Searching for Sugar Man

This week the Oscar for Best Documentary went to Searching for Sugar Man, a film I'd never heard of. But then again, I hadn't heard of the other films on the list. I always enjoy watching good documentaries so I decided to try this one and I was so pleasantly surprised. Rodriguez was a Detroit based folk singer and songwriter who released two albums in the early 70s both of which flopped in the United States. He never knew that halfway around the world in South Africa he became a household name, more popular than Elvis and The Beatles. It's an amazing story and heartwarming as well. Rodriguez's music is actually very good. Why didn't this guy ever make it in the US?  I guarantee this film will bring a smile to your face. It just shows it's never too late to be what you might have been.

Here's the official trailer for the film:

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

I read a lot of good books but only once in a while does a book come along that I want to share with everyone I know. A book that transcends genres and literary tastes. A book everyone should love unless they have a heart of stone. Wonder by R.J. Palacio is such a book.

If you've been to a book store in the last six months then I'm sure you've seen this striking cover. I read the blurb but I never picked it up because I'd never heard of the author and I wondered if the story would somehow be like that 80s movie Mask with Eric Stoltz and Cher. It was a good film but I wasn't sure I wanted to read a book about a child with a facial deformity. In the first chapter of the book, little Auggie writes, "I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."

Well during a book slump, it's always good to pick up a simple book and YA novels usually make the cut so I downloaded Wonder on my Kindle. I wasn't expecting to love it but I did. This is truly a rare and unexpected gem. Immediately after reading it, I wanted to purchase a hardbound copy to have in my library  just so my kids could read it one day, with me and without me. This is a special book, one that reminds us once again of what it is to be human.

August Pullman is 10-years-old and has had 27 surgeries in his young life. The book begins when Auggie enters middle school after being home schooled for most of his life. Here, Auggie comes face to face with the beauty and sometimes ugliness of his peers. I don't want to give too much away but this was truly a moving book. Loved it!

“I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”

 “Kinder than is necessary. Because it's not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed.”

“No, no, it's not all random, if it really was all random, the universe would abandon us completely. and the universe doesn't. it takes care of its most fragile creations in ways we can't see. like with parents who adore you blindly. and a big sister who feels guilty for being human over you. and a little gravelly-voiced kid whose friends have left him over you. and even a pink-haired girl who carries your picture in her wallet. maybe it is a lottery, but the universe makes it all even out in the end. the universe takes care of all its birds.” 

January Books

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
I had to reread this for my book club. It's still touching and heartbreaking the second time around. Though it's certainly not my fave John Green novel (Looking For Alaska still holds that place), it's still a remarkable achievement.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck
I'm so glad I finally read this classic. As a teenager I loved the James Dean movie so much that I was afraid to touch the book. I never knew that Elia Kazan's film is based only on the last part of this story that covers three generations. I have to be honest here and say that I loved this book all the way through till the last portion. Somehow the part of the book covered in the film was done better than in the book...or maybe it was just Dean's outstanding performance as Cal. James Dean was Cal Trask and no amount of imagination while reading the book could beat that. But still East of Eden is a powerful and beautiful novel and I'm so glad I finally read it.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
This is my book club read for February. It was better than I thought it would be but I don't think it merits all the outstanding reviews its received. The story of one man walking 500 miles and meeting and touching people along the way sounds like its been done before (i.e. Forest Gump). I'm surprised it made the Booker long list last year.

Where'd you Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
I totally loved this! This was such a breath of fresh air especially after all the sad books I've read lately (see above). It was a quirky story with kooky characters. Bee's mother, Bernadette, has disappeared so Bee sets out to find her using letters, blog posts, emails, FBI documents, etcetera. I don't think I've ever read anything like this before and I wish there were more books of Bernadette and her family. Nothing really deep here just fun, fun, fun!

