Cynthia and I share a rather limited reading list. I could spend hundreds and hundreds of words here talking passionately about the books I read but she’d catch no ball. She could go on and on about the books she enjoys reading but I’d would go, “huh?” But since we are both studying Spanish, and [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Book Reviews'
Inés Of My Soul By Isabel Allende – An Eyeopening Read On Chile Conquest
February 18th, 2011 2 Comments
Tags: historical fiction · Isabel Allende
Once on a Moonless Night By Dai Sijie – A More Complex Read, Rewarding Nonetheless
February 3rd, 2011 No Comments
In “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress”, it is the hunger for the banned foreign book titles in the 70’s China that drives the plot forward. Similarly, in “Once on a Moonless Night”, it is the hunger for the ‘mutilated relic’ – a missing Buddhist sutra – that sets the story on fire. In fact, [...]
Tags: Dai Sijie
The Shattering: Prelude To Cataclysm By Christie Golden – Missing Lore Explained
January 27th, 2011 6 Comments
Flawed as it may be, this book “The Shattering” in several occasions moved me literally to tears. For better or for worse, Christie Golden may well be one of our finest. She has the passion to the lore, connection to Blizzard developing team, and has the time and patience to write a book for the [...]
Tags: Cataclysm · Christie Golden · World of Warcraft
Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress By Dai Sijie – Playful, And Adorable
January 24th, 2011 6 Comments
“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” tells a story of two young men – in 1971 when Mao’s Cultural Revolution was at its peak – being sent to one of the villages in the mountain called Phoenix of the Sky for re-education. The irony is, during Cultural Revolution, there was not much education per se, [...]
Tags: Dai Sijie
Merde Actually by Stephen Clarke – Sex And Love, In French Style (Sort Of)
January 18th, 2011 No Comments
Give a choice, I would have started from book one of the series “A Year in the Merde” and work my way to “Dial M for Merde”. But you know how borrowing books from a library is like. So I have read book four of the series, “Dial M for Merde” in October. Since I [...]
Tags: Stephen Clarke
The Housekeeper And The Professor By Yoko Ogawa – Beautiful, Simplistic, And Mathematically Charming
January 9th, 2011 4 Comments
“The Housekeeper and the Professor” tells a beautiful story between a professor who only has 80 minutes worth of short-term memory due to an accident, a young housekeeper who has been a single mother since 18, and her son whom the mathematic professor has nicknamed as Root because his hairstyle reminds the professor of the [...]
Tags: Yoko Ogawa
Luka And The Fire Of Life By Salman Rushdie – Now, This Is Fantasy!
January 3rd, 2011 2 Comments
OK. Let’s kick start the new year with a writeup on Salman Rushdie’s latest novel. One of the seven books I have read when I was on holiday. Born in the video gaming era, Salman Rushdie’s new novel “Luka and the Fire of Life” talks to me. As the main character Luka transverses through the [...]
Tags: Salman Rushdie
Great House By Nicole Krauss – Beautiful Prose Albeit Being Dry And Confusing
December 19th, 2010 2 Comments
It was a promising beginning, for the opening chapter “All Rise”. The narrator addresses to Your Honor confessing a break-up with her boyfriend, R, in the winter of 1972. Initially, I thought Nicole Krauss’s new novel was a collection of short stories, which in my opinion would have worked out much better. Comes the second [...]
Tags: Nicole Krauss
Book 3 Of Midnight’s Children – Wrapping Up Week 4 Read-Along
December 14th, 2010 7 Comments
One month has passed since I have joined my blogger friend and her friends and her extended friends to read Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children”. I can be a slow reader when the topic gets heavy and indeed, I am happy to have completed my reading in time for the closing of this read-along activity. When [...]
Tags: Midnight's Children read along · read along · Salman Rushdie
Book 2 Of Midnight’s Children – Wrapping Up Week 2 & 3 Read-Along
December 4th, 2010 3 Comments
I read somewhere that vocabulary defines one’s wisdom. In the sense that it is a tool – perhaps one major tool – to express oneself. The more diverse and vast one’s pool of vocabulary is, the more precise one’s idea can be articulated. It is observed that most adults after leaving school seldom learn new [...]
Tags: Midnight's Children read along · read along · Salman Rushdie