Anak Semua Bangsa dalam Bumi Manusia – Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2012

Bali memang menjadi salah satu tujuan wisata favorit bagi banyak turis dari banyak kalangan dan negara asal. Keeksotisan Bali dan kekayaan budayanya menjadi daya tarik utama bagi turis, menjadi alasan mereka untuk sekedar menghabiskan akhir pekan berselancar di Kuta, menjelajahi pasar-pasar tradisional untuk berbelanja atau menonton tari kecak menjelang matahari terbenam.

Tapi, tidak banyak yang tahu bahwa Bali juga menjadi tempat favorit bagi penikmat buku dari seluruh dunia. Sejak kemunculannya di tahun 2003, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival atau kerap disingkat menjadi UWRF telah menjadi salah satu festival literatur di kalangan pembaca buku internasional. Penikmat buku dari berbagai negara seperti Cina, Jepang, Amerika, Inggris, Australia sampai Mesir rela merogoh kocek untuk membeli tiket pesawat dan terbang ke Bali untuk berpartisipasi dalam festival ini.

Santa, Santa, How Many Presents in Your Sack?

Ho ho ho ho!

Sudah lama rasanya tidak duduk di depan laptop untuk mengetik sebuah post di blog. But now I'm back!

Kali ini, saya bukan di sini untuk menulis review, meme atau reading challenge--tapi di sini, saya hadir untuk pamer hadiah. /larisebelumdipentungmassa

The Disenchantments - Nina LaCour

Title: The Disenchantments
Author: Nina LaCour
Pages: 307 pages
Publication Date: February 16, 2012 by DUTTON Juvenile 
ISBN-10: 0525422196 
ISBN-13: 9780525422198

"What do you want to do after graduating?" my friend once asked. My other friend told me that she wanted to find a job for a year so she could go to college with her own money. Another one said that he wanted to go straight to college in another continent, start anew. The others had no idea; they didn't even know which major to take after graduating.

Colby and Bev, bestfriends since forever, have made plans to travel to Europe after graduating high-school. They decided to take a sabbatical year together; college can wait, but exploring the world while they're still young and free? This is an opportunity once in a lifetime, they think.

55 Reading Questions!

Since, yesterday, I noticed some of my friends posted the identical posts, which title caught my attentions. 55 reading questions? That sounds fun! I finally decided to borrow my mom's laptop (with a debate, negotiation, bargaining, coffee brewing and noodle cooking going on first) and deliberately trying to answer these questions!

Bibliophilic Bipolar's First Giveaway Winner Announcement!

Akhirnya, setelah dua minggu menyelenggarakan giveaway ini (sambil ikutan deg-degan siapa kira-kira pemenangnya), dengan ini saya mengumumkan pemenangnya!

Tapi sebelumnya, saya mengucapkan terima kasih yang sebesar-besarnya pada semua teman yang berpartisipasi. Terima kasih untuk semua ucapan selamat ulang tahun baik untuk blog ini maupun untuk saya (ehem), segala jenis apresiasi--baik berupa pujian atau kritikan. Semua usul yang disampaikan untuk blog ini sudah saya catat baik-baik. Semoga di kemudian hari blog ini semakin bermanfaat untuk teman-teman semua :) Dan saya harap, feedback dari kalian tidak terhenti di sini juga, tapi juga berlanjut di post-post saya selanjutnya, maupun lewat social media.

Bibliophilic Bipolar's First Giveaway!

 Untuk merayakan tiga hal: ulang tahun pertama blog ini yang jatuh pada tanggal 22 Juni, ulang tahun saya tanggal 10 Juli yang lalu dan tampilan baru blog ini, saya dengan bangga menggagas giveaway ini! *tebar confetti*

Dalam giveaway ini, saya akan memberikan kesempatan bagi pemenang untuk memilih SALAH SATU dari empat paket buku di bawah ini! Dan saya akan memilih dua pemenang. :)

Wishful Wednesday [2]

Akhir-akhir ini, saya tergila-gila dengan komik atau novel grafis Amerika. Saya akui dulunya saya sedikit skeptis dengan komik karena saya bukan orang yang terlalu visual, membaca sesuatu yang berisi banyak gambar tapi sedikit tulisan membuat saya pusing. Saya juga bukan penikmat manga dan manhwa dari dulu karena saya tidak terlalu suka dengan gambarnya. Rasanya komik yang saya baca cuma komik-komik Tintin, Betty dan Asterix, itupun koleksi Mama saya.

