Bookworming v2011

The man who does not read good books has
no advantage over the man who can’t read them.

–  Mark Twain

Absolutely true.  I hold the above quote close to my heart and it is mostly upon a loose sort of conviction that I choose my reads.  This post will be continuously updated right up till the last day of 2011.  I am hoping my 2011 list will look much healthier than 2010′s.

The list of books read in 2011 are:

1. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
2. New Moon, Stephenie Meyer
3. Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer
4. Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer
5. The Faraway Tree series, Enid Blyton
6. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
7. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
8. Heaven is for Real, Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
9. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
10. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
11. The Missing Rose, Serdar Ozkan
12. Be the Pack Leader, Cesar Millan
13. Poirot Four Classic Cases, Agatha Christie
14. The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker
15. Cinderella, Henry W. Hewet
16. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón (reading)
17. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth (reading)
18. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (reading)
19. Light of the World, Pope Benedict XVI (reading)
20. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas (reading)
21. Dream Psychology Psychoanaysis for Beginners, Sigmund Freud (reading)
22. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo – planned
23. Twenty Years After, Alexander Dumas – planned
24. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Peter Hedges – planned
25. The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald – planned
26. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie – planned
27. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens – planned
28. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll – planned
29. Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, T.J. Mawson – planned

Need to bring this post up before it gets buried.  I am making terrible progress and I am re-reading some children’s classics on my kindle, for example Cinderella.  Time to catch up, and hopefully the kindle will help!

Changed Reading Habit

Last Sunday when I met the hubby in Tokyo, I was exhilarated for several reasons, one of which was obviously the fact that we had been apart for close a month.  My kindle was the other reason.  It would be the very first time I met my white kindle.

My kindle was already loaded with the e-books I bought over Amazon because I had requested for the hubby to log into my account and load up the e-books for me.  So, I started reading the moment I received my kindle.

It took some getting used to, because I was so used to my touchscreen-ipad.  The hubby had to remind me – several times – that my kindle does not have a touchscreen.  And he had to spend a little time to guide me along, for example how to move on to the next page or how to go highlight a passage.  This guy obviously had quite a fun time exploring my kindle while in the States.  Unfortunately, even a new gadget didn’t manage to pique his interest in reading more books.

I am reading more because it is now so convenient to pick up the kindle any time I feel like reading some pages.  But I am most definitely not reading any faster.  I thought I was the only one who felt it, but obviously not, from the conversation we had last night while in bed.

Hubby: What are you reading? (peeped over) Oh, The Three Musketeers.

Myself: Yup, refreshing my memory in preparation for Kyuhyun’s musical.

Hubby: (in all seriousness) Darling, do you realise you read very slow nowadays?  You used to finish this book (in hardcopy, it meant) in about a day.  How many days have you already been reading this on the kindle?

Myself: Ya, I noticed it too.

I don’t know the actual reason for that change in my reading habit, but you can be sure I have been thinking about it.  And I came up with several possible reasons:

• I’m still not used to reading on the kindle.  Yet.
• I can’t concentrate like I used to, thus I read a lot less pages at one sitting.
• I lack the discipline to finish up reading a chapter before stopping because unlike with a book (where I like to stop and place my bookmark after completing a chapter), I can stop anywhere on the kindle and would still be able to pick up where I left off because I read more often in short bursts.

One thing’s for sure, I’m going to try buying less books because I’m seriously running out of space in the study.  And like everyone else, I should do my part in saving some trees.  I just hope I get used to reading on the kindle real soon.  If even the hubby has noticed that my reading speed has slowed, the change had to be rather significant.  But oh, I quite like the fact that I could put on some music on the kindle while reading at the same time.

My Literature Texts

Still on the topic of books.  Because I climbed up the ladder to reach for the books for yesterday’s post, I decided to bring down all my Literature textbooks for a shot.

Yup.  I kept all the Literature textbooks and supplementary books I read from Secondary 1 to JC 2.  Some of them could still be at my parents’ home, because I vaguely remember a book on ‘Lady Precious Stream’, which was my very first Literature textbook.

These books are really old… some as old as 22 years-old, but I can’t bear to throw them out.  Well, now that I have taken a picture of them as keepsake, it might be easier to dispose of them the next time I need to make space in my bookshelves for other acquisitions.

