Well, my birthday week is officially over now. I’ve had my birthday, my party, and the requisite parental visit bringing things to a close.

Everything went surprisingly well this year. Could this be signaling a fresh start to my life? I hope so.

I’ll detail the rest of my week later perhaps. Right now I just wanted to make a list of the books I have received recently. It’s crazy! I love reading (and everyone knows this) but I’ve got enough reading material here to challenge even a bookworm of my status!

Since Christmas I have received the following:

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

Jane Bites Back: A Novel

Vows And Honor #1 Oathbound

Vows And Honor #2 Oathbreakers

Oathblood

Traveling With Pomegranates

Shoo, Jimmy Choo!: The Modern Girl’s Guide to Spending Less and Saving More

This list doesn’t even cover all the other books I have received through swaps or borrowed from friends this month!

Looking at the list I also noticed an odd trend… it seems that I am attracting quite a few books dealing with Jane Austen and the supernatural (zombies, vampires). What does this say about me, I wonder?

If you have been living under a rock these past few months you may not have heard of this book I am about to review.

For everyone else, I am one of the 58479322038 PF bloggers who received a copy to review. I thought I was special, Phil! I thought I was your little Canuck! *cries*

I gotta say, I am a little bummed that this wasn’t an exclusive review, but at least I got a signed copy outta the deal which is pretty nice. Plus, its a good book!

So, let me tell you about this little paperback.

First, I really like the feel of it in my hands. I am a book person through and through and the format of the book can often enhance or detract from my reading experience. I love the soulful, rounded corners, the determined semi-gloss pages and the intoxicating scent of this volume.

But the inside… ahh the inside.

Crack open this baby to any of the many sections and you will be amazed and astounded by the advice therin. Don’t tip your waitress! Steal your wi-fi! Save those mustard packets! Beat your bank into submission!

The book is filled with witty and *ahem* interesting  ways to save a buck. You would have to be a true scoundrel of the stingy persuasion to take it all seriously, though.

But that’s what I like about it. Tongue-in-cheek passages with little gems of true advice scattered throughout. Some of the tips are downright dastardly, but some (like making your own weed killer) are actually quite practical. An amusing read from beginning to end, Phil has imbued the pages with his essence (of gelding…? LOL).

If you have a particularly stingy skinflint in your circle of friends and family, you may see their habits described in this book. I know I’ve certainly seen a few of my dad & grandmother’s tricks in here!

All in all this was a good read, and I’ll probably keep it around for amusement and reference in the future. Definitely worth picking up on Amazon (hint: click the image to buy it & give me a kickback!) for $16.95.

Unless you’re a stingy scoundrel, that is. Then you can just get the used copy, ya cheapo!

About Phil:

Phil Villarreal is a Consumerist contributing editor and Arizona Daily Star reporter. While his knowledge of Canada is somewhat paltry, and his handwriting somewhat illegible, he makes up for it with his wit and… uhhh… charm??? You can check him out on the Consumerist, or at his blog Because I Told You So.

Yesterday was a pretty cool day for me! It was the culmination of a bunch of neat things and goings-on over the weekend.

Inspired by my weekend, here are some Things I’m Digging:

Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel: 100 Dirty Little Money-Grubbing Secrets by my bud Phil Villareal. He sent me a copy of this new book to review and I finally got it! I’m so excited to check it out–it’s even got that new book smell!

So far it looks promising… my dad remarked that our family already does a lot of the stuff in the book… I’m still trying to figure out whether that’s good or bad!

A full review is coming soon, but if you want your own copy, please click on the title and get it through Amazon so I can get a teeny tiny commission! Thanks!

Ben & Jerry’s “If I Had A Million Flavours” ice cream. This is a special Canadian recipe inspired by our very own Barenaked Ladies! And it is TO. DIE. FOR.

I am eating it as I type because I can’t bear to part with it. I’ve been looking for this flavour since I saw it in the news somewhere. Best $6 I ever spent on ice cream… it’s got all my fave choco-candies in it and is just the right amount of OMG death by chocolate. I can’t decide whether I like the chocolate covered toffee chips or the peanut butter cups better. I also love the fact that they spelled the word “flavours” properly with a Canadian “u” in there! FTW!

I am in love. Go forth to your dairy case and purchase, my friends! You won’t be disappointed! (though your keyboard might get sticky. Oops)

My new Sunrise alarm clock by BioBrite. I bought this puppy a while ago and had it shipped to my aunt in NJ since they won’t ship to Canada… and I just got it now! I am SO excited!

Actually, that’s a bad thing! I set it up last night and did the sundown sequence to help me get to sleep, but instead I kept peeking at it to see if it really DID mimic the sunset (it did!) instead of going to sleep…. oops.

The idea behind these sunrise clocks is that they mimic the light of a natural sunrise so your body can wake up gently rather than being jarred awake by the hellish BEEP!BEEP!MuthafugginBEEP!!! of your standard alarmclock.

I think its going to take some getting used to, but hopefully it will help me get up easier in the dark & dreary mornings of winter!

There’s a snapshot of some of the things I’m into right now! I’ve got a whole ton more but figured 3 was a good round number

What cool things are YOU digging right now?

***WIN a custom-made silver ring!***

Click here for contest details & to enter! I am accepting submissions until Sunday, September 13, so hurry up!

I’m currently whipping through Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success.

It is the shit.

I love this man. His books are incredible and so insightful, you need to check them all out. Easy to read and understand, yet so powerful. Fascinating… I could go on and on.

