Our little bunny breathed his last on the 22nd of June 2021. He was short by a few months to his 7th birthday. For a lop-eared dwarf bunny, I read that 7-9 years is the average lifespan. So he was almost a senior in human age. Since we are living in an apartment building with…
Simple Hungarian: Fifty Topics for Beginners is a useful supplementary reader for Hungarian learners who want something beyond traditional textbooks. Its short, everyday texts introduce practical vocabulary through repetition and gradually ease the reader into the language. The book covers the same 50 topics in both the present and past tense, with translations and comprehension questions included. It cannot replace a textbook, but it provides valuable additional reading practice.
Told through the letters of eleven-year-old Tate P. Ellerbee to country singer Hank Williams, Dear Hank Williams is a warm and moving story about family, love and grief. I enjoyed Tate’s innocent humour and the vivid portrayal of childhood in post-war Louisiana. The letter-writing format made her feel especially real, while the songs she mentioned encouraged me to listen along and helped bring the late 1940s setting to life.
Lucy Maud Montgomery, created another and better-known representative of Canadian girlhood in “Anne of Green Gables” and all the subsequent Anne books, but Emily was closer to her own heart. Like Anne, Emily is a strong-minded, gifted, imaginative child, left alone and unprotected in a harsh world, who is taken in by adults who are at least initially cold and unloving. Both girls grow up amid the beauties of Prince Edward Island, both keenly sensitive to natural splendors and highly fanciful, not to say occasionally precious, about assigning names to lakes and trees and identifying spirits and fairies in their surroundings. Anne is an original and spunky girl, with a certain amount of talent for writing verses and romantic tales, but Emily is a writer.
Yesterday being a rather gloomy and rainy Sunday, we decided to stay indoors and watch a movie. And that movie was Shawshank Redemption. I had watched it like 4-5 times now perhaps. It never gets old.
Though I’ve watched the movie that many times but it never occurred to me to actually read the book of which the movie was adapted from. Yesterday afternoon, right after the movie I decided to look for the book and change that.
Ikigai is a traditional Japanese concept that embodies happiness in living. It is, essentially, the reason that you get up in the morning. This book is about finding your ikigai – identifying your purpose or passion and using this knowledge to achieve greater happiness in your life. Your ikigai doesn’t have to be some grand ambition or highly noble life’s purpose – it can be something simple and humble, like tending your garden or walking your dog.
Seventeen-year-old Ruby is a Fireblood who has concealed her powers of heat and flame from the cruel Frostblood ruling class her entire life. But when her mother is killed trying to protect her, and rebel Frostbloods demand her help to overthrow their bloodthirsty king, she agrees to come out of hiding, desperate to have her revenge.
Fumio Sasaki is a writer in his thirties who lives in a tiny studio in Tokyo with three shirts, four pairs of trousers, four pairs of socks and not much else. A few years ago, he realized that owning so much stuff was weighing him down – so he started to get rid of it. In this hit Japanese bestseller, Sasaki explores the philosophy behind minimalism and offers a set of straightforward rules – discard it if you haven’t used it in a year; be a borrower; find your uniform; keep photos of the things you love – that can help all of us lead simpler, happier, more fulfilled lives.
Feyre is a huntress. And when she sees a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she kills the predator and takes its prey to feed herself and her family. But the wolf was not what it seemed, and Feyre cannot predict the high price she will have to pay for its death …
Dragged away from her family for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding even more than his piercing green eyes suggest. As Feyre’s feelings for Tamlin turn from hostility to passion, she learns that the faerie lands are a far more dangerous place than she realized. And Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.
Choose to Change offers 25 valid life principles in a straightforward, accessible style. Although I found little here that I had not encountered in similar self-help books, I still appreciated it as a reminder of ideas worth practising. The author’s tone can feel emotional and rather pressuring at times, almost as though the reader is being lectured. It did not change my outlook or give me a “wow” moment, but it may still be worth reading if its particular approach happens to resonate with you.
