Indonesians Who Love English Books discussion

Hi Nicole, nice to have you with us here. and don't worry, everyone is out of place in this place. we're sort of a mongrel lot. lol.
looks like you're into YA/romance? then you'll fit right in with Rachel. hahaha.. hope we'll see you around often in these parts, then.

Hello Jati, I can't believe I did not find this community earlier. Mongrel lot? Haha! Yep I added Rachel and I am elated to be posting more in the near future! Thanks Jati!

Ahh.. look-a-here! Our little community is growing; how very exciting! :)

Welcome everyone! I hope you'll enjoy your time here :)

Oh Oon, you can get Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls in Times bookstore, specifically the one in Pacific Place, because that's where I got my copy :)

And so we're talking about A Dance with Dragons are we? I'm a quarter in; I enjoy Tyrion's chapters immensely, but I'm really annoyed at a few chapter names ... The what-what and what? It gets me confused :/

Budhidharma may I know where you got your copy of The Night Circus?

I found some copies of A Monster Calls in Times Citos as well.
All the talking about ASOIAF makes me curious. I probably have to surrender to the temptation soon or later.

Oon wrote: "@Budidharma another Stephen King's book worth reading: "It", "Needful Things", "Under the Dome" and "A Bag of Bones". He's master storyteller, keeps you turning pages and pages of his book (he's al..."

You're so right Oon. My best experience was when I read The Shining, I really got chills down my spine. Thank you for the much needed recommendations. I've been meaning to read another one of his works, but his books are so many I really can't decide.

@Rachel: Ah.. This is embarrassing, I've acquired the book illegally, a friend from Yahoo Groups sent the ePub version to me via e-mail :p

Haha, oh well, I'll look for it somewhere else then :p

Come and join in on the fun, Lynossa! It'll take a lot of hardwork, but better to get that thick book out of the way before we concentrate on our yearly book challenge, lol.

Hi there! My name's Jane and I'm pretty much new to Goodreads :) I'm from Surabaya and now a university student majoring in Commerce. (PS: I'm not sure if it's the right thread to introduce myself but I couldn't seem to find the introduction thread, so yep :p)

I was never a good reader (I liked buying books then left them abandoned) and now I'm trying to retain my reading habit. :p

At the moment I'm reading and juggling 3 books (4, if Manusia Setengah Salmon is counted); The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (can hardly wait for the movie), Immortal by Lauren Burd (a cheap ebook on iTunes by a self-published author), and Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. Guess from my choice of books you can tell I'm so into YA fantasy :)

Anyway, looking forward to knowing more Indonesian people from this group! :D

speaking of A Dance with Dragons, our favorite dwarf Tyrion just won a Golden Globe, well actually the guy who portray him: Peter Dinklage. Congrats, Peter!

@ Jane: hello, Jane! I'm also from Surabaya. Nice to know you :)

@Rachel: thanks for the info!!! (I just came from Pacific Place when I read this ughhhhh...) thanks anyway :D

btw, if you are looking for The Night Circus, Rachel, I just saw one in Aksara Pacific Place (I actually visit Aksara, but why did I forget to check Times, God, why??)

@Budidharma: you can try "It", my most favorite :D lets hear this:
"Seven kids made a promise to reunite and fight this evil creature that preyed on children in Derry, Maine if that evil creature come back. Now, 27 years later, It comes back. They have to reunite and defeat It once more and for good. But now, It have prepared for their coming"
isn't it promising or not? (now I look like a salesman)

I just finished reading The Giver and now I'm reading Pearl of China by Anchee Min :D

@Ryan: Hi! Nice to know you too :D

Gah, Blackout turned out to be a slower read than I expected. It's not the book, it's me. With many historical events mentioned, I'm being me, I can't just let the ones I'm unfamiliar about slide, so I end up spending a lot of time reading Wikipedia articles. I think I'm gonna juggle it with the next on my list, 11/22/63

Congrats Peter! I love that man.

And welcome to everyone who is new! I'm pretty sure I've made an Introduce Yourself thread a while back, but due to it's lack of use, it's probably at the bottom of the pile somewhere. lol.

And thanks Oon for the info. Knowing Aksara, the book will cost me a fortune, but I'll go look for it this weekend :]

And Jane! I'm a YA buff too, so hello and nice to have you here with us :)

Status report: Still reading A Dance with Dragons, and still only a quarter in -___-

well guys, as much as I hate to disrupt this thread, I've revived the welcome and random 10 threads into their own categories on the front page. new members most likely will flock into those two threads so please check them often to greet them all. I'd still try to move things around since there are some really good threads that has gotten buried for some time. so please bear with me folks.

that's about it. carry on..

