainable due to the amount of paper they require and how many trees have to be cut down to meet this demand. And yes, I admit, thats a very large amount of paper, sure. But what about the negative environmental impact of manufacturing this device? What about when it breaks or is no longer useful - everything mechanical has a limited shelf-life and I'm pretty sure it won't be so easily passed on or recycled as an old book.

Photo credit: Here

It got me seriously thinking though. Would I ever consider buying one of these things? At their current price (around US$250) it's a definite "Are you kidding?!" from me, but let's imagine for a moment that money is no object.... Nope, I still wouldn't want one unless there was a really good practical reason for it like I was about to be marooned on a desert island where I could not take any books (but there was, handily, a power source) and I had no other human contact for a month. I mean, it's not like I'm a technophobe. I have a much loved iPod and regularly purchase music from their iTunes store. I've even downloaded a couple of audiobooks onto my iPod but I never seem to finish them - it's just not the same as reading the book proper.

Reading a book is an experience. It's not just about the plot or the characters. It's a journey that starts with choosing a book at your local library or bookstore - two places I absolutely adore. Going into a library or bookstore is like coming home. You can smell the books, see the covers and run your fingers over shelves of untold reading delight that awaits you. Walking around a bookstore you discover things - a cover catches your eye or you see a "Our Recommendations" tag and hey presto, you pick up a book and you're pulled into a world you would never have known else. The journey continues when you get home and your new book makes it's way onto the bookshelf, nestling alongside all of the other books (if you're like me) you've acquired over the last however many years. Well worn favourites live alongside those you have still yet to read on the ever-burgeoning "Gotta read that!" list.

Then, of course, is the experience of reading. Nothing can quite beat the feeling of settling down in your favoured reading location with your new acquisition or a battered copy of a book you've read a million times but always get something new out of. Nothing can beat the smell or feel of the pages as you open the cover. Nothing can beat the hot cup of tea by your side as you plunge into a new world or revisit a well-trodden road, which more often or not I look up at an hour later to find cold and untouched - the hallmark of a good book. You see - it really isn't about the story. And I think those that claim that soon enough books will be outdated and merely a relic of a past time are wildly underestimating the strength or extent of the love affair between that exists between bookworms and our beloved books.

Photo credit: Here

The Kindle and the Sony Reader and other inventions like it are all well and good but will never ever truly replace the book. At least not as long as I'm alive.

I love Edward Monkton!!

For more fantastic pearls of wisdom, check out his website here

It's pure genius.