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NAVIGATION
FRIENDS
INTERESTING LINKS |
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NAVIGATION
FRIENDS
INTERESTING LINKS |
01. Dune by Frank Herbert: Excellent story of a planet called Arrakis. Very much like a science fiction with a dash of fantasy.
I would have to buy the next books in the series.
02. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: I'm at lost at what to say about this book. Granted it was written nicely, but it's about a little girl.
I tried to imagine that he was talking about a grown woman so I could concentrate more on the writing than him thinking about a little girl in that way,
but it didn't work because he kept using the word "pubescent".
03. Bridge to Teribithia by Katherine Paterson: This is such a wonderful innocent book! I love the friendship between Jess and Leslie and
the things they dreamed up in their own little world. But it has such a tearful ending.
04. How To Be Good by Nick Hornby: I was so confused again! Is she going to divorce her husband? Why isn't she divorcing her husband?
Why does the husband change into someone completely different? What is going on???? It's a funny book, but in a confusing sort of way. I guess it's because
I don't understand the marriage life(???)
05. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: It is such a sad book about a little 6 year-old boy who was admitted to Battle School for his intelligence.
But it is truly a psychological trick for a higher purpose. I feel sick of it sometimes to think of a little boy's mind and life is ruined and he was to never have a real
childhood with real friends. It is still an excellent book and should be read.
06. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke: Story of reviving English magic. It's good enough that the fact that it's a 800+ page book doesn't
bother me (and it didn't seem like it's that long either).
07. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros: A book but written with a poem-like feel about a girl growing up on a poor street. It's more of a collection
of stories about different people who lived on the same street and was told through the voice of a little girl.
08. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides: This one is better than Middlesex, I think, because of the writing style. It's written from the third person point of
view but also reveals enough so that the main characters are intimate. Basically, it's the story of a bunch of boys who are obsessed with the Libson sisters and so they keep records and
relics of the girls' lives before and after their suicides.
09. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: Life in old New York was way too complicated. Ms. Wharton did a very good job at describing lives of the rich people during
that time, but at the same time, she was too romantic for my taste. However, I very much like the ending.
10. Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman: Life of a young girl in the 13th century. It is a young adult book but it is enjoyable at the same time.
11. The Idiot Girl's Christmas by Laurie Notaro: This is what I call the "chick flick" of books, but in a good way. I think I've become too cynical and sarcastic that I find this
book un-funny. It couldn't be, right? Since her other books are just like this one but I thought they were hilarious.
12. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway: I haven't read a really good book in a while until now. The old man had so much hope and faith. Although, I must say that
while reading it, I could come up with at least 3 solutions (easy ones, too) to solve the problems that made him so miserable. But why would I want to do that? It would defeat the whole purpose of
summing almost everything about life into a tiny book that I could finish in 2 hours.
13. Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier: Way better than her other book, The Virgin Blue, but I have no intention of watching the movie either.
14. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: Second 800-page book of the year! One of the best books ever.
15. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi: Yay, a foreign book! A more indept view of what real Iranians do in the mist of war, uncensored.
16. The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho: A rather frustrating book if you're not religious. However, the overal moral of the story stills applies to everyone if God is replaced with
something else. I like this book because it fits my thoughts on life in general. More emo kids should read it instead of doing whatever that they're doing that not really beneficial to them or the
people around them.
17. Emma by Jane Austen: A bunch of silly women and men who loved them. Not as good as Pride and Prejudice but a tiny bit better than Northanger Abbey.
18. The God of Small Things by Arundahati Roy: "In those early amorphous years when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and Everything was Forever..."
This is the best description of how I feel about childhood so far. Roy did a very good job at collecting the little things of the world and put them in the spotlight. But the story is so sad, not depressing sad,
but more like artsy-fartsy beautiful sad. The ending kinda ruined the whole book for me, like The Lovely Bones.
19. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling: Alas, it is the end of the Potter stories. I congratulate myself for guessing the right 7th HOrcrux at the end of the 6th book. The ending
is a bit too cheesy and childish even though the whole book is a bit grownup-ish.
20. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: To make up for all of those childhood years spent out of the States, I'm reading all of the children's books that I should've read to catch up, hence this
book. Too short for my own 24 year-old mind but full of plots to fill my 24 year-old curiosity but yet, it lacks detail explanation for the fabric of time concept. Oh well, afterall, it's a children's book.
21. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus: At first it seems like the main character was very studid because who would put themselves in so much trouble for so little benefit? But
there's another sad and deeper underlying issue about those kids who have just about everything except for love.
22. The Roald Dahl Omnibus by Roald Dahl: A collection of short stories. I'm rarely interested in short stories for a few reasons. First, they confuse me because all of the stories are totally different
fromt each other but I jump from one to another in 15 minutes. Second, it always feel like there's something missing because they are so short. Third, I haven't have time to process and think about the first story and it's
over and I need to move on to the next one. That being said, I must say that short stories are very hard to write. Because they are short, the plot has to be short and focus only on one event/thought/incident. It's not easy
to write a story that is detailed with strong character(s) and a point to the story within the length of a few pages. Not only that, the writer has to present the character, situation, mood in such a way that the reader does
not feel like they don't understand the situation and character(s) enough to enjoy the story. That would be the end of my thoughts for today on short stories. About the Omnibus itself, I enjoyed it, some stories more
than others, of course; but more enjoyment than not.
23. Persuasion by Jane Austen: Soon, I'll run out of Jane Austen books to read. One disadvantage of liking a dead writer's work is that I can't wish/wait for the next book to come out. Persuasion must
be my favorite Jane Austen book so far (sorry, Pride and Prejudice). There isn't much plot in the novel, it is quite short. However, the main character, Anne Elliot, is quite intriguing. She's much more mature than
Austen's other heroines and even her love story is more mature, but there are still innocent details for an interesting read.
24. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster: Knowledge is power! Run away from Ignorance and don't jump to Conclusions.
25. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Read it in highschool and hated it. Decided to read it again to see if I'll change my mind. Still hate it, but for different reasons. Maybe this book is just too deep
and too symbolic for me and maybe I need to take a class just to understand it. The good of it is that it displays the worst of people for the world to see. The bad is that somehow the nastiness of humans are somewhat glorified
and that disgusts me.
26. The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells: It wasn't as good as I expected it to be.
27. White Teeth by Zadie Smith: I'm torn as to what I feel toward this book. Should I say that it's good because the characters and events seem to fall into place with each other almost perfectly? Is it bad because
there were too many random things that are insignificant? Do the British have to be so rude and use the f-word in every sentence? Why is everyone so messed up? Basically, it's about ordinary people who do not-so-extraordinary things
that were disguised as extraordinary things to trick me into thinking that something magnificent is going to happen...but nothing magnificent really happened. It was written so matter-of-factly that it seemed unreal.
I'm still confused about it. However, it was not a waste of time.
28. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery: In a frantic rush to make my reading goal, I chose this book (which I meant to read anyhow) because it's a children book and it's super short. "Never judge a book by
its cover" should have the same meaning as "Never judge a book by its thickness." I love this book. It's everything of a child's world that I, myself as an adult, have begin to forget. Not to worry, if I feel like the spirit of the
child in me is leaving, I'll just re-read this book again. The mind and spirit of a child is a magical world that is too precious to lose. It's sad that a lot of children are so eager to cast away just to become terrible, depressed
and bitter adults.
29. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: Eight years sure did change my opinions of this work. How could I have been so obtuse and shallow to not detect a deeper meaning of this book? Seriously, I'm glad I've grown
up and grew to like this book. Lesson to learn, never judge a book by your first impression of it.
30. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck: At first I was frustrated by the characters in this book for being so lazy, drunk and keep stealing from people. However, the characters unfolded as Steinbeck had intended. Their good
intentions and bad means of carrying those intentions out are as childish as a 5 year-old stealing flowers to cheer up his mother...and that is exactly what the grown men in Tortilla Flat did. It was like a little kid's dream come true for
these men. They live together in a house, a sort of club house that they only include they friends, free to do whatever they want with no "grown ups" watching over them. They go through the day waking up whenever they want, go steal or
cheat wine out of Torrelli and enjoy themselves until they go to bed. Underneath the laziness, they have good intentions to keep their friends happy and to protect them. They fight as little boys fight and then go back to being friends again.
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