The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Euginides

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Before I go on and review this book (or preferrably, make a very long random post about anything but this book) I must say that I'm not a romance books reader. I'm not against romance and all that jazz, I just find some characters on romance books a bit oblivious and I always have to fight the urge to go inside the book to hunt down the characters and hit their head with a shovel. But I enjoy general fiction which adds romance and sweetness and cutesy couple and swoonable characters, as its sub-plot.

Friday's Recommendation [1]

Setelah membaca post-post BBI-ers yang lainnya, akhirnya tertarik juga buat ikut meme yang di-host Kak Ren yang syaratnya di bawah ini:

1. Pilih jenis rekomendasi buku. Ada dua jenis rekomendasi, yang pertama dan sifatnya mutlak adalah Rekomendasi Buku untuk Diterjemahkan . Jika tidak ada buku yang direkomendasikan untuk diterjemahkan, maka bisa memilih pilihan kedua, Rekomendasi Buku Pilihan. Disini rekomendasikan buku yang paling kamu suka baca dalam minggu ini.

2. Pilih hanya 1 (satu) buku untuk direkomendasikan. Tidak boleh lebih.

3. Beri sinopsis, genre buku dan alasan kenapa kamu merekomendasikan buku itu.

4. Blogger yang sudah membuat memenya, jangan lupa menaruh link ke blog di daftar linky di bagian paling bawah post ini, sehingga pembaca bisa blog walking.

5. Untuk pembaca blog yang tidak punya blog, bisa menulis rekomendasinya di kolom komen.

Character Thursday [1]

Welcome, welcome to my very first Character Tuesday meme!

Character Tuesday is weekly meme hosted by a fellow blogger, Kak Fanda. You can read further instructions and information about this blog hop on her blog.

Today I want to introduce you to a character from a novel (which I've finished reading several weeks ago but haven't written a review on, boo me), The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Euginides. Even though she didn't make a very good impression as a character from a book I very much anticipated, she was interesting enough to be almost relatable.

Are they protagonist or antagonist?

Madeliene Hanna is a protagonist of this book.

 

Who are they? What was their role in the book?

She is an English student in Brown University, currrently writing her thesis on Jane Austen and George Elliot, the masters of great marriage plots. As predicted, here in this book Madeliene struggles with her own romance; as in usual marriage plots, a woman usually has to decide between two males, she finds herself trapped in the very same situation.

There is a quite funny fact passage about her major:

"Some people majored in English to prepare for law school. Others became journalists. .....That left a large contingent of people majoring in English by default. Because they weren't left-brained enough for science, becuase history was too dry, philosophy too difficult, geology too petroleum-oriented, and math too mathemical--because they weren't musical, artistic, financially motivated, or really all that smart, these people were pursuing university degrees doing something no different from what they'd done in first grade: reading stories. English was what people who didn't know what to major in majored in," but "She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest reasons: because she loved to read."

(And I heard the sound of anger and laughter from eigth different directions XD)

 

What was your strongest impression on the character(s)? You can quote the dialogue or narration you got the impression from.

"To start with, look at all the books."

 She loves reading. She doesn't only see boos as companions or homework partners, but she sees books as her lovers. Once, when she was feeling low, she avoided her friends, curled up in her bed with Roland Barthes' The Lover's Discourse; not reading it, just keeping it nearby, because she loves the book too much as it gives her comfort and solitude.

What are the strengths or weaknesses of your character(s)?

Her strength is probably her love for books. Being a bibliophile myself, reading a very bookish novel about very bookish characters makes my cry in delight. But, that strength easily becomes a weakness page by page. Madeliene has read too much of 18th and 19th century novels--and most of books on her reading list are romantic comedies--and that makes her very "Incurably Romantic". She is trapped between two "suitors"--more on this later--and rather than trying to find solutions to this problem through contemporary literature, she reflects way back to classic books. She is so smart, but oftentimes she fails in relationships because of very obvious reasons and it makes me wonder, does her "Incurably Romantic"-ness have a say in all this mess?

How do they develop throughout the book?

