Down Under Views

Welcome to this week’s (and the first ever) By Any Other Name book game!

We got so, so close last week, but we didn’t quite get there. The good news is that means the goal number stays the same!

If you’re new to the challenge, this is a game from my dear friend Calliope that gets us to play with book titles.

The game works like this:

1. Each week I will choose and a book title that features that word.
2. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles). The author would be nice, too, in case I want to check it out.
3. If you make it to the challenge number of titles (make sure you read the challenge section each week because it can change), then I will draw one name from all the participants and that person wins!

It’s really not complicated. I pick a word and you list titles with that word. Easy peasy.

The current challenge:

Titles to Reach: Eight
Titles Per Person: Two

What can you win? The winner receives any one of the books on this page along with a bookmark (or two!).

I’ve decided this is a much better way of doing things rather than offering the SAME book over and over. Plus, I will be adding to the giveaway shelf as much as I can, so keep checking in to see what’s on offer.

So if you’d like a chance to win, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Wednesday where you’ll get another chance to win a book – regardless if you have won a book previously!

The word this week is:

Dragon

I Say: A Practical Guide to Dragons by Lisa Trumbauer

You Say…

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read.
2. Open to a random page.
3. Share two (or three or four, if you’re me) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Left to Die by Lisa Jackson:

A muscled worked in his jaw and he took another long swallow before looking at her with such intensity her heart nearly stopped.

“Believe me, Jillian, you don’t want to know.”

I’m Watching You by Mary Burton:

Lindsay rose, then began to pace. She moved around her townhouse like a caged animal.

Hello and welcome to What I’m Reading. Every now and then I put up my massive list of books that are on my TBR self. (Yeah, I was eventually forced to by a shelf.)

Since my old site locked down, I’ve had an influx of books to review come in (how the heck does that work?), so I figure it is about time to refresh the list…

Newly Arrived:
The Jewish Lady, The Black Man and The Road Trip – Carol Sue Gershman

Reading:
Writing as a Sacred Path – Jill Jepson
Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories – Lorraine Clissold

Going to Read (in no particular order):
Stewards of the Flame – Sylvia Engdahl
Arrows of Time – Kim Falconer
Saffron Dreams – Shaila Abdullah
The Vision – C.L. Talmage
Fallout – C.L. Talmage
The Scorpions Strike – C.L. Talmage
Kissing Games of the World – Sandi Kahn Shelton
Supernatural – Graham Hancock
Neutron Star – Short story collection – Larry Niven
Firebirds – Fantasy/Sci-fi Anthology – Edited by Sharyn November
The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
The Redemption of Althalus – David and Leigh Eddings
The Serpent Bride – Sara Douglass
The Twisted Citadel – Sara Douglass
Season of Sacrifice – Tristi Pinkston
Copper Star – Suzanne Woods Fisher
Copper Fire – Suzanne Woods Fisher
The Lost Diary of Don Juan – Douglas Carlton Abrams
The Daughters of Moab – Kim Westwood
Scattered Leaves – Richard Roach
Song of Sorcery – Elizabeth Scarborough
Lose the Diet: Transform Your Body by Connecting with Your Soul – Kathy Balland
Dying for Mercy – Mary Jane Clark
First Night – Tom Weston
Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams – Pat Williams
Coming Together – Joyce Norman and Joy Collins
Laced with Magic – Barbara Bretton
Necking – Chris Salvatore
The Silver Cage – Mathilde Madden
The Book of Scandal – Julia London
The Pact – Jodi Picoult
The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy

Upcoming Reviews:
Football is for Lovers – Bob and Kaye
The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein
My Splendid Concubine – Lloyd Lofthouse
Lost Souls – Lisa Jackson
Left to Die – Lisa Jackson

What’s on your shelf?

When I first decided to review cafés, I decided without really thinking about it that I wouldn’t review cafés in large shopping centres. But, the more I thought about, the more I realized that even shopping centre cafés can have noticeably awesome staffs, do an excellent coffee and have other features that might keep me coming back.

Thus, here is my first review of a large shopping centre café: Café Moderno in Eastlands shopping centre.

For a place located in a food court, Moderno has taken advantage of the small space they have to their best ability. From mirrors that make the tucked in dining space appear bigger to rather chic and modern furnishings otherwise, you can somewhat escape the crowds to sit and enjoy a coffee.

The coffee is decent and well made, but it’s always good to specify exactly what you want in terms of strength if you want something other than the ‘decent standard’ you’d usually find almost anywhere in Melbourne and suburbs. If you aren’t quite in the mood for coffee, Moderno always has some sort of deal going. Hardly one to offer the same deal every day, they might have anything from all-day breakfast to a discounted new milkshake flavour.

The food is great, most items falling in the good price and good flavour range. There have been a few things that made me scratch my head in terms of pricing but certainly nothing to stop me from going there altogether. If you like pastas, pizzas, focaccias and the like, this is definitely a place to check out.

Always a big plus in my book, Moderno uses a loyalty card system (buy five to get one free) to keep customers choosing them over the multitude of other choices. The buy to free ratio isn’t the best I have seen, but it is better than a lot of other places in the same food court – if you can get a loyalty card at all.

My disappointment comes in the inconsistency of staff attitude. I have had some staff make me feel great and eager to come back while others make me wonder if being a shopping centre food court worker is one of the rings of hell. No one has been rude to me – a plus – but there are some prime examples of people who shouldn’t be in hospitality who are working there.

Overall, it’s a nice stop – one of my preferred for take away or stop in. I’m not keen on staying there much, but that’s more a matter of the masses of people than anything the café is doing.

I would like to note that the only reason I have rated this place as a newspaper is because it is in a noisy shopping centre food court. With a space more to itself, I would give it a higher rating.

Coffee Rating: 3 Cups
Coffee Price: $2.70
Café Reader Rating: Newspaper

Café Moderno
Shop G013
Eastland Shopping Centre Food Court
171 – 175 Maroondah Hwy
Ringwood 3134

Things may look a little funny here for the next few hours. I’m doing some template testing.