The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer
I thought I would like this but didn't really and ended up skimming halfway through. The most interesting thing about this comic novel about the publishing world is the use of it's own vocabulary (i.e. Franzens (eyeglasses), pull a Salinger (hide away for a while), Golightly (black cocktail dress).

Charlotte, Emily and Anne

The Top Ten of 2012

I had a wonderful reading year filled with diverse and excellent books. In this list, there are three novels that made me cry, a classic that I reread, psychological thrillers, a dystopian novel, a time-travel one, two nonfiction books, a retelling of a Greek classic, two translations and a young adult novel. It really has been a great year for reading. So without further ado, here's my top ten of 2012 in the order I read them. Happy New Year and see you all in 2013!


The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
I love John Green. I read two of his books this year - this one and Will Grayson, Will Grayson which was delightful and funny. I initially debated about which one to add to this list and though I might say I preferred the Will Grayson book because it was lighthearted and fun, The Fault in Our Stars is exceptional and  deserves to be on a top ten list. In this book, John Green is tackling teenagers with cancer. When I first heard the premise of this book, I was afraid that it would be too depressing but it actually wasn't. Hazel is sixteen, with terminal cancer, when she meets Augustus at her kids-with-cancer support group. Hazel introduces him to her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction, and together they embark on a quest to the Netherlands to meet the reclusive author and finally find out what happened to the characters in his open-ended novel. But apart from this quest, the book is about love, friendship, death and finding joy in living even when one knows that time is short.


Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I loved this book! I've been recommending it to everyone I know. It was so much fun and by far the most entertaining novel I've read this year. It's 2044 and the world is a mess. The environment has deteriorated, unemployment and poverty are the norm. People spend more and more time at their computers, living another life in a virtual world called the Oasis created by recently deceased James Halliday. Left with no heirs, Halliday stipulates in his will that the person who finds the three keys hidden in the Oasis and opens the connecting gates will inherit his vast fortune. Years pass and no keys have been found though millions immerse themselves in Halliday's favorite 1980s films, music and video games hoping these hold the clues to the keys' locations. Wade Watts is an overweight, acne-ridden teenager who goes to school in the Oasis and spends ninety percent of his life as his avatar Parzival. We find out in the first few pages of the book that Wade is the first to find a key and unlock the first gate. This discovery unleashes a wave of other treasure hunters, some of whom will stop at nothing to win the ultimate prize.


The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
I adored this one! The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a retelling of parts of the Iliad focusing on the story of Achilles told from the point of view of his closest friend and lover, Patroclus. Most of you probably know how this story will end but in spite of that Miller has written a moving and beautiful love story where Achilles is a wonderful and charismatic hero (so unlike the Brad Pitt version in Troy). Patroclus is sensitive and awkward and can't help falling in love with his best friend. I was completely caught up in the story and I loved the two main characters. This is a passionate and ultimately heartbreaking novel.


People who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry
I don't usually read books that are reportages of true crime events because generally this genre is usually melodramatic and badly written but The People Who Eat Darkness: the True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo--and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up was a very well-written page-turner but a harrowing and chilling read as well. This is the true story of Lucie Blackman, the 21-year-old former British Airways stewardess turned hostess, who disappeared in Tokyo in the year 2000. It was a fascinating  and intense read and even if you don't like this sort of thing I highly recommend it if you enjoy reading crime or mystery novels.


Out by Natsuo Kirino
To say that I loved this book sounds so strange considering it's a psychological crime novel that involves dismemberment. But it's so much more than a crime novel. I would say it surpasses genres. Out is also about women banding together to save one of their own kind; about women discovering their own dark natures and the fragility of some female friendships. It's about being desperate and doing things one would never do in normal circumstances. There's actually quite a lot of layers in this book and it stays with you long after you've finished it. It was also an extremely intense and compelling read.


 Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
Because I really enjoyed Out by Kirino, I decided to follow it up with Grotesque, which turned out to be just as disturbing and weird as Out, but still so engrossing. Beautiful half-Japanese sisters Yuriko and the unnamed narrator are as different as can be - one pretty and popular and the other not. Years later Yuriko and a friend of both sisters, Kazue, become prostitutes and are then brutally murdered. Grotesque is an exploration of the effects on women of a society that condemns and judges women based upon their looks. This is an excellent though twisted psychological novel.


                                                                                                                          

11/22/63 by Stephen King
This was my first Stephen King novel. I was attracted to the premise- English teacher Jake Epping travels back in time to 1958 to prevent the Kennedy assassination and thus change the course of history. Since it's only 1958, he has to wait a few years to do his deed so in the meantime he enjoys the simplicity of life in this time period, teaches at a local high school, falls in love with a lovely woman and spies on Lee Harvey Oswald, the future assassin of JFK. This is was an excellent read.  Besides the exciting plot, Jake learns quite a number of life lessons along the way. As the reader we are left wondering about particular events in our own life and what would happen if we could alter them. Where would we be now?


The Great Gatsby by F.Scot Fitzgerald
This was the second time I've read The Great Gatsby and I loved it this time. My book club picked it for the month of July. It's just perfectly written and now I understand why it's considered one of the best American novels of all time.                                  


Broken Harbor by Tana French
I loved In the Woods by Tana French and though I've read all her novels since then, that one still stands out as the best one. However, Broken Harbor was also a tense and intelligent thriller. The novel is narrated by Mike Kennedy, the detective investigating an attack on a family which leaves the father and two young children dead and the mother seriously injured.What makes this exceptional is the depth and humanity Tana French infuses into her main characters particularly that of Mike Kennedy.


The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at all Costs by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle
I've never been a fan of professional cycling but I guess like most people I admired Lance Armstrong for beating his personal battles and for his amazing public triumphs plus the ongoing investigation into his drug use has definitely been interesting. I sampled this on Amazon and was immediately hooked. If you've ever wondered what really goes on in the world of professional cycling then read this book. It's shocking, sad but so fascinating.

Books Read in 2012

2012 was a very good reading year for me. I didn't read as much as I'd hoped. I aimed for 50 books and I see I've only read 43, just one more than last year. There were so so many good ones! I'm going to have a hard time choosing just ten from this list so before I do here's the list of books I read in 2012. I'll be posting my top ten before the new year.

1. The Coma by Alex Garland
2. The Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
4. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
5. Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan
6. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
7. The Novel in the Viola by Natasha Solomons 
8. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach 
9. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
10. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
11. Candy Candy by Kyoko Mizuki and illustrated by Yumiko Igarashi
12. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
13. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
14. I'm Starved for You by Margaret Atwood
15. Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson 
16. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
17. So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell 
18. The Surgeon by Tess Gerristen
19. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (reread) 
20. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
21. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan 
22. Kindred by Octavia Butler
23. People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry 
24. Out by Natsuo Kirino
25. Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
26. Gone by Mo Hayder 
27. Birdman by Mo Hayder 
28. 11/22/63 by Stephen King 
29. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (reread)
30. The Shining by Stephen King 
31. The Dead Zone by Stephen King 
32.  Salem's Lot by Stehen King
33. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
34. Broken Harbor by Tana French 
35. The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle
36. My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss
37. Defending Jacob by William Landay
38. The Lighthouse by Alison Moore
39. Holes by Louise Sachar
40. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
41. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
42. Divergent by Veronica Roth
43. Alys Always by Harriet Lane

A Break

My boys (ages 6 and 19 months) reading The Smurfs.

I'm taking a much needed break from blogging. See you all soon!

A Favorite Book from Childhood

It has eluded me for a long time but I finally found it through the power of google. One of my favorite picture books from childhood was about a girl who had a messy room. For years I couldn't remember the name but I found it yesterday after googling "children's book, girl, messy room." And ta dah.... it's called The Big Tidy-Up by Norah Smaridge, illustrated by Les Gray.