It’s interesting to identify yourself in some of his books (Tipping Point–I’m a Maven) and it looks like I’ve got the makings of a moderate Outlier so far.

I will spare you the details of this book as the Amazon summary does a better job, but so far I am loving it and recommend it to all my friends. And everyone.

This guy is pure gold. I brought up his book The Tipping Point in my job interview and BAM! I got the job!

Was it magic?

If you’re interested in his other books, these are the ones that I’ve read:

• Outliers: The Story of Success
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

PS. If you buy them (and you should!) I will get some pennies from Amazon’s Associate program! Help a gal out and get some great reading material!

Yes, this is a blatant steal from FB, but I know I’ve read a lot of these books, so I’d like to see how I stack up! I thought it was really interesting!

BOLD = Read
NOT bolded = Unread

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

Ouch! Only 32 out of 100! The good news is that I’m actually reading a lot of Jane Austen and The Bronte sisters right now, and my friend K owns a lot of Terry Prachett which he will be lending to me shortly.

I figure I’ll be at a good 50% or so in a couple of months!

I wanted to share this article I read in the Star with my readers today, as I think it highlights an important issue facing all Canadians. It’s also part o my series of thoughts on the environment and going green.

The Case Against Bottled Water

The article talks about people’s perceptions of tap water versus bottled water, and how it’s strange that Canada has one of the best water supplies in the world, yet our citizens are choosing to drink foreign bottled water instead.

It also mentions the downsides to drinking bottled water, such as the toxins leached from the plastic, the amount of oil it takes to produce the plastic bottles, and the fact that bottled water is not tested for safety and potability nearly as often as municipal water is.

“…according to Health Canada, there is no evidence to support the belief that bottled water is any safer than tap water. Indeed, if anything, our tap water may well be safer and healthier than bottled varieties.
The municipal water supply is more stringently tested than bottled water supplies. In Canada, the CBC reports that local water supplies are inspected every day while bottled-water plants are inspected just once every three years. In addition, according to MSN news, water-bottling plants are required to test for coliform bacteria just once a week whereas most municipal water systems test for the bacteria several times a day.”

My personal opinion is that we are drinking too much bottled water. I have recently switched from drinking bottled water to carrying my own bottle around with me. I have a stainless steel water bottle or two now, which are not only fashionable, but they also keep my water cold and icky-taste-free all day. The environment is also important to me, so by not drinking bottled water I am reducing a heck of a lot of stress on the global environment (transport costs, bottling costs, “stealing” another area’s drinking water).

“According to the Pacific Institute, the energy required to produce plastic water bottles for the American market alone in 2006 was equivalent to more than 17 million barrels of oil and created 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. Producing bottles consumes a huge amount of water too, with the Pacific Institute estimating it takes three litres of water to produce one litre of bottled water.”

However I still drink bottled water for the convenience factor, like when I’m out and about and there are no other options.

How do you feel about drinking bottled water? Do the risks and costs of it bother you, or do you still feel that municipal water is less clean or flavourful (-less)?

I’m on a posting roll here, folks!

I am quite the avid reader and will read just about anything I can get my hands on, including cereal boxes and toilet paper wrappers. I think it makes sense for me to write about some of the books I read because I love sharing good stories and books. There’s just something so wholesome and good about reading and books… I love collecting them and I cherish them as some of my best friends.

I do have a few favourite authors and genres, but lately I have been stealing books from my mom’s bookclub list. Some of them are kind of crappy, but occasionally I’ll strike upon a golden one, like The Shadow of the Wind: Carlos Ruis Zafon.

I really loved this book because it’s essentially a story about books, and how they can draw you into their stories, and reflect your own realities at the same time. There’s a lot of really great parallels in this novel, and it’s very romantic… not in the kisses-and-sappy-lovemaking way, but in the love stories and tragedies that are involved. I really couldn’t put this down and neglected my laundry as a result last week

“The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax’s novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert-the name of the devil in one of Carax’s novels.

As he grows up, Daniel’s fascination with the mysterious Carax links him to a blind femme fatale with a “porcelain gaze,” Clara Barceló; another fan, a leftist jack-of-all-trades, Fermín Romero de Torres; his best friend’s sister, the delectable Beatriz Aguilar; and, as he begins investigating the life and death of Carax, a cast of characters with secrets to hide.

Officially, Carax’s dead body was dumped in an alley in 1936. But discrepancies in this story surface. Meanwhile, Daniel and Fermín are being harried by a sadistic policeman, Carax’s childhood friend. As Daniel’s quest continues, frightening parallels between his own life and Carax’s begin to emerge.

Ruiz Zafón strives for a literary tone, and no scene goes by without its complement of florid, cute and inexact similes and metaphors (snow is “God’s dandruff”; servants obey orders with “the efficiency and submissiveness of a body of well-trained insects”). Yet the colorful cast of characters, the gothic turns and the straining for effect only give the book the feel of para-literature or the Hollywood version of a great 19th-century novel. “

This summary from Amazon.ca doesn’t really do the book justice, you really just have to read it. I was particularly interested in it because it takes place in Barcelona, and I was able to make the connection between scenes in the book and the actual places I saw while I was in Barcelona a few years ago.

So there you have it. I’ve actually finished reading this book and am onto another bookclub steal, but I strongly encourage you to give this one a read! I’m sure your local library (or mom!) has a copy you can borrow.

I’d love to hear if any of my readers have read this book, and what they think of it!