Oh Jati, how I rejoice the day I made you co-admin!

thanks to Rachel I finally able to get A Monster Call by Patrick Ness and I have just read it. Will be back soon after I finish crying and calling my Mom. This book... I have no words....

ah yes, A Monster Calls was a nice, quick read; a lot of people were deeply touched by that book, so I feel kind of heartless that it didn't evoke the same intensity of emotion in me.

Thank you, Rachel :D
I've just finished reading The Hunger Games and it was a really good one. I love her beautiful use of first person POV :)
Anyway, I'm moving to Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick now. It's a fair number of reviews on how bad the book is, so I'll wait to prove the quality of the book myself.

I read Hush Hush a few weeks ago I think, and it was OK. There are worse YA out there. A very simple story, simply written. Nothing worth commending, though.

i've completed a couple new ones. nothing worth being excited about. and am still a bit lazy about doing a review. Grisham's The Litigators was okay. Daniel Silva's Unlikely Spy was actually pretty good although it tended to be more historical than exciting, and American Assassin by Vince Flynn was a 'meh, Silva can do way better'.

with the long weekend coming up, i'm (re)starting on Dances with Dragons just because it's been silently mocking me from my bedside for too long now. this might be somewhat difficult though..

Jati, can I borrow your Game of Thrones copy? I decided I should give it a try soon or later. If I like it I might buy the rest of the series but if not I don't want to waste my money (these days my financial condition varies from poor to misrable)

of course Lynossa. no problem. how should i get it to you?

You can lend it to me on meet ups or if you have no plan during chinese new year we could meet someplace and I'll bring you my Holt's copy.

Right now I am staring at Lisa See Book "Snow flower and the secret fan" & classic from Vladimir Nabokov "Lolita". Haven't decide which one I read first. And I still have not finished reading Wuthering Height - though I already read the indonesian version and the translation is confusing, ugh luckily it wasn't mine. And also I just receive packages from online bookshop (10 books total yihay...though it was indonesian version - I just couldn't afford bought that much in english version). busy busy day :-)

i think i could do it on chinese new year. have to do something first though, but it'll just take a couple of hours. i'll let you know the time i'll be free by tomorrow morning. where would you like to meet up?

edit: i have to do something around 2pm. other than that, i'm good. just tell me if you still want to do it tomorrow, alright?

It's popular book in Goodreads this month! It's bit cheesy on earlier pages but people said it's really good book.

Argh, sorry Jati. I can't go today, my mom asked me to accompany her (and when she asks, it's actually a demand). Let's just do it on meet ups.

Still waiting for my copy of that to arrive Amanda, is it good?

Adisty wrote: "Right now I am staring at Lisa See Book "Snow flower and the secret fan" & classic from Vladimir Nabokov "Lolita". Haven't decide which one I read first. And I still have not finished reading Wut..."

Lolita? Wow! How are you getting on with that? I just finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera, I haven't read Lolita - not planning to, to be honest - I know people kind of compare the two. I found the book I read was a bit too much when he, towards the end of the story, turned into a paedophile. I don't think I'll ever get anywhere near Lolita.

Anyway, I'm currently reading East of Eden. Yep, I'm a sucker for classics :D

Hi Faye.. hehe that's why I choose Lisa See instead. I put Lolita in my bookshelves for awhile. I haven't read East of Eden, is it good?

Faye wrote: "Adisty wrote: "Right now I am staring at Lisa See Book "Snow flower and the secret fan" & classic from Vladimir Nabokov "Lolita". Haven't decide which one I read first. And I still have not finis..."

Same here, I haven't read Lolita.. People say it's good, but maybe because the story line is brave, I never put it on my must-read shelf. The book is for brave souls, I suppose. :)

anyway, I'm planning to buy 'The Great Gatsby' by F.Scott Fitzgerald. I haven't read it before, and I wanna try to read this one.. Do you think it's good?

Amanda wrote: "Oh yes, he really has no qualms killing off his characters. But almost everyone I care for died in the first book, so I really have nothing to lose."


Not that one in your spoiler please! :D

I'm currently reading...oh shoot, still the same book! Had no time to read during the last three weeks. Forced to lower my reading challenge again because it's gonna be like this for a very long time. *sobs

Adisty wrote: "Hi Faye.. hehe that's why I choose Lisa See instead. I put Lolita in my bookshelves for awhile. I haven't read East of Eden, is it good?"