I remember loving this book so much and wearing out my copy which I lost a long time ago. Yesterday, I was browsing Amazon for books for my kids and this book came to mind. I'm glad I found it however it's now out of print and second hand copies range in price from 50 to 400 US dollars. Imagine that! I also found out there's a boy's version by the same author but with a different illustrator but I couldn't find images of the inside of the book.

Here's an excerpt from Amazon:

JENNIFER KNEW, AS well as you
That everything has its place,
But she just didn’t care a whit, a bit,
So her room was a real disgrace!

Jennifer's room was a mess! "Her shoe was askew on the windowsill. Her scarf was under the bed. Her beautiful box-to-keep-ribbons-in was full of old junk instead." When Jennifer's mother peeks in the room, she is shocked. "You must like to live in this mess, I guess," she said and told Jennifer that she would not touch the room with a mop and broom from now until Christmas Day. And she hung a sign on Jennifer's door that said KEEP OUT! At first Jennifer had a lovely time. She left things wherever they fell. She kept pie under her pillow. And little by little the room grew into a fusty, dusty, musty mess. Jennifer could not find socks that matched. Not one of her shirts was clean. And her hairbrush was gone so her unbrushed hair stuck out all over head. Poor Jennifer. What should she do? Run away? Or work and work for most of the day until her room was as neat as a pin and she could hang up a sign that said COME IN?

Have you heard of The Big Tidy-Up? And what are your favorite books from childhood? I'd love to hear them so leave a comment below. Cheers!

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

I really thought I would like this but just like The Shining, The Dead Zone by Stephen King was a disappointment for me. What sounded like a great story - man wakes up after five years in a coma with psychic powers - started very well but lost steam in the middle as several sub-plots were added. I ended up skimming the rest of the book. I've heard that this is one case where the movie (starring Christopher Walken and directed by David Cronenberg) was better than the book. However, I'm still not over my Stephen King phase since I'm now reading Salem's Lot.

For more on Stephen King, check out the  Stephen King project hosted by Natalie from Coffee and a Book Chick and  Kathleen from Boarding In My Forties.

The Shining by Stephen King

After enjoying 11/22/63, my first Stephen King novel, I decided to follow it up with The Shining which is one of his earlier books and always on the list of his best ones ever. This had all the elements for a suspenseful atmospheric novel. A family of three are hired as caretakers of a Colorado summer hotel from September to May during which time they are completely snowed in and cut off from the outside world. To top it off the son has psychic powers and the dad's a weirdo and a recovering alcoholic. I have to say this book just didn't do it for me. I wasn't scared or creeped out at all. I've seen the film which was excellent but this was just mweh... Stephen King does write well but I thought this book was more about the father's character trying to stay away from the bottle and slowly going insane. No...sorry. It didn't scare me at all. That said, I'm still on a Stephen King kick since I followed this up with The Dead Zone and am now reading Salem's Lot.

I'm including this review in the  Stephen King project hosted by Natalie from Coffee and a Book Chick and  Kathleen from Boarding In My Forties.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Boy, was I wrong about Stephen King! I've avoided him for years thinking he's just a commercial horror novelist. Somehow seeing wonderful movies based on his books didn't really alter my view. I'd completely forgotten that King is the source for the original material of Stand By Me, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption to name just a few. I decided to read 11/22/63 because I was attracted to the premise of the novel - English teacher Jake Epping travels back in time to 1958 to prevent the Kennedy assassination and thus change the course of history. Since it's only 1958, he has to wait a few years to do his deed so in the meantime he enjoys the simplicity of life in this time period, teaches at a local high school, falls in love with a lovely woman and spies on Lee Harvey Oswald, the future assassin of JFK. This is quite a book and as I said before you wonder how an author can pull all this off but Stephen King did just that. Besides the exciting plot, Jake learns quite a number of life lessons along the way. As the reader we are left wondering about particular events in our own life and what would happen if we could alter them. Where would we be now?

