A Tour of My iTunes Library – Movie Edition
Miscellaneous / January 4, 2014

As most of you know, I spend a lot of my free time reading.  That doesn’t mean however, that I don’t have a reasonable film and TV collection so I thought it might be nice if I took you through it.  Whereas with books I’m comfortable spending $8 or so on a book about which I’m not 100% sure, as films and TV series cost between $20 and $50 I am a lot choosier about what I add to my collections. Movies My movie collection can be roughly divided into three categories: musicals (yes, I am a closet Andrew Lloyd Webber fan – so what?) great dramas with excellent scripts and acting and finally fun family movies. In terms of musicals I have: Alegria.  This is one of the Montreal based Cirque du Soleil’s shows.  If you have not seen CdS before, you really should check them out.  There are no animals involved, just incredible human acrobatics with stunning production values and visuals.  Fun fact; the founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, became Canada’s first space tourist. Cats.  This is a filming of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about, well, cats.  Thin on plot, some catchy tunes, but wonderful…

Reading Roundup – Most anticipated books of 2014
Book Reviews , Reading Roundup / January 3, 2014

There are several books I’m really excited about for 2014.  In no particular order, here are the ones I’m most excited about. Independent Study by Joelle Charbonneau This is the sequel to Charbonneau’s YA dystopian novel The Testing, in which protagonist Cia must survive a Hunger Games-like Testing in order to win a coveted place at her society’s university.  Charbonneau left Cia at a very interesting point and I am anxious to read how her tale continues. Independent Study will be released on the 7th of January 2014, and I have preordered it from Amazon.  The final book in the trilogy, Graduation Day, will be released on the 3rd of June 2014 and is also available for preorder from Amazon. Cress by Marissa Meyer This is the third in Meyer’s set of four YA fairytale/sci-fi blend, The Lunar Chronicles.  This one is based on the tale of Rapunzel, who in Meyer’s reimagining becomes a young hacker isolated on a remote satellite.  She teams up with Cinder, Scarlet, Wolf and Thorne from the preceding novels in order to bring down Queen Levana of Luna.  I adored the first two books and look forward to the continuation. Cress will be released on…

Reading Roundup – Most anticipated books of 2014
Book Reviews , Reading Roundup / January 3, 2014

There are several books I’m really excited about for 2014.  In no particular order, here are the ones I’m most excited about. Independent Study by Joelle Charbonneau This is the sequel to Charbonneau’s YA dystopian novel The Testing, in which protagonist Cia must survive a Hunger Games-like Testing in order to win a coveted place at her society’s university.  Charbonneau left Cia at a very interesting point and I am anxious to read how her tale continues. Independent Study will be released on the 7th of January 2014, and I have preordered it from Amazon.  The final book in the trilogy, Graduation Day, will be released on the 3rd of June 2014 and is also available for preorder from Amazon. Cress by Marissa Meyer This is the third in Meyer’s set of four YA fairytale/sci-fi blend, The Lunar Chronicles.  This one is based on the tale of Rapunzel, who in Meyer’s reimagining becomes a young hacker isolated on a remote satellite.  She teams up with Cinder, Scarlet, Wolf and Thorne from the preceding novels in order to bring down Queen Levana of Luna.  I adored the first two books and look forward to the continuation. Cress will be released on…