I wonder if any of my friends kept all their Literature textbooks…

The 5 Most Important Books I’ve Read

A post inspired by The Daily Post.  We were told not to think too much into it and just go into listing 5 books.  Here’s my list, in order of importance:

1. The Bible – Need I even justify this, I was wondering to myself?  I started rather young, being exposed to reading a children’s Bible at the age of 5 or so.  I don’t always enjoy reading the Bible, but it is no doubt a very important book.  And the more I read, the more I comprehend.  Little by little.  Perhaps by the time I die, God’s mysteries would be revealed to me.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – This book changed my life in so many ways.  I didn’t pick it up by choice then – it was my school Literature textbook back in Secondary 3.  And I am so glad the school chose this book.  It opened my eyes to how real racism and the KKK activities were in South.  More importantly, it taught me the meaning of true courage and that it could come masked in many forms.  And I idolise Atticus Finch!
3. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho – I received this book as a birthday gift from a good friend (whom I look up to in terms of depth of thinking) about a decade ago when our friendship was a little… antagonistic?  The book came at a time when I was at the crossroads of my relationship with the then-boyfriend-now-husband.  Although from Day 1 when I plunged into a relationship with him, I was certain he was going to be the man I would marry.  But when the time came for me to really make the decision, I hesitated, not knowing if that was what I wanted to accomplish in life.  This book helped put some things into perspective, so to speak.
4. Animal Farm, George Orwell – Oh, who could forget how the ‘Four legs good, two legs bad’ became ‘Four legs good, two legs better’ chants in this classic satirical novella.  This book, too, was introduced by the school in Secondary 2.  Why?  I don’t remember if it was an assigned Literature textbook or recommended as supplemental reading to the History lessons.  I enjoyed the book very much.  It was my Communism & Stalinism 101.
5. Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White – A very simple and endearing story of friendship and loyalty.  I love this book for its simplicity in narration.  Oh well, it’s a children’s book.  Nevertheless this book never fails to touch me whenever I pick it up again to read it.

None of my favourite author’s – Jane Austen – books made it to the list.  I really enjoyed reading them, but they impacted me a lot lesser than the 5 listed above.

Beginning of an End

Two significant events just took place within the last 6 hours – I watched the final installment of Harry Potter film series, and I got myself an iPhone.  Sounds ordinary enough and trust me to make a mountain out of a molehill eh?  Yea, that sounds like me all right.

I started reading the Harry Potter novels back in 2000 when the 4th book was still not released and never looked back since.  I also got the hubby, who was then the boyfriend, hooked on the books as well.  Naturally we were looking forward to the first of the film series which premiered in 2001.  And every time a new installment was about to premiere, I would assiduously read all the books again from Book 1 to that installment.  Gosh, I must have read Harrry Potter and The Philospher’s Stone at least 10 times!

A decade and 8 movies later, I’ve finally closed a chapter on this aspect of my life.  (By the way, I’ve always knew that Severus Snape is a good guy and Neville Longbottom has always been my favourite character.)  There’s a sense of… loss?  I can’t quite place it, but it’s strange that there isn’t another Harry Potter book or movie to look forward to next summer.  After all, it has been such a large part of our lives in the past decade.

All I have to do now is to wait for the DVD series to be released.  But, life will never be the same again.

And on top of that, I decided to make yesterday even more memorable with the acquisition of my first iPhone.  It’s not a happy decision but my Blackberry Bold has been failing me repeatedly of late.  The problem all started when I was ‘forced’ to update the operating software on my ‘Whiteberry’ when I sync-ed with my iMac.  Then the phone started behaving real wonky – WhatsApp stopped working properly, I kept getting the alert that the phone is running short on memory whenever I updated application software, I missed many calls because no one could reach me, and the phone was getting sluggish because it was low on memory.  And I abhor the new Calendar display.  I think the people at RIM forgot that not everyone with a BB have a full screen display.

As a consequence, I deleted some applications including WordPress, Universal Converter and Player for YouTube.  And the performance only improved slightly.  It doesn’t make any sense to me at all – I updated the OS and the BB started mal-functioning?!  Sure, I could always revert to the older version of the OS, but I’m not going to risk losing all my information and be at the mercy of SingTel’s BB technical support.

