books

when book shopping, i have a few "requirements":
non-fiction
in reasonable condition
not ugly cover (i know...)
paperback

that's about it really. i read most genres, anything from psych to history, adventure to religion, science to travel, self-help to food. this is a major reason why i try to always purchase from used bookstores, to limit myself. there's simply too much to read otherwise!!

a couple of my favorite genres are travel memoir and pop science (i don't have a science background, after all, so i need to keep it relatively simple). i don't love history as much, since i get easily confused with names, places, and dates. it's one of the reasons i don't like fiction anymore, actually. there are too many characters to keep track of. i forget them since i never really take the time to learn their names. hermione would've been impossible. i would've remembered it as "h name with lots of vowels ends in e".

i also don't read fiction anymore because at some point it all seems to be the same. that thing about how there are only 7 basic literary plots? i think it's true. however, my absolute favorite books are all fiction, lol!

august 2014

jennet conant - tuxedo park  [16-2]
jerri nielsen - ice bound [28-4] 
steve pond - the big show: high times and dirty dealings backstage at the academy awards [3-13]
peter hessler - strange stones [6-13]
leslie chang - factory girls: from village to city in a changing china [14-30]
susan casey - the devil's teeth: a True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks [16-31]

(turns out that authors peter hessler and leslie chang are actually married to each other!!

pacific rim (2013), divergent (2014), the grand budapest hotel (2014)