AmericanTV: Quantico

A diverse group of new recruits arrives at the FBI Quantico Base in Virginia. Special Agent Liam O'Connor lets them know that the FBI Academy is the toughest boot camp and hardest graduate school rolled into one. Some of the recruits come from FBI families, others have been victims of terrorism. Whatever their reason for joining, these recruits only have a 50/50 chance of finishing and there are no second chances. 

Between target practice and tests of physical endurance, they have to learn the art of investigation. Their first exercise is to find secrets about their fellow trainees - and everyone has secrets. This group represents the best, the brightest and the most vetted, so it seems impossible when one of the recruits is suspected of masterminding the biggest attack on New York City since 9/11.

I saw the first episode of this show last night and it blew my mind. The actors are, just like their characters, a diverse group of people with different experiences from the acting world. One that stands our for me is Priyanka Chopra, an actor who has built a solid career for herself in Indian Cinema and who now has taken the leap to act in Hollywood. Looking forward to seeing how the show will progress and if it will picked up for a full season.

Book Challenge!!!

The BBC apparently believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. Please copy and paste your bolded books read, italicized books as ”want to read”, and then sum up with a head count, so to speak. What does the list say about your reading habits?

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Out of these 100 books I’ve read 38, but I must say that I’m surprised that none of Agatha Christie’s books were included or Paulo Coelho for that matter. There is also a lack of non Western authors, as if their contribution to the literary world aren't as important.

AmericanTV: The Vampire Diaries Season 7

Where did we leave off last season? 

1. Well as long as Bonnie is alive, Elena is "dead".
2. Everyone should write a diary so that Elena doesn't miss out on any juicy tidbits (she just wants to keep track of Damon and his love life...). 

Season seven picks up three years into the future and Stefan seems to be in trouble while Damon is in a coffin. As usual the element of mystery surrounds the Salvatore brothers. This will be an interesting season without Elena. 

What did you think of the season premiere? 

What I've Read So Far

1. Snuff – Terry Pratchett
2. Prudence – Gail Carriger
3. A Small Place – Jamaica Kincaid
4. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
5. Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett
6. A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness
7. Dreamless – Josephine Angelini
8.  Anthony Burgess – A Clockwork Orange
9. Midnight City – J. Barton Mitchell
10. Shame - Salman Rushdie
11. Angela Carter - Wise Children

It’s a mixed set of books, but I like to keep my options open. What have you read? Any recommendations of what I should read next?

AmericanTV: iZombie Season Two!

Last night the second season of iZombie premiered and I couldn't be more thrilled! Three months have passed since Liv cured Major and Blaine of zombie-ism after she turned the former into a zombie to save his life and the latter was the dick who nearly killed him. It has also been three months since she denied blood to her dying brother after he was caught in the explosion that covered up the entire brain-harvesting outfit, and that decision has strained not only her relationship with the brother, but with her mother as well. She can't tell them the truth without putting them in danger, though not telling them the truth doesn't make them any safer, as we learned from both Major and Peyton's arcs last season. As a result of what happened in the finale, Major was no longer speaking to Liv and Peyton still hadn't returned from wherever it was she disappeared to after witnessing Liv go full-zombie mode in their kitchen. Things are shit for Liv, basically.

A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Deep in the heart of Oxfords's Bodleian Library, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and the descendant of Witches,  unearths an enchanted alchemical manuscript. Wanting nothing to do with sorcery, she banishes the book to the stacks.

But her discovery has set a fantastical underworld stirring, and soon a horde of daemons, witches, and other creatures descend upon the library. Among them is the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire with a keen interest in the book.

I recommend that you give this novel a chance and follow Diana and Matthew on their adventure through the secrets of an enchanted world.

BookCollection: Discworld

I love Discworld and the penmanship of Terry Pratchett. He created characters that make you doubt wether you are on the side of good or evil.

Here is a peek at my collection of Discworld books. I don't have a proper bookshelf yet, but I hope that I will get one for my birthday.

Who is your favourite Discworld character? Mine is Sam Vimes, always and forever.

Netflix: Narcos

Narcos is a crime drama television series, slated to debut on August 28th, 2015 on Netflix. The series was created by Chris Brancato, Eric Newman, and Carlo Bernard, and will be a serialized take on drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. The first season will consist of 10 episodes.

Here is a list of the awesome main cast:

Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar
Pedro Pascal as Javier Pena
Manolo Cardona as Eduardo Mendoza
Boyd Holbrook as Steve Murphy
Ana de la Reguera as Elisa
Stephanie Sigman as Valeria Velez, character based on Virginia Vallejo
Joanna Christie as Connie Murphy

K-Drama: Coffee Prince

A couple of years ago I was obsessed by Korean dramas and shows. I used to stay up late and watch a complete series instead of doing my homework or getting a good nights rest. My grades didn't turn out as good as they could have been, but it was worth it.

The dramas gave me comfort at a time when I wasn't even aware that I needed comforting. One of the dramas that I really fell for was "The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince". They story wasn't original, but the actors where brilliant and brought the viewer along for the ride of their characters journey through love and life.

Short version: It is about a young woman in her early twenties trying to make ends meet so she can support her mother and sister. Events take place and the owner of a newly opened coffee shop hires her while thinking that she is a "he". The owner falls for "him" and starts to question his own sexuality. Hilarious things happen. Watch it!

YoungAdult: Dreamless

Now that summer has come upon us I'm so excited to be able to take some time and catch up on my reading. It has been a hectic semester at university, but if all goes well I'm going to be taking my last semester this fall! 

One of the books I plan on reading is Dreamless by Josephine Angelini. It's the sequel to her book Starcrossed. The premise of the story is that when Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend.

As the only scion who can descend into the Underworld, Helen has been given a nearly impossible task. By night she wanders through Hades, trying to stop the endless cycle of revenge that has cursed her family. By day she struggles to overcome the fatigue that is rapidly eroding her sanity. Without Lucas by her side, Helen is not sure she has the strength to go on.

Just as Helen is pushed to her breaking point, a mysterious new Scion comes to her rescue. Funny and brave, Orion shields her from the dangers of the Underworld. But time is running out. A ruthless foe plots against them, and the Furies' cry for blood is growing louder.

As the ancient Greek world collides with the mortal one, Helen's sheltered life on Nantucket descends into chaos. But the hardest task of all will be forgetting Lucas Delos.