Deciding to acquire the iPhone was a momentous decision for me, especially when I have been holding out for so long and I still detest typing on a touchscreen very much.  I vacillated numerous times but the constant lagging from my ‘Whiteberry’ was getting to me.  There are other cell phones out there including Androids and the good old Nokias, but if I need to move away from BB, the clear choice for me is an iPhone.

I have a thing for white cell phones – my past 4 cell phones are all white.  I know the iPhone doesn’t look white but that’s because I chose the privacy film so it turned out looking black – might change it back to the normal kind since the sales assistant didn’t do a good job applying it on anyway.  Now I need to decide whether to retire my NEC N08A or my Whiteberry.  Ya, with just two cell phone numbers, I really don’t need 3 active cell phones.

With the collection of an iPod, iPod Mini, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad and iPhone (all still fully functional, by the way), my iFamily is now truly complete.  Now, I just need to concentrate on growing 3 more pairs of ears and 2 more pairs of hands.

The Missing Rose

And I don’t even fancy roses much in the first place.  What prompted me to pick this book up from Kinokuniya during their 20%-Off-All-Books Summer Sale was the bookstore’s recommendation which came to me by means of a monthly email newsletter.  The book sounded interesting enough, but what really caught my eye was the little introduction to the book:

This is the story of Diana, a young woman whose desire for the approval and praise of others has made her let go of her own dreams and values.  Her mother’s deathbed confession that Diana has a twin sister takes her on a mysterious journey – a journey to a wondrous rose garden to Istanbul where she will be invited to converse with roses and learn much about herself along the way.

The Missing Rose has been placed on the pedestal alongside Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist by several renown reviewers. I love these two books and if the reviews are to be believed, I knew I would love The Missing Rose too.

Let me lift off the first chaper of the Prologue:

Ephesus!  City of duality.  Home to both the Temple of Artemis and the holy House of Mother Mary.  The city which embodies both the ego and the soul.  The epitome of both vanity and humility, the personification of enslavement and freedom.  Ephesus!  The city in which opposites intertwine.  The city that is as human as every living soul.

The last sentence is about as astute an observation as one could get.  I have been to both places mentioned.  And the familiarity with the geographical locations of the places helped a little in appreciating the novel more.  A pity I’d never been to Rio de Janeiro, the city where Diana had stayed almost all her life.

At first glance, it looks like this story is about Diana, a rich heiress who seems to possess everything, but in fact has nothing.  In retrospect, Diana represents all of us in one way or another.  How many of us live our lives the way others think is best for us just to gain acceptance so much so that we have lost ourselves?  Do we live for ourselves, or for others?

There are many quotable quotes in the novel, but my favourite must be – As long as time flows forward, the future which we are so mesmerised by is nothing but an untouched past.

Well-said.  Many amongst us are obsessed with the future, while even more like myself still live in the past.  Just exactly how many of us are relishing in the present?

Summing it up, this is a very good book worth reading at least once in your life.  The author writes simply in words easily understood by a 10-year old child.  In this respect, this book reminds me a lot of The Little Prince - read it at when one is at 10, 20, 30 and so one… and the experience is different every single time.

Tell me how you feel about this book if you have read it, or is intending to pick up the book.

The Twilight Saga

SPOILERS ALERT!

I am very late to the party, so to speak.  The euphoria and hype for The Twilight Saga had come and gone even before I caught on.  You see, we do not like jostling with the crowd just to catch movies in town during the weekends and only catch less than 3 movies (when they were screened in the theatres) in a year.  You could imagine how carefully we use the ‘quota’ – it is undoubtedly reserved for the very special movies with raving reviews.

For some reason or another, Twilight slipped through the cracks.  And when we don’t watch the first of a series, we don’t bother with the rest.

I am rather a cautious person where it comes to the selection of cult literature.  I don’t just pick up anything in the Bestsellers section, and most certainly not anything to do with vampires: I don’t have any feelings for them.

What motivated me to eventually pick up the books was the movie ‘Twilight’ which I caught on the flight from Tokyo Narita back to Singapore just recently.  The movie was rather good and I was immensely engaged for the better part of it.  Experience tells me that if a film adaption of a book is good, the book would invariably be much better (think: the Harry Potter series).

I was spot on again.  Reading the books brought on a new dimension which I thought was not adequately covered in the only movie of the saga that I watched – family ties.  The loyalty the Cullens showed to each other was nothing short of admirable, never mind that they were not the normal sort of a family unit we would usually think of.  And Bella’s awkward relationship with her dad Charlie vastly amused me because it reminded me so much of my own’s.

