A Cup of Tea & Biscuits

I await, with bated breath, this movie. Its trailer had me sighing (swooning and drooling too - for Thorin Oakenshield ) because I can go back to Middle Earth!! Yes, it's The Hobbit !!! And the dwarves sing!! Which is the whole point of this post :) Here's the complete poem , as written by Tolkien and below is what appears in the trailer of The Hobbit. Far over the Misty Mountains cold, To dungeons deep and caverns old. The pines were roaring on the heights, The wind was moaning in the night, The fire was red, it flaming spread, The trees like torches blazed with light. The Hobbit Making Of The Hobbit - Trailer

Day 7: The Most Underrated Book I'm going with Hans Keilson 's The Death of the Adversary ( see my earlier review here ). Set in the time of World War II - the beginning of, actually - it tries to answer the questions ripe in everyone's heads. Why did so many people succumb to the tyranny that Hitler brought upon the world? To Germany and the Jews? We know of the fear and the hatred people held for him, but what about individuals who were just content living their lives? This book is very anonymous, in that the 'adversary' is never named, but we all know his identity because we know history. It is designed to try and explain to you the simplicity of it all. The path of a human life in a time when it was questioned.

Day 6:   A Book that Makes Me Sad It took me a while to think through which book might possibly qualify as one that makes me sad.  Villette by Charlotte  Brontë wasn't foremost on my mind, but it does make for this category. Lucy, though not my favorite protagonist, is one to be reckoned with. The themes of the book, the loneliness, repression, and the intense feminist theme that's familiarly Miss  Brontë, keep you glued to the pages. Without giving away too much of the story, I must say that it would be the ending that made me think of this book as a sad one. The story has its plot twists and a very literal ambiguity to it, and will keep you hooked.

Once you've read the Twilight series , you know what to expect from a Stephanie Meyer book. The Host is definitely, in my opinion, much better than the tales of vampire love, probably because it's just one book that takes you through the life of a Soul inhabiting a human body. It's a quick read - took me less than two days to finish it - and an entertaining one. Wanderer, a silvery centipede-like alien, is implanted into the body of a human host, Melanie Stryder, with the hope that she will be the key to finding the human resistance that lies hidden and seems to be, in some way, fighting the invasion from these peace-loving creatures. Now living in the body of another, Wanderer finds that she cannot suppress Melanie. Her memories are too strong, and Wanderer begins to turn... human. She falls in love with the people that Melanie loves, and turns against her own kind to find Jared and Jamie. At first, she isn't accepted, because she is, after all, an alien. No one is a...

Day 5:   A Book That Makes Me Happy An unconventional choice this shall be. Generally, any book would make my happy, but if we're going by the story and writing, then my vote (at this point in time) would go for Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers . A mystery novel published in 1935, this book is pro-feminist novel. Very unique, it stands out in the series of Lord Peter Wimsey's investigations in that Harriet Vane is the primary investigator and there isn't really much of a mystery to look into. Importance is given to women and their struggles in society. For someone who places education and independence above all else, this book is definitely the perfect choice. I love Sayers' humor in Wimsey's lines, and I love Lord Peter even more. It's also probably one of my favorite books in the series because Harriet finally accepts Peter's hand in marriage.

Day 4 :  Favorite Book from a Favorite Series I may have picked ' The Eyre Affair ' had I not read through most of the series. The first book definitely remains the one that got my hooked onto the series but for literary purposes I love ' Lost in a Good Book' most. Thursday Next (see here for my review of the series) is now married to Landen Park-Laine , lives in Swindon and is happily chasing after literary crimes, while dealing with stardom born from her having changed the ending of Jane Eyre (in the book, Jane actually goes off to India with her cousin, but Thursday's intervention - after killing her nemesis, Acheron Hades , which causes Bertha Rochester to die in the fire and Rochester to lose his eyesight and an arm - results in Jane returning to Thornfield and marrying Rochester), then coming to terms with Landen's eradication by a rogue member of the ChronoGuard who is working with the Goliath Corporation's Brik Schitt-Hawse, who is in the course o...