She develops throughout the book by making mistakes and making the right decisions in her life, especially in her relationship. She also learns how to respect other people's feeling, how to get over someone, how to be a great friend. At first I see her character as a passive and very oblivious woman, but she becomes more and more mature to the very end page.

 

What makes you love/hate them?

Of course, I love her love for books. I really hate her for being to sentimental and too passive; I for once wants to see her yells in anger or gets terribly drunk and drunk-dials Leonard and strips on the street, but that would mistakenly make her very Gossip Girl-ish. Instead, she becomes a little bit of a womanizer without being true and honest to her own feelings, and it's very tiresome to watch. Also, I hate the fact that a lot of very dreamy boys goes after her crazily while her character strikes me as too.. normal. But well, that sentiment comes out of pure jealousy.

What lessons or influences you got from them?

What I can learn from her is: don't fall in love with the guy in class at his first invitation for coffee just because I and the said guy share intimate discussion on literature; he may turn out to be depressed and the possibility of you get calls every four hours is inevitable. Gee, thanks Madeliene, I've learned my lessons!

Wishful Wednesday [1]

Setelah beberapa lama mengikuti perkembangan blog hop Wishful Wednesday yang dimulai oleh Kak Astrid, akhirnya saya ikut berpartisipasi :D

Sejak kecil, passion saya yang terbesar--selain membaca buku dan menulis--adalah menonton film. Hobi ini dimulai sejak SD, ketika Papa saya iseng mencoba sebuah rental DVD dekat restoran langganan kami. Dan setelah beberapa weekend yang dihabiskan dengan menonton film-film seperti Annie, Home Alone, Beethoven.. Saya jatuh cinta.

Sejak dua tahun lalu, saya tidak hanya menikmati film sebagai penonton pasif, tapi saya mulai mengamati gaya masing-masing filmmaker sehingga akhirnya, saya menjadi tertarik dengan film-making. Saya beberapa kali mencoba untuk menulis skrip film pendek--tapi kebanyakan berakhir dengan buruk.

Karena itu, ketika melihat buku Your Screenplay Sucks! yang ditulis oleh William M. Akers di internet, saya tertarik sekali untuk membaca dan belajar banyak dari buku ini!

 Semoga tidak lama lagi buku ini ada di tangan :D

Sekarang, ikutan berkhayal juga yuk!

1. Silakan follow blog Books To Share – atau tambahkan di blogroll/link blogmu =)
   
2. Buat posting mengenai buku-buku (boleh lebih dari 1) yang jadi inceran kalian minggu ini, mulai dari yang bakal segera dibeli, sampai yang paling mustahil dan hanya sebatas mimpi. Oya, sertakan juga alasan kenapa buku itu masuk dalam wishlist kalian ya!
3. Tinggalkan link postingan Wishful Wednesday kalian di Mr. Linky (klik saja tombol Mr. Linky di bagian bawah post). Kalau mau, silakan tambahkan button Wishful Wednesday di posting kalian.
4. Mari saling berkunjung ke sesama blogger yang sudah ikut share wishlistnya di hari Rabu =)

TBR Pile Reading Challenge!

Setiap kali ada teman yang datang ke rumah dan masuk ke kamar, komentar mereka pasti: "Wow, Ndari bukunya banyak banget! Ini semuanya udah dibaca, Ndar?"
Kalau ditanya pertanyaan "keramat" itu, pengen banget rasanya untuk jawab bahwa tentu saja semua buku yang ada di rak sudah pernah dibaca. Tapi kenyataannya? Waktu baca semakin terbatas, kedisiplinan untuk terpaku pada hanya satu bacaan sampai habis semakin menurun, sedangkan timbunan makin hari makin tinggi.

Karena itulah saya seperti dapat "pencerahan" waktu berkunjung ke blognya Kak Astrid beberapa waktu lalu dan melihat challenge ini.


Welcome to 2012 TBR PILE Reading Challenge!!!
We all have those books. We buy them, win them, they’re gifted to us.. Then we put them up on a bookshelf and there they stay, collecting dust, waiting for the time when we’ll finally decide to pick them up..

Join us on a quest to dust off your TBR Pile and read all the books you’ve been telling yourself you’ll read next time you’ll get a chance.. This is your chance! And we’ve got PRIZES!!!