This was really an excellent read. It's the perfect choice for a long plane ride or for lazing around on the beach. I loved every minute of it. King writes so effortlessly it's no wonder he's known as being quite prolific. It's obvious he's a natural writer but besides that his imagination is limitless. The plot, dialogue and characters were all fantastic. I am now keen to read more King. Isn't it great to discover a writer who's been around for like forever ? Now I have quite a number of his novels and short stories to look forward to.

I'm including this review in the  Stephen King project hosted by Natalie from Coffee and a Book Chick and  Kathleen from Boarding In My Forties.

Book Art

My friend Irene in Hong Kong emailed me the picture above. Times Square in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong is exhibiting the work of Mike Stilkey. The book sculpture above is 24 feet tall and covers the entire ground floor of the 12-story major Hong Kong shopping centre. Stilkey is well-known for his painted book installations. His uses mixed inks, colored pencils, paint, and lacquer painted across piles and piles of books.

For more information, check out his website at: www.mikestilkey.com

Out by Natsuo Kirino

I was completely immersed in Japanese fiction a few weeks ago. That's because there is truth to the saying that 'one book leads to another.'  I picked up Out by Natsuo Kirino right after finishing The People Who Ate Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry. The latter is a true crime novel set in the underbelly of Tokyo. I was so caught up in that world that I just couldn't leave it so I decided to finally read Out, a book that's been on my To-Be-Read pile for years. The first time I tried it, I was so turned off by the lurid details that I had to stop. But I was ready for it now. To say that I loved the book sounds so strange considering it's a psychological crime novel that involves dismemberment. But it's so much more than a crime novel. I would say it surpasses genres. Out is also about women banding together to save one of their own kind; about women discovering their own dark natures and the fragility of some female friendships. It's about being desperate and doing things one would never do in normal circumstances. There's actually quite a lot of layers in this book and it stays with you long after you've finished it. It was also an extremely intense and compelling read. It's not a pretty book as it's full of desperate characters in an ugly world.  Out is  not for the faint of heart but I wish I could recommend this to my book club because there's certainly tons to discuss.

In Out, four females who work the night shift at a bento box lunch factory form an unlikely friendship because of their jobs and their unsatisfactory lives - unhappy marriages, problem children and strained economic situations. When one of the women, Yayoi, kills her gambling and philandering spouse, her friends decide to help her get rid of the body by dismembering it, separating the parts into several garbage bags and disposing the bags in several trash sites in the Tokyo area. The women are now bound together because of their crime but the ties that bind them are fragile because of jealousy, suspicion and self-interest. One of them makes a careless mistake that will expose them to unexpected danger.

In spite of their crime, I felt empathy for most of the characters especially for Masako, the leader of the group. Out shows how easy it would be to just slip into the dark side; it's a scary thought. I am so impressed with this author that after Out I picked up another one by Kirino, Grotesque. I just wish more of her books were translated into English. Out, released in 1997 won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award and was a finalist for the 2004 Edgar Award.

I'm including this in the Japanese Literature Challenge 6 hosted by Dolce Bellezza  Do check out the site for  more reviews from other bloggers.

Reading Stephen King

I never thought I'd say this but I'm so enjoying my first ever Stephen King novel, 11/22/63. I'm having a blast and I don't want it to end. With tons of books on my To Be Read pile it's rare to just want to savor a novel and take it slow but that's exactly how I'm feeling with this book because it's fantastic so far. The premise of the novel is what initially attracted me - man travels back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination and thus change the course of history. With such a plot you wonder how an author can pull this off but King does just that and with such panache. He is obviously a born writer because his prose flows naturally. It's no wonder he's so prolific. I'm only at 50% of this 800 plus page novel but here's hoping this book lives up to the hype. I'll be back with a full review once I've finished it. In the meantime, if you have read Stephen King then which novels would you recommend?