On My Wishlist #1

Dear Me,

Like every book-loving person out there, I not only have overflowing bookshelves and towering book piles scattered all over the place but also a legion of lists of books I want to read, own and collect. I have them listed in a database then I got bored and moved on. And because the desire and the restlessness of liking a book and yet it is not available makes the urge to have it in my hands all the more exciting and frustrating at the same time. The wishlist started with just five books and I didn't even know how many they were. I even lost a number of them because I had them scribbled in a tissue paper from a coffee shop, noted them in a grocery receipt, typed them in the notes tab from my pda and worst of them all, jotted in the palm of my hand.



On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where I list all the books I desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.

My book wishlist does not only comprise my books-to-covet but also includes the books-I-want-to-covet for my two-year old reader. As much as I am a self-confessed book-lover, children's books are not my forte. But when Miguel started holding and flipping the pages of my paperbacks and hardcovers, I realized that I might need to start liking and reading the books meant for his age. After all, I want him to grow up enjoying every book that comes his way.

With that, here's my wishlist:



Although this book is more appropriate for ages 4-6 years old, I think there's no harm in reading this to him and explaining about the ill effects of throwing trash in the ocean. He practically knows what trash is and what this body of water is like. I think he will love pointing the beautiful creatures in the ocean.

I Can Save the Ocean:
The Little Green Monster Cleans Up the Beach


authored by Alison Inches and
illustrated by Viviana Garofoli

published on March 9, 2010 by Simon & Schuster

hardcover, 24 pages

children's book

Book Synopsis:
Max the Little Green Monster is a cute, furry green monster that loves the outdoors, especially the beach! But Max and his friends don't like cleaning up after themselves and after a picnic on the shore, they leave a big mess behind and go scuba diving. While Max is excited to meet lots of new ocean-swimming friends from crabs to colorful fishes to ink-squirting squids, when he learns how his carelessness and littering may have harmed the beautiful ocean, the Little Green Monster goes on a quest to clean and protect the beach and finds out what it means to be environmentally green.

Kids can join Max the Little Green Monster's journey to environmental awareness and learn tips on how they can become little green monsters themselves. The interior pages of this book will be printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper that's FSC-certified.




Knowing Frances Mayes was an accident. Thanks to her book-turned-movie with the same title (Under The Tuscan Sun), I would not have hunted and read the book sooner and discovered that both were equally beautifully written. If not for the movie (which I loved, by the way), I would not have known the joy of reading her other works. For that, I have to thank my hubby most of all, for bringing this movie into my attention.

I cannot get enough of Mayes' chronicles about Tuscany and her enchanting experiences there. I am truly envious.

Every Day In Tuscany: Seasons Of An Italian Life

authored by Frances Mayes

published on March 9, 2010 by Broadway Books

hardcover, 320 pages

travel memoir

Book Synopsis:
In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.

Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany—and with it a lively engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden. Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons that have become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, and of the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began.

With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate andinviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life.




I always have a thing for crime fiction with suspense and thrill to boot. Because of this, I am always in the look-out for new authors (at least for me) to excite me. The synopsis seemed interesting enough for me to include this in my wishlist.

The Dante Killings: A Thriller

authored by David Hewson

published on April 27, 2010 by Random House

paperback, 544 pages

police procedural thriller

Book Synopsis:
On a warm, golden evening in Rome, celebrities and paparazzi gather at the Villa Borghese as a legendary director premieres his long-anticipated film version of Dante’s Inferno. But minutes later the scene is chaos: A man lies dead, the film’s star is missing, and a priceless relic has vanished.

As the premiere shifts locations—from Rome to San Francisco—detective Nic Costa finds himself on U.S. shores for the first time, charged with protecting a trove of rare Italian artworks and artifacts, as well as an American film actress, Maggie Flavier. When a killer indeed strikes, and with Flavier in danger, Costa races to unravel the chilling clues that connect Dante’s nine circles of Hell to the shattering revelations of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. But he may be too late. For a cunning plot is closing in around Costa, guided by a poet’s ancient vision of sin and punishment and a killer’s genius for terror.

10 comments:

  1. Hi Frances - Frances here.
    LOL I couldn't wait to do that.
    I like your wishlist of books both grown-up and kiddie.
    Actually the truth to be told I likek reading young adult books a lot. One of these days I'm going to write one.
    Be sure to get in on all the contests and drawings we have going on at the She Who Blogs anniversary celebration at the group site.
    Hope all your wishes come true.

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  2. aww, the ocean book sounds great!

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  3. Sounds like some great reading! Here's mine: http://simpleloveofreading.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-my-wishlist-13.html

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  4. Awww...books can be great learning tools. I hope that you get your books and that they are everything you hope them to be. Here is what is On My Wishlist.

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  5. Sounds like a great list of wishlist books.

    Here's what I'm wishing for this week.

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  6. I too have an always growing and unmanageable wish list. LOL. Hope you get all your wanted reads soon. :-)

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  7. Not my type of books, but I do hope that you get them all and that you enjoy them. Check out what is On My Wishlist.

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  8. I love your wishlist, sounds like some good ones you have listed there!!!

    Feel free to check out mine at Addicted To Romance

    Happy Reading!

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  9. Every Day in Tuscany looks interesting... Nice choice.

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  10. The Dante Killings sounds like a book that I would like to read. This is a great meme as it adds to my wishlist even more :)

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