Challenge guidelines: 

1. This challenge will run from Jan 1, 2012 – Dec 31, 2012.
2. As we would like to see quality reviews linked up to our monthly wrap-ups, only bloggers can enter. Sorry about that!
3. Any genre, length or format of book counts, as long as it is a book that’s been sitting on your shelf for some time now. Only books released in 2011 and earlier! NO ARCs and 2012 fresh-off-the-press releases allowed!
4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap-up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.
5. When you sign up in the linky, put the direct link to your post about joining the 2012 TBR PILE Reading Challenge (You need to include the info + host list + challenge button. You can also grab the button code and add it to your sidebar!)
6. You can move up levels, but no moving down.
7. Sign-ups will be open until Dec 15, 2012, so feel free to join at any time throughout the year.
8. At the end of each month one of the hosts will post a wrap-up. Every wrap-up will have it’s unique theme, a mini-challenge, a giveaway and place for you to link up your reviews from this month. For each review you link up, you will get one entry in a drawing of one book of choice from Book Depository. It’s open to INTERNATIONALS. For participating in the mini-challenge you will get +1 entry.
9. If you miss a wrap-up post + giveaway, you can link up your reviews next month. Do not, however, try to link up one review twice – we will be checking
10. December is a wrap-up for the whole year. All the book reviews you linked up January-November + the ones you’ll link up in December will be entered into a HUGE giveaway – 12 books, 12 winners, INTERNATIONAL.
11. You don’t have to follow all the hosts to join the challenge, but you do have to follow all of us to be entered in giveaways!

Levels:
1-10 – A Firm Handshake
11-20 – A Friendly Hug
21-30 – A Sweet Kiss
31-40 – Love At First Sight
41-50 – Married With Children
Hosts:
Evie from Bookish – http://www.evie-bookish.blogspot.com @SeoEvie
Nicole from All I Ever Read – http://www.nicoleabouttown.com/ @Nicoleabouttown
Bonnie from Hands and Home – http://www.handsandhome.ca/ @HandsHomeBlog
Donna from Book Passion For Life - http://bookpassionforlife.blogspot.com/ @BookPforLife
Caitlin from WatchYA Reading - http://whatchyareading.net @caitlingss
Rie from Mission To Read - http://missiontoread.com/ @missiontoread
Vicky from Books, Biscuits & Tea -http://booksbiscuitsandtea.blogspot.com/ @alouetteuette
Christa from Hooked On Books - http://christashookedonbooks.blogspot.com @ChristasBooks
Jenna from Fans Of Fiction - http://fansoffiction.blogspot.com/ @fansoffiction
Angel from Mermaids Vision - http://mermaidvision.wordpress.com @mermaidvisions
Wrap-up POST Schedule:
January – Donna (Theme: Let It Snow + Book Cover Challenge)
February – Nicole (Theme: Un-requited Love/Love Gone Wrong + Advice Column Challenge)
March – Rie (Theme: Green or Pinched + Green Cover Challenge)
April -  Bonnie (Theme: Easter + Mini Challenge)
May – Christa (Theme: MayDay – Disaster Books! + Cover Disaster Challenge)
June – Jenna ( Theme: Camping + Sentence Challenge)
July – Rie (Theme: International Day + Cover Comparison Challenge)
August – Angel (Theme: Summer Memories + Send Your Fav Character On Vacation Challenge)
September – Nicole (Theme: Life Changing Books + Mini Challenge)
October – Caitlin (Theme: Thanksgiving Theme + Share-A-Book Challenge)
November – Vicky (Theme: Spooky Halloween + Book Puzzle Challenge)
December – Evie (Theme: Xmas Bliss + Book Bachelor Challenge)