I'm halfway through the book, so my opinion might change by the time I finish - although I have a strange feeling that it's not very likely. But, I have to say, it's a gem. When I picked up the book, I knew it was going to be good - I mean it's Steinbeck, the chap got a Nobel prize for literature and East of Eden did get a Pulitzer. What I didn't expect was it being THIS good. So what will become of your Lolita then? I would really love to read your review of it :)

Sheva, indeed, it's a book for the brave lol. I read reviews of it, mostly because people brought it up when we were talking about Love in the Time of Cholera. The book was written by a Russian author and English was his third or fourth language (if I remember rightly), it was first published in English and apparently it was really good. That, really intrigues me, but the pressure of the storyline puts me off completely lol. I've not read The Great Gatsby, I might come across that in the near future, knowing that I'm currently so into American classics :)

The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite classics. Ever. Everyone should read it at least once :)

I've read Lolita and I did not like it. I've also read Wuthering Heights, and it had some pretty great moments. I really like the way it was written and I can't wait to watch the latest adaptation of this classic starring Kaya Scadelario (not sure how to spell her last name).

And I've also read Love in the Time of Cholera, and I didn't get it. At all. And don't even bother with the movie. Ugh.

Andddd... I'm still reading A Dance with Dragons, but am in the home stretch now. A couple more hundred pages to go :)

Just reading .
Now I know what all that fuss and hype about. Much better than Twilight, that have same target readers, IMO.

Still haven't made any progress with On a Dark Wing, I guess it's not as good as Jordan Dane's previous YA book I've read.

Not that one in your spoiler please! :D

I'm currently reading...oh shoot, still the same book! Had no time to read during the last three weeks. Forced to lower my reading challenge again because it's gonna be like this for a very long time. *sobs

I know .... I think I would cry and send Martin thousands of hate mail if he did that. But I guess we'll have to wait for the NEXT book to see what happened to him. God knows how long that would take.

God knows how long that would take."

i'm even doubting whether he will actually finish the damn series. looking at the ever increasing length of time between books, i'm just worried he pulls a Robert Jordan and let someone else finish the series for him. after all, supposedly we still have two more books after this last one i think, right?

Old Gods, I hope he won't abandon this one. Yes Jati, even the titles of the two had been decided. The Winds of Winter followed with The Dream of Spring. It's the longest winter in Westeros yet.

Anna wrote: "Whoa I'm so excited to see people start and finish their reading materials!

I finished Room a few days ago and now I'm juggling between Lolita, The Spire, [..."


Hello Anna :D [book:Room|7937843] is currently on my to-read list, is it good? what do you think about it?

Still enjoying the last chapters of Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak).

for some unknown reason I'm craving for some wuxia , especially Jin Yong's The Return of The Condor Heroes. Remember Yoko and Aunt Lung? Been foraging through amazon for an English version but no luck :/

Reza wrote: "for some unknown reason I'm craving for some wuxia, especially Jin Yong's The Return of The Condor Heroes. Remember Yoko and Aunt Lung? Been foraging through amazon for an English version but no lu..."

whoaaaa... it sure brings back some old memories :D I hope you'll find it... good luck!

I remember watching those series every afternoon and the next day started playing kung fu with my friends. One would grab a stick and called it "Tongkat Pemukul Anjing" (Dog Beater Stick?) while one would hold something round and called himself "Hakim Roda Emas".

We would all perform some inexplicable body movement the world of kung fu never seen before and named it "Elang Pembunuh Naga" or "Cakar Elang Sakti".

Until the teachers came. And back we were to the world of trigonometry and trying to find the circumference of a triangle.

Pending On a Dark Wing and starting to read The Great Gatsby. Does anybody know where can I find Monsters of Men? I dont want to order in TBD because it takes 3 weeks and I want to read it fast. I've searched for it in periplus PI, kino GI, times and aksara citos :(

did you ask the kino guys whether or not they have it in senayan? kino GI is kind of small, dont you think?

No, I was focusing on 1984 at that time, so I didn't ask. I remembered I should ask when I was at times and they're out of stock >.>

Finished A Dance with Dragons! YAY!

I don't know about you guys, but I liked it quite a lot compared to the previous books. Fast-paced, and many revelations.

dammit, i'm still halfway through. so envious. how long in total did it take you to finish?

About 1 month. And now I'm off to other endeavors, lol.

Happy February :D

I recently finished re-reading Great Expectation from A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels and am now planning to continue with A Tale of Two Cities. This bundling is convenience :D you got two of Dicken's best

BTW, anybody here read Abarat? I recently saw the third book: Absolute Midnight in Kinokuniya PS. I read the first and second book long long time ago, I've forgotten the thread of story.