Sleeveless && reading && driving buses

Cool, eh? > LINK. Some were quite nice but some were half baked attempts. Bleh.

This guy should be given an award or something > BBC Link

Diana Setterfield – The Thirteenth Tale

Title; The Thirteenth Tale

Author; Diane Setterfield

Category; Gothic Suspense

Published by; Washington Square Press

I rate; I will buy this book and read it religiously.
This book was so amazing, if I wasn’t greedy I’d read this twice back to back. The narrator of the story is Margaret Lea. She helped her father run an antique bookstore and had a few of her biographies published. In other words, she was an unemployed amateur writer. However, one of her piece managed to attract Vida Winter, a mysterious writer whose fame resembled Agatha Christie except Christie doesn’t lie. She was dying and she want to tell the world the truth, about who she really was before she got famous.

The story hooked me from the start. I was expecting something else but the plot ran very differently from what I had in mind. I was pulled in the tragic lives of the Angelfields and I was fooled in the end. I never connected one of the minor character to the story and so I couldn’t think of the ending. It blew me away. I love this one, must buy!

Cornelia Funke – Inkworld trilogy

Title; Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

Author; Cornelia Funke

Category; Fantasy Young Adult Action & Adventure

Published by; Scholastic Books,The Chicken House

I rate; I read it once, I like it.

A heartwarming, magical story.

Inkheart’s not so bad. A very good first book. I don’t really buy the whole best reader in the world thingy. Dustfinger intrigues me.

Inkspell showed more about Meggie and Farid’s relationship and how their character matures little by little. Though Farid pretty much still the little kid with a daddy complex. Inkworld sounds like a pretty place for a vacation. Roxanne is sweet, her daughter is a slut. Violante, how I sympathize her. Her life is so tragic yet she’s a strong, intelligent woman.

Inkdeath is a good end to the book. Any more would be stretching the world too far. More maturing for the kiddie characters, less development on older ones except for Mo. The only thing that I want to see is Dustfinger’s fire dancing trick. Maybe I’ll download the movie for Inkheart just to sneak a peek…

I especially like the snippets of quotes she had for the beginning of every chapter. Very fitting. It made me want to go read those books the quotes came from. I’d probably buy this series for my kids. Good morals and all those fluffy shit.

Amy Tan – The Bonesetter’s Daughter

Title; The Bonesetter’s Daughter

Author; Amy Tan

Category; Novel

Published by; Putnam Adult

I rate; I will buy this book and read it religiously.

A touching mother – daughter relationship tale, set in China and America dating back to early 20th century. I swear I could’ve cried buckets if I can relate to them. Not that the characters are weak, I just couldn’t get close because of the race specifics and characteristics that I couldn’t ignore.

Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451

Title; Fahrenheit 451

Author; Ray Bradbury

Category; Dystopian Novel

Published by; Ballantine Books

I rate; I will buy this book and read it religiously.

The ending was very abrupt…or was it the fault of my ebook copy?It kept me wondering what will happen next.

Reading this reminded me of 1984 and Equilibrium. More of Equilibrium because I think or I read somewhere that the movie was partially based from these two books. It was awesome go watch it.

Back to the book, well, I didn’t expect that I could finish reading it in a matter of hours. It was bleak (in a good way) with the only color coming from the character of Clarisse. Guy’s character was surprisingly strong, I assumed he would be a pussy because he was a fireman.

I wouldn’t want to live in a world portrayed in this book, but go buy it, go read it and be grateful of the world we have today.

Andre Dubus III – House of Sand and Fog

Title; House of Sand and Fog

Author; Andre Dubus III

Category; Novel

Published by; Vintage; Trade edition (November 16, 2000)

I rate; I read it once, I like it.

The book is about two different personalities and the clashing of their beliefs and culture. Add another irrational cop, out comes a heart wrenching novel.It was narrated by both Behrani and Kathy. I got irritated by Behrani because he kept inserting Persian words. I had to assume what each word meant. Gendeh means whore? Pooldar means rich or snobby or both? What is it?!

Alexander Dolgun – An American in the Gulag

Title; An American in the Gulag

Author; Alexander Dolgun with Patrick Watson

Category; Nonfiction / Memoir Horror

Published by; Knopf : distributed by Random House; 1st edition (1975)

I rate; I will buy this book and read it religiously.

So. This is a story about an American citizen, stuck in some infamous Russian prison getting tortured then shipped off to a real deal gulag, and all of this happened because of Stalin’s paranoia and blind loyalty of his sheep, my fellow comrades. And maybe inability to differentiate right from wrong. Sounded like religion lol.

As I read through the pages I can’t help from frowning (not in disdain, mind you), I felt as if my soul and hope and faith were being sucked from my body with a vacuum. It was like watching Requiem for a Dream, it was that intense. Dolgun was innocent yet he spent years slaving in the gulag. For all it’s worth, he got it easy. He managed to survive and stay sane through it all. I would break down during interrogation just to make it all stop.

I (being somewhat of the Commie persuasion) was a teeny bit skeptical, but all that disappeared when I came back from bookland to reality. Shit like that happened. I can’t just stick my fingers into my ears and say “Lalalalalala” just because I hope that didn’t really happen and the Motherland is as clean and innocent as a baby’s bottom. To be honest I have no qualms interrogating, err, spies. It sounded like fun. It probably doesn’t matter if the guy is really a spy or just someone down on his luck, being a young outgoing American in Russia during the Cold War.

I can’t relate to what Dolgun has experienced of course, but I do sympathize and the horror of being imprisoned for doing nothing scares me shitless. If I don’t have books to read, I’d go insane. I mean more insane than I am now.