Down Under Views

Hello and welcome to the first ever 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:

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

Going to Read (in no particular order):
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:
The Art of French Kissing – Kristen Harmel

What’s on your shelf?

In every big city, there is a place where you ‘have’ to go to get great food. For Melbourne, that place is Lygon street.

Of course, there are so many cafés to choose from that, if you’re not familiar with the area, you pretty much just go into one and hope for the best. That was pretty much what I did when I picked out University Café.

The first thing you are likely to notice about University café is the number of places available to sit. You can watch the world go by or enjoy the beautiful weather in the on street seating, choose from one of two sections on the ground floor indoors that are split by a staircase that leads up to the restaurant if you want to come back later for dinner.

There is the typical Italian fare available on the menu – everything from foccacias to pasta. There is also an absolutely delicious looking assortment of cakes and pies, all available for you to drool over at the display case inside the café.

One thing I couldn’t help but notice is that for a ‘university’ café, there are quite a few meals that would be above a student’s budget. That isn’t to say there aren’t affordable options on the menu, but expect to pay for your pasta.

The coffee is as excellent as you would expect it to be, with all the strength and none of the burnt flavour. However, if you like your macchiatos strong (two shots), you’re going to have to ask for the extra shot. I lingered over my coffee of choice – flat white – and quite enjoyed the smoothness of it and none of the unpleasant bitter taste you occasionally get with flat whites.

For the reader rating, I have given University Café a newspaper because of the feel and the business of the place, but it’s more than obvious this café is a very popular place to meet up and have a chat. There is almost always a wide assortment of people sitting down or getting takeaway, but the place never seems to get too noisy, which is a definite plus.

I can easily see this as a wonderful place to sit and watch the world go by for a while as you enjoy a nice cup of coffee (and perhaps a bit of reading as well).

Coffee Rating: 4 Cups
Coffee Price: ~$3 – 4 AUD
Café Reader Rating: Newspaper

University Café
257 Lygon Street
Carlton 3053

Phone: 9347 2142
Fax: 9347 0705
Email: bookings@unicafe.com.au

There’s more to life than this.

Good-girl Cat Connelly is bored of playing it safe. Despairing of finding love, she decides it’s time to break all the rules in search of some excitement…

Ciao, bella!

Taking up an invitation to go to Italy for a month seems the perfect solution. But suddenly Cat finds herself alone in Rome! It will take an unexpected friendship, a whirlwind tour of the Eternal City, and a surprise encounter to show Cat that life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will – but that the best things are often to be found in the breathtakingly unexpected.

The Long Story

As an expat, I have recently developed a love for stories involving travel. Stories that combine romance and travel are all the better. That is why Italian for Beginners seemed exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, I was left feeling a little flat.

At the beginning of the book, I didn’t get a real feel for the character. Instead of being swept into the story, I couldn’t help but feel like Harmel was exerting too much control over the characters, making them say what they ‘need’ to say to get the scene where she wanted it to go instead of letting the characters truly express themselves. Even Cat’s first introduction to Michael felt forced rather than like anything containing natural chemistry.

Even so, I read on, enjoying Cat’s love of photography as well as her observations of Rome. I felt a bit put out at the Roman Holiday references because I’ve never seen the movie, but Cat never had either, so it helped me to connect a little with her.

Despite my so-so feeling about the writing, I began to settle into Cat’s self-examination. A lot of her feelings lined up with things I’m going through now and thoughts I’ve had, so I finally truly connected with her as a character. It was unfortunate that it happened so late in the book, but the fact that it happened is still just as important.

My review is long enough as it is, but I have to mention the Michael situation, which annoyed me to no end. I guessed the situation at the beginning and felt that Cat’s stubbornness was not only forced but that there had still been plenty of chances to tell her the real story anyway.

Again, I feel the story should have been left to flow.

If you like stories that end all neatly wrapped with a big pretty bow, this is the book for you. There are about ten pages in the last chapter that could have been taken out for the sake of leaving some ‘strings dangling’, which I prefer in a book rather than having everything cleanly ended.

Overall…

The Short Story

There were quite a few things in terms of the writing that threw me off with this book and kept me from getting into it, but it still makes a good story of personal growth.

***
Rating: 2 Stars

[What do the ratings mean?]
***
Italian for Beginners
By Kristin Harmel
http://www.kristinharmel.com/
ISBN: 9780755347438
340 Pages

What’s the most informative book you’ve read recently?

Living Like You Mean It: Use the Wisdom and Power of Your Emotions to Get the Life You Really Want by Ronald J. Frederick is the first book that came to mind when I read this question.

Living Like You Mean It is a book that I thought I didn’t need, wouldn’t get a lot out of reading – if I could finish it at all – and wouldn’t give the greatest review of because of its non-relevance to me.

My husband got his hands on it and read it first. One particularly emotional night for me, he used some of the ‘being mindful’ techniques you can find in the book, and I’ve been a huge fan ever since.

If you have any sort of trouble with emotion – and most of us do – then this is a great book to help you start addressing things. I’m going to resist the urge to go into review mode and just say it’s a wonderful book that has helped me to look at my childhood and the influence it has on my emotional responses today.

Definitely informative.

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

We got so, so close last week, but not quite. So I don’t have a winner to announce this week. However, that means the goal number of titles doesn’t go up!

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: Five
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:

Prince

I Say: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Richard Howard

You Say…