Literary Giveaway Blog Hop (Feb. 18-22)
Posted on | February 18, 2012 | No Comments
Welcome to my blog! I am Tze-Wen, also known as Chinoiseries on the net. On this blog I occasionally post my opinion on books I have read. You can also find posts about vegetarian and vegan food, because I love to challenge myself to create wonderful tasting dishes (that happen to be meatless).
Leslie won Shades of Grey.
Zoo City goes to Maya Floria Yasmin.
The winners have received an email. Thanks everyone for playing and for suggesting so many new books to my to-read list 
I cannot believe it’s already the fourth time that Judith of Leeswammes is organising her literary blog hop. I am grateful to her for bringing books that have literary merit to attention. People should be free to read whatever books they like, but it never hurts to highlight literary fiction 
So, thank you, Judith!
For this blog hop, I will be giving away two new copies of my favourite and dystopian books. I believe they are relevant for serious science-fiction lovers and may become to be recognised as great works in the future. Both books are written for an adult public, which I find a relief as (too) much of present-day SF features teenage or young adult protagonists.
These books will be sent by the Book Depository, meaning you can enter this giveaway regardless where you are in the world… as long as they’ll ship to your country.
Are you ready? Alright! Let’s proceed to the first book!
Zoo City – Lauren Beukes
I was first introduced to this adult dystopian novel by Ellie from Curiosity Killed the Bookworm. The book’s protagonist, Zinzi, particularly appealed to me, because she isn’t just another teenager (sigh) but a sexy thirty-something with murder on her record. The novel features people with questionable ethics wandering around in a dark and cruel world… often with an animal on their back. The story includes an insight into the phenomenon known as 419 fraud and the lives of those who have been uprooted, disfigured and displaced by civil war.
Summary from LaurenBeukes.com
Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.
Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.
Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own.
Shades of Grey – Jasper Fforde
The second book I will be giving away is the newest brainchild of the man who gave us fantasy novels about literature (yes, I’m talking about the Thursday Next series!). Shades of Grey or The Road to High Saffron features a world in which colour (and the lack thereof) dictates all. While very funny here and there, it also reveals a grim and cruel world where the less favourably coloured are easily disposed of.
Summary from Goodreads.com
Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means.
Eddie’s world wasn’t always like this. There’s evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.
Eddie, who works for the Color Control Agency, might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey Nightseer from the dark, unlit side of the village. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good. Together, they engage in dangerous revolutionary talk.
Stunningly imaginative, very funny, tightly plotted, and with sly satirical digs at our own society, this novel is for those who loved Thursday Next but want to be transported somewhere equally wild, only darker; a world where the black and white of moral standpoints have been reduced to shades of grey.
The Rules
- Participant has to be 18 years or older
- You can enter the giveaway until Wednesday the 22nd of February
- Thank you for playing, the giveaway is now closed!
- I will select two winners on Friday the 24th of February.
- The lucky ones will receive an email from me, asking for address details. If you don’t respond before the end of the week, I will draw new winners.
When you are done filling out my form, why not go and visit the other participants in the Literary Blog Hop? Can you believe how many chances you’ve got at winning some bookish goodies? 
Good luck!
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