In the movie, I was rather caught up in the budding but subtle romance between Bella and Edward.  I would go as much to admit that it was part of the reason why I was keen on picking up the books.  However, the romance was played up so much it bordered on the tedium as I read on.  Really, it can’t be helped.  Who could expect a married lady almost twice the age of the protagonists to get all excited over Bella’s puppy love?  Hardly a plausible notion.

With much difficulty, I finally located and secured a copy of the final installment ‘Breaking Dawn’ in the same paperback format as the afore 3 books (I am so puzzled as to why they were sold out in all the branches of Kinokuniya).  In total, it took me 5 non-consecutive days to digest all 4 books amidst going about my daily life – might have taken all of 2 days if I didn’t have to work.  Very easy reads, I won’t lie on that part (just very long chapters, which somewhat irked me because it meant that I have to read more at one sitting before putting the books down).  After all, I found these books in the Young Adults section in Kinokuniya, which is indicative of the level of reading difficulty.

Twilight – the 1st book of the series and probably my favourite of the lot.  In many ways, Bella reminded me of myself in that we are both such klutzes and hated PE lessons (well… I really loved, and was good in canoeing though).  And her shyness and loathe to draw attention to herself.  Very familiar indeed.  But I really, really liked Carlisle and Edward.  And Alice too.

The author began writing Midnight Sun as an accompaniment to Twilight, except that the story was retold from Edward’s point of view.  Somehow the draft leaked, and she decided to make it available on her website.  It’s partially completed though, and I wish she would return to complete it soon.

New Moon – admittedly, I like this book lesser than the 1st because we do not see much of the Cullens, at least not as often as I would like to.  This book paid a lot of attention to the blooming friendship between Jacob and Bella.  I have decidedly less feelings for Jacob than for Edward, not that he is unlikeable.  His devotion to Bella is almost… godly.

But it was tedious to read about Bella moping around.  Excruciatingly painful.  I pressed on with the reading and kept wondering when she would come around instead of tempting fate and living life dangerously.  I thought this was the point where the plot looked like it was starting to come apart.

And, who else thought that Edward’s decision to antagonise the Volturis is exceedingly juvenile considering that he was already 109 years old?

Eclipse – I already liked this book better than New Moon, simply because the Cullens are back into the picture right at the start of the book.  But it was so tedious to read Bella’s indecision between Edward and Jacob.  And the way Jacob was pushing his way makes him thoroughly unlikeable, to me at least.

There is very little ‘action’ in this book, so to speak.  Mostly it still revolved around Bella’s yearn for immortality and Edward not relenting.  But insight on Rosalie and Jasper’s past human lives were revealed, and I found myself liking them better than ever.  See, the Cullens are decent folks through and through.

I’m actually half-minded about picking up Breaking Dawn but well, at least in this last book they are going to be married and have a child.  That’s a marked improvement.

Breaking Dawn – finally married, the both of them.  At least it could be said with some finality that Bella was committed to Edward.  The way she and Jacob went about it almost indicated that she was going to defect.  I cannot deal with fickle-mindedness.  Call me old-fashioned or romantic at heart, there is only one other person any one could deeply love in the world, not two.  It was infuriating how Bella went about wanting to have her cake and eat it too.  Greedy. Too greedy.  I’m starting to like Bella lesser and lesser.

I cannot understand the imprinting concept much.  It’s also laughable that Jacob imprinted on Renesmee, a mere infant who was no doubt growing at an astonishing speed.  Granted, Renesmee is the missing piece in the puzzle to end the whole saga on a happier note – she united the Cullens and the werewolves, and she solved the Bella-Jacob’s messy relationship.  A clever manipulation of the plot, that I have to give.

The way this book ended was a little open-ended.  I guess the author could write another sequel if she so wished to.  As for me?  I’m just glad it’s a happy ending.

I have a habit of re-reading the good books in my collection, but you know, I’m not sure if I would be re-reading The Twilight Saga anytime soon in the near future.  Pardon my impetuous frankness but there is only so much a good plot could carry a book, much less a good plot which seemed to have collapsed midway through and then picked up again towards the end.  But then again, I must learn and manage my expectations – not many people in the world, alive or dead, could write half as well as Jane Austen, my all-time favourite author.