Dinara Tengri

This post doesn't really need an introduction. It's a list of all the books that my brother and I bought between October and November 2016. Isaac Asimov  1. Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection  2. The Complete Robot: The Definitive Collection of Robot Stories 3. Robots and Empire (Robot series #4)  Ray Bradbury  4. A Medicine for Melancholy  5. The Golden Apples of the Sun Philip K. Dick  6. Ubik   7. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Harry Martinson 8. Aniara: En Revy om Människan i Tid och Rum (Aniara: An Epic Science Fiction Poem) Pierce Morgan 9. Red Rising (Red Rising #1)  Robert Louis Stevenson  10. Treasure Island H.G. Wells  11. The Island of Doctor Moreau

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish .  December is only a couple of days away, and we all know what this means. It means most of us are going to spend a considerable share of our income on presents. When I buy presents, I try and make them as personal as possible. And is there a better way to show that you know someone than with a book?  I thought long and hard about this list (for about an hour) and as the first holiday-related Top Ten Tuesday, I present to you the list of Ultimate Bookish Gifts to Give to Your Friends. There's something in here for everyone. Alright, almost everyone.   For the sci fi nerd 1. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams They'll love it. Trust me.  2. The Stories of Ray Bradbury A beautiful, hardcover edition of some Bradbury's most celebrated works. Need I say more?  For the fantasy fanatic 3. A Dance of Dragons, th...

Who's up for some magic? Because today, I'm reviewing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , the latest film set in the Harry Potter Universe. I went to see Fantastic Beasts last night with some friends from school, and I just had to give my two cents about it. This review is going to be completely, one hundred percent spoiler free, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, you have nothing to worry about. Fantastic Beasts is set seventy years prior to the events in the Harry Potter books/movies, but it's not a prequel . Oh, no, this movie is doing its own thing. Aside from a few hints and references, the story in this movie has no connection to Harry Potter whatsoever. I did not have to re-watch any of the Harry Potter movies in order to enjoy Fantastic Beasts , and that is the first good thing I have to say about this movie. In this movie we follow a young wizard by the name of Newt Scamander , played by the one and only Eddie Redmayne, who travels from London ...

Last Thursday, I went to a science fiction tea party. It was hosted by Malmö City Library  and it featured two women who work at the local SF book store. They did a Power Point presentation on the subject of science fiction in literature . More specifically, futuristic science fiction.  I went there both as a book blogger (completely incognito, should the question arise) and as a rabid fan of SF literature and hot beverages.  The presentation was short- about forty minutes, minus the following Q&A, but the book store ladies still managed to cover most of the themes that are typically found in futuristic SF. The bulk of the presentation was space, and what it represents in the SF. Space is the final frontier of discovery and exploration. But space is also big (unfathomably big), and thus it functions as the perfect backdrop for discussing and exploring themes like diversity and xenophobia, war and peace, and cultural identity. Space is basically a playground for...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish .  This week I'm talking about movies. Specifically, movies from my childhood. If I were to make a list of all the movies that I watched and loved as a child, it could easily have been a top 100 list. Instead, I want to focus on the select few that really defined my childhood, and that had an impact on me even in the adult life. Needless to say, I still love all these movies, and they have more than just a nostalgic value to me. For the sake of simplicity, the list will only feature Hollywood productions.   1. The Naked Gun  Probably one of the first American movies I ever saw. And one of the funniest.  2. Some Like it Hot  What can I saw about this movie? It's perfect. It also taught me everything I know about the Prohibition.  3. Aliens  Because what would my childhood be without strong female protagonists?  4. Peter Pa...

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it was founded by Chris Baty in 1999 (check out this link for full history of NaNo) The term "national" is a bit misleading, since the project is very much international with volunteers and participants from many different countries around the world. Each country is divided into different regions. My home region is called "Europe-Sweden-Elsewhere", where the "Elsewhere" stands for any region that is not Stockholm or Gothenburg. Every region has its own Municipal Liaisons, and these are the volunteers who help run the show and make the whole NaNo experience easier and more fun for the rest of us. They are in charge of organising the so-called write-ins, where people from the same region gather to write and converse about... well, writing. Although, anybody can organise a write-in, provided there's enough interest and time.  I did NaNo two times before. I never won, but I still had a blast...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish .  When I'm not studying or doing NaNoWriMo, I'm carefully planning out my reading goals. Here are ten books that I have recently added to my TBR.   Some of these books have been on my radar for years. Others are as new to me as the stuff I'm learning about at school.  1. The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector's Story  Hyeonseo Lee 2. Outlander Diana Gabaldon 3. Intercept: the Secret History of Computers and Spies Gordon Corera 4. On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft Stephen King 5. The Fellowship of the Ring J. R.R. Tolkien 6. Quantum: Bohr, Einstein and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality Kumar Manjit 7. The Space Opera Renaissance Kathryn Cramer 8. Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos  Isaac Asimov 9. Magic: the Final Fantasy Coll...