My TBR List So Far:
1. Hunger - Knut Hamsun
2. Train Man - Nakano Hitori
3. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Haruki Murakami
4. Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
5. The Last Summer (of You and Me) - Ann Brashares
6. Reckless - Cornelia Funke
7. Sabriel - Garth Nix
8. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
9. Waiting - Ha Jin
10. Notes From Teenage Underground - Simmone Howell
11. Battle Royale - Koushun Takami
12. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
13. The Sunflower Forest - Torey Hayden
14. Swamplandia! - Karen Russell
15. Searching for Schindler - Tom Keneally
16. July, July - Tim O'Brien
17. Dance, Dance - Haruki Murakami
18. Sister - Rosamund Lupton
19. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
20. Veronika Decides To Die - Paulo Coelho
21. The Dogs of Babel - Carolina Parkhurst
22. About A Boy - Nick Hornby
23. number9dream - David Mitchell
24.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks -Rebecca Skloot
25. Let The Great World Spin - Colum McCann
26. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
27. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
28. The Given Day - Dennis Lehane
29. Little Princes - Conor Grennan
30. Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde
31. War Trash - Ha Jin
32. I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President - Josh Lieb
33. The Thin Red Line - James Jones
34. Possession - A.S Byatt
35. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

I hope I'll finish reading all of the books by the end of the year :)

The Prince of Mist - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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The Prince of Mist - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Paperback, Phoenix Publisher, 1993, 202 pages

Max berusia tiga belas tahun ketika ayahnya memutuskan untuk membawa keluarganya keluar dari kota dan pindah ke desa kecil di tepi pantai. Saat itu tahun 1943 dan perang sedang berlangsung, sehingga pindah ke kota kecil merupakan langkah tepat.


Di kota ini, mereka tinggal di sebuah rumah yang sebelumnya ditempati oleh keluarga Dr.Fleischmann yang anaknya meninggal karena kecelakaan tragis. Dan seperti yang bisa ditebak, Max dan saudari-saudarinya Irina dan Alicia perlahan mulai menemukan hal-hal yang aneh tentang rumah ini. Ketika suatu hari Irina terjatuh dari tangga secara misterius sehingga harus dirawat di rumah sakit, Max mulai yakin rumah ini berhantu.

Max dan Alicia mulai mencari tahu lebih lanjut tentang rumah yang mereka tempati dan desa misterius ini. Dibantu oleh teman baru mereka, seorang anak angkat penjaga mercusuar bernama Roland. Ternyata mereka tidak hanya menemukan hantu dalam perjalanan mereka; tapi juga kucing aneh, patung yang bisa bergerak, kapal-kapal kosong yang sepertinya "berpenghuni" dan The Prince of Mist, sosok kegelapan yang dapat mengambil wujud apa saja..

Buku ini hanya berukuran mass market paperback, setebal 202 halaman, dengan font yang cukup besar, tapi cukup untuk membuat pembaca bermimpi buruk.Bagi pembaca karya Stephen King pasti sudah tidak asing lagi dengan bukunya yang berjudul "It", berkisah tentang fobia orang-orang terhadap satu mahluk yang anak-anak cintai tapi orang dewasa benci--badut. Di buku The Prince of Mist sendiri menyertakan sosok badut yang menurut saya merupakan bagian paling menyeramkan dalam buku ini; yang tak lain dan tak bukan adalah The Prince of Mist sendiri.

Sayangnya, Carlos Ruiz Zafon tidak mengembangkan plot dasar yang menurut saya sudah sangat menjanjikan ini, menjadi setidaknya 100 atau 200 halaman lebih panjang. Sehingga, ada banyak sekali pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang muncul dalam benak saya ketika saya menutup buku ini, yang rasanya sayang sekali tidak dijelaskan oleh sang penulis karena ini mengganggu relevansi cerita. Mungkin pertanyaan-pertanyaan saya ini akan terjawab di lanjutan buku yang ternyata berseri ini. Tapi hal ini cukup terobati dengan karakter-karakter yang menarik dan prosa yang memukau. Buku ini diceritakan dengan detil yang kaya sehingga terasa sinematik, namun tidak kehilangan sisi puitisnya. Dan jangan lupakan kehororannya yang cukup membuat bulu kuduk merinding ketika dibaca di tengah malam yang sunyi..

3 bintang untuk The Prince of Mist.

Memorable Quotes “Age makes you notice certain things. For example, I now know that a man’s life is broadly divided into three periods. During the first, it doesn’t even occur to us that one day we will grow old, we don’t think that time passes or that from the day we are born we’re all walking toward a common end. After the first years of youth comes the second period, in which a person becomes aware of the fragility of life and what begins like a simple niggling doubt rises inside you like a flood of uncertainties that will stay with you for the rest of your days. Finally, toward the end of life, the period of acceptance begins, and, consequently, of resignation, a time of waiting.”

: