the Book Burger tag

Dear Reader, 

So the object of this book tag is to build a burger using books you own, and it was created by booktuber RyanReads. However, I came across it on Sue Moro's channel, who shares my enthusiasm for fantasy, sci-fi and all things escapism. 

Burger building time!!!

1) First we need the bottom bun. Choose the first book of a series that you love.

Not including The Hobbit, this was the first ever dragon-book I read and have loved it since. Also (as mentioned previously) this book holds a very special place in my heart because it was key in bringing me and my best friend, Codename: Pixie, together; and we have been friends for 10 years now.    

2) Now we need the burger meat. Choose a meaty book that you've recently read and enjoyed (400+ pages).

With a grand total of 533 pages, The Invention of Hugo Cabret was an absolute delight to read. It's light on words, more than half of this book is actually full sided intricate sketches, made by the author, that tell the story as much as the narrative and are not just complimentary artistic drawings (like in the Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld). Though you can't really understand the power of this until you read it yourself. Plus, the pages have this thick, beautiful texture that often I'd lift my fingers from the page to make sure I hadn't smudged the pencil drawing.  

3) Next we add a thin slice of cheese and lettuce. Choose two thin books: one you've read and enjoyed and one you want to read but haven't yet (200 pages or less).

With only 167 pages, this is my rather-blue but leafy lettuce. I read this one a year or two ago when I spent a winter reading ghost stories. 

A 153 paged very-read Leicester cheese. Though, I kind of cheated on this one; I'm actually in the process of reading The Sign of Four, as opposed to having never read it as the challenge requires. You can even see my beaded-bookmark hanging out of it.

4) Time for a nicely sliced tomato. Choose an average sized book you loved or hated (between 200 and 400 pages).

Fire has a total of 334 pages. But finding my tomato was a lot harder than I thought it would be since the majority of the books I own are 400 pages plus. It is plausible for me to work out the exact number of pages in an "average" sized book for me, but it'll take too long and honestly I'm not all that bothered to find out. 

5) Now you add a sauce that you've never tried before and you don't know if you'll love it or hate it. Choose a book that you thought you'd love but hated, or a book you thought you'd hate but, in the end, loved.

The Ringmaster's Daughter is one of those rare books that I thought I'd really like but ended up hating and not being able to finish it altogether. 

6) Finally, we need the bun on top to complete our burger. Choose the last book of a series that you are/were dreading the release of because you don't/didn't want the series to end.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows definitely fits that bill. I knew there would be a final battle, and doubt less people would die. But it was more than just that. The characters in this series had been a constant presence through out my adolescence, and reading the final book in the series truly felt like saying good-bye to old friends. Though it's not a permanent good-bye, as I can re-visit their world any time I wish.   

And finally, this is what my burger would look like put together: 

Quite a mouth full, if you ask me.

Nida 

the Wise tooth of Misery

Dear Reader,

I'm not usually the sort of person who complains, especially about aches and pains (sorry, unintentional rhyme there). But I had to tell someone, so I thought why not you, dear reader.  

So it started off about 3 days ago. As the afternoon became evening, I began notice the inside of my right cheek kept getting caught between my teeth. This quickly went from irritating to painful and because I was deep within my writing zone, I couldn't be bothered to check it out in a mirror, let alone go downstairs and take a painkiller. I know, I know, my mistake. But to remedy the situation temporarily, I placed a small-but-handy piece of candied pineapple between my gum and my cheek. (Aside: my love of candied pineapples being the only thing I have in common with Professor Slughorn).



For a time it was perfect; my cheek was safe from my throbbing gums and every few minutes a got a burst of pineapply-sweetness in my mouth. (At this point you may point out dear reader that I could have easily used chewing gum, but to quote Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka "chewing gum is really gross, chewing gum I hate the most." This sums up quite well my feeling on that subject)

The pineapple pieces lasted me until dinner, by which time the inside of my mouth was completely coated in sweet stuff, to the point that it numbed all other pain. So I happily filled my bowl with rice and green-chickpeas and sat down to eat. The way my mum cooks it, usually this is one my favourite rice dishes, and one of the few foods I wouldn't mind a second helping of. But not this day.

I'd barely eaten five spoonfuls when I gave up. My entire lower jaw was tight, the right side of my face in agony, my right ear was ringing, I could hardly open my mouth wide enough to let a spoon, not to mention that the pointy, chickpeas were poking into my swollen gums. I felt like I was chewing on needles or raw pasta. Of course, my mum picked up on my sudden lack of appetite and asked me what was wrong.

I'm not ashamed to admit that at this moment I gushed, told her everything, just the way I did when I was five and had badly scrapped my knee. Its part of a mother's job description after all: to know exactly how to soothe her hurt child, no matter how old they get. I'm sure she would have sat me in her lap if we were not sitting at the dinner table and I wasn't too big for her. All that aside, she told me it was probably a wisdom tooth that was at the root of my pain.      

Now, when it comes to teeth, I've always been a bit of a late bloomer. For example, while all my friend's baby teeth fell out when they were 5, 6 or 7 years old, mine didn't begin to fall out until I was 10. And the last of my baby teeth had to be yanked out of my mouth by my dentist when I was 16. So, it only made sense I was quite surprised by this revelation. Even more surprised by it, in fact, than the day I woke up to find that Mount Everest had taken up residence on my chin. (Now that was one tenant I was more than happy to get rid off.) I'd always thought I'd get my wisdom teeth when I was in my 30's.

But my mum told me that the same thing happened to her when she was 23, slightly more than a year before I was born. The conversation then diverted on to topics that included how much my brothers and I had cried as teething babies, the tooth-fairy and did my early wisdom teeth mean that I had wisdom and my older brother's lack there of. The only thing of help that came out of it was the advice that I go and see my dentist about it.

And so, like a dutiful citizen that has complete faith in the NHS, I called my local dentist the very next morning and they gave me an appointment for the day after. It felt strange sitting there in the same, unchanged waiting room after so many years. The only real difference, I'm sad to say, was that the little aquarium with the sea horses was gone. (Aside: what's with dentist having aquarium in their waiting rooms? Is it some unwritten code?) I was surrounded by children and toddlers, with their hassled mama's and pushchairs. In an oddly sentimental moment, I could not helping thinking/hoping that that would be me one day.

Anyways, my dentist was really rather nice and showed me an X-ray of my teeth. It turns out that I have one wisdom tooth coming out on either side of my lower jaw. The pain is being caused by an ulcerated infection on my right gum and cheek, which probably would have been worse had I not been brushing properly. So, like most any other dentist, she told me to start brushing twice a day and then prescribed me with an antibiotic that had my name in it: metroNIDAzole, lol.

And what was the point of all this? I hear you ask. Well, I believe that all stories have a moral, if you look hard enough. But for this one, I'm not exactly sure what it might be. Maybe it should be that 'wisdom comes at a price'. Or maybe 'gaining wisdom is not always painless, but hopefully it is worth it'. Though I keep fingers-crossed as swallow another set of antibiotics and painkillers. ;-)  

Nida

what Next?

Dear Reader,

So now that I have relatively more time on my hands, I've been doing a lot of thinking. And, of course, this has lead me to the question "what next?" I'm a bit of an obsessive planner, so it goes without saying that I pretty much have my life divided in short term and long term plans. 

The long term plans are all the usually, typical, boring stuff: get training, get a job, find a literary agent, get married, move to different country, go on hajj, so on and so forth. However, it's the short term plans that are much more interesting: what I plan to do with the time I have between now and when I start training.     

Well firstly, as you can probably tell by my previous post, that I plan to  do a lot more sketching and painting. I'm also working on the first novel from my fantasy series, Book 1: The Legend of Sharon, which I hope to complete by the end of this year Inshallah. But, unfortunately, I've been having some difficulty writing Chapter 5, which is turning a lot longer than I had originally planned. I've already split the main events over two chapters, and splitting it further would only make the plot drag. Oh well, I'll finish the Chapter as it is, then come back to it after the whole thing is finished and change as needed.      

I also plan to spend a lot more time with my mum, get in on some of that precious mother-daughter bonding time that I'd been missing so much, which isn't all that surprising as my wonderful mummy is also one of my best friends. We plan to experiment with all sorts of new desserts and she wants to teach me to make some traditional foods like gol-gappay. It's a bit cold now to do much gardening, but we still have some cherry tomatoes ripening in our vegetable bed, so they also require some looking after. And me and mum have been doing a lot of catching up on Pakistani and British TV dramas that we watch together, especially since I had to put all that on hold as I completed my thesis. It's really fortunate that the new series of Downton Abbey just started, which gives me something to look forward to every Sunday.          

But what I want to do most now, is simply just READ. The last fictional book I read was Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and that was back in July. I've missed reading, so I'm really looking forward to having time to just sit back and read for the pleasure of it. I have quite an extensive list that I want to get through by the end of this year, but I'll only give you, dear reader, some of my most anticipated titles from the list:

1. The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
2. Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
3. The Mark of Athena by Rick Roirdan
4. Sapphire Blue by Kristen Geir
5. The Named by Marianne Curley
6. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I was going to write a review about Fahrenheit 451, but I think that this video (part 1) and this one (part 2 and 3) do a much better job of explaining and exploring the book that I could ever do.

Nida

Life: as I see it - my Space (Revised) edition

Dear Reader,

Confession: I've been feeling rather nostalgic lately, for obvious reasons, and so you'll just have to bare with me for this post. So, since it has now been a year (+2 weeks) since I posted Life: as I see it - my Space edition (one of my most popular posts) I thought it was time I showed you, my dear reader, how my bookshelves have changed and how they haven't.

I can't wait to add Maggie Steifvater's Forever to this, which is now finally out. It is something that can't be help it, I'm a compulsive completionist.    

Other favourite writers on this shelf are Na'ima B. Robert and Jamilah Kolocotronis.     

This shelf is directly underneath the one above. You'll  find here Kristin Cashore as well as Kate Mosse, with some Robin McKinley being cut off at the bottom of the picture. 

This use to be my "Classics" shelf, but is now mainly Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, followed by the DVD of my Favourite BBC adaptations of Classics, including: North & South, Cranford, Middlemarch and Little Dorrit.      

This is my, much more serious, non-fiction shelf of mostly medical books, with the exception of Green Deen and  How I Killed Pluto, and Why it Had it Coming.

Aaahhh, Poetry... These huge collections are three of my favourites (minus LAT - see the comment on the link): Thomas Hardy, William Wordsworth and John Keats.  

And peeping in from the top are some of Rudyard Kipling's best works. 

The One and Only, Original bookshelf. Once upon a time, when I was a very little girl, this was the only bookshelf in my bedroom. Hence it still contains the likes of the Chronicles of Narnia and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I have to admit, I haven't much grown out of these books in all these years.  

I'd also like to mention Philip Pulman's Sally Lockhart books, the under-appreciated Garth Nix, and Frank Beddor for obvious reasons. 

Here we have a small neat section reserved for historical fiction and my favourite autobiographies. I think the titles/authors in this picture are clear enough to read, except the orange Dairy of a Young Girl. Anne Frank, may you rest in peace. 

This is where the rest of the Classics from the "ex-Classics shelf" have ended up, including Charles Dickens (in green), Victor Hugo (in the stripped blue)  and my copy of the Selected  Poems of Lord Alfred Tennyson. 

This is the spot where my beloved Inkworld Trilogy use to reside, but it was burrowed by an old friend and never returned. :'(

So to fill that gap in my heart...I mean shelf, I have filled this spot with the not as much beloved Books of Pallinor. Sorry Alison Croggon, that is just the honest truth.      

   

The Twilight Saga has been transferred, to the top of my big wardrobe to have a teeth and claw battle with...

... Christopher Paolini's dragons. Who will win this epic dual of fantasy vs. horror in the Young Adult Fiction genre? 

Let me know what you think in the Comments section below. 

Aside: Vampires come into the 'horror' category, don't they? Or am I thoroughly deceived? 

To lend his support to the Fantasy genre, is my collection of Tolkein's work, 

(also found at the top of another wardrobe).    

And finally the most important shelf in my bedroom, which resides in the top right-hand corner of my desk, hold my religious books. Most things Islamic, can be found in this shelf with The Noble Qur'an at the heart of it all. If you have been following my blog for long enough, you'll remember that much-used little blue book at the top is my pocket-size version of The Sealed Nectar, a biography of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).   

By the way, if you look to the far left, you'll see two unnamed books. They're mine. The grey one is choked-full of my poetry and the floral-pattern-one being my first note book entirely concerned with my novel-in-the-making Life in Conversations.    

I hope, dear Reader, that you have been awed and inspired by my vast array of books. I was going to continue on to a little piece about the gardening I've been doing recently with my mum, and the efforts we have put into salvaging and saving the lives of about 16 small and starved geranium plants we found on sale at B&Q. But I've realised that this post is already far too long and that tales of my epic weeding might bore you, dear Reader, to death. And that is something I don't want on my concious. 

Anyway, making this post longer is now no-longer an option as I must go and make some greek-style pasta for my ravenous brothers. 

Nida