This was lent to me by a colleague. Great autobiography by Adeline Yen Mah. It is appalling how cruel people could be to defenseless children. Adeline Yen Mah's story was set in a politically chaotic China during the second world war. She was born to a rich family but was often neglected and abused as she was believed to be bad luck (her mother died shortly after giving birth to her). Her father subsequently remarried to a half french half chinese woman, who constantly abused and left her to her own devices.
She was sent away to boarding schools and while, her classmates had visitors or food sent by family, she had nothing. When her classmates went back home during the holidays, she was left alone in the school, all by herself. Her stepmother, knowingly sent her to a boarding school Tianjin, when she knew that a war was impending. The whole family had escaped to Hong Kong. Fortunately for her, she was "rescued" by her stepmother's sister and finally reunited with her family.
Adversity does build resilience in her case. She excelled academically and eventually won the first prize in an international play writing competition. This award, may have seemed trivial, but it changed her life forever. It brought her recognition by her father and he eventually, was convinced to send her to London for medical school. She became a physician and practiced in America.
In the last part of the autobiography was a story written during the Tang Dynasty by Tuan Cheng-Shih. The story is essentially that of the popular fairy tale, Cinderella. This is believed to be the earliest version of the story and not the Italian version written in 1634 by Giambattista Basile. Some, however, believed the story had originated in Ancient Egypt.

A couple of short stories made up this book. My favorite is that of Hema and Kaushik, which comprises of three parts, each narrated in a different perspective (one of Hema, one of Kaushik, and one of a sorta "over-seer"). The last part of the story "Going Ashore" was bittersweet. The ending made me rather sad. Sometimes because of a sense of duty, we have to make difficult choices that we may eventually regret. I guess that was what happened with Hema. She chose to be with someone she didnt really love, out of a sense of responsibility/duty, and gave up the man she truly wanted to be with. This man (Kaushik) eventually left for another country to start a new life, that was unfortunately cut short by the Tsunami of 2004. Devastating! But a piece of him remained with her and for that, I guessed she was blessed.
As with her usual writing, these stories told the lives of different generations of Indians living in America- the Indian migrants and their born in American children, with both generations struggling with identity crises and trying to assimilate to their adopted country.
Definitely a worthy read. I would buy this book when I see it...

 

Miss Chopsticks

Read this book some time ago, so much so that I'd forgotten most part of it. But I remembered being quite captivated by the story of 3 sisters who moved from rural China to a big city (Nanjing). Suffice it to say, even though they were still within China, it was a big culture shock to them. the three sisters were named, Three, Five and Six. Three was the first to arrive in Nanjing and eventually scored a job in a restaurant/ food stall because of her "display artist" skills- she was able to arrange vegetables enticingly. Two other sisters joined her in the big city and all managed to carve out a decent living for themselves, thus changing their father's mind of how daughters are like chopsticks. Their father had liken them to chopsticks as he felt that daughters are easily broken like chopsticks and thus, are unable to support "the roof of a house". Having only been able to produce daughters, the father often felt disgraced. But after his daughters come back with wads of cash from the city, he had to admit that daughters were not as worthless as he had once thought.
The characters were loosely based on people whom Xinran had came across and befriended when in China.
This book was very simply written, with no fancy words or plots.  But I like it for its pureness and simplicity.  I am really looking forward to getting my hands on Xinran's other non-fiction work: The good women of china: hidden voices. Saw it in Popular bookstore but it was a tad too expensive to buy: it costs more than 20 bucks!

Thanks for the Memories- Cecelia Ahern

I actually got this book from the gas station (yes I can find books ANYWHERE!). Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Cecelia Ahern, although "Where Rainbow Ends" was quite a humorous and entertaining read. Her first book P.S. I Love You, felt a bit amateurish and formulaic... Not to my liking.


Thanks for the Memories is a lovely read though. It is chick-flick in every sense of the word. But I absolutely adore the character of the female lead's father. He is an old, funny, child-like man; very affable quality that just make you wanna befriend him. He's pretty much the saving grace of this book.


The story began with Joyce, who had a miscarriage and needed blood transfusion. Justin, a blood-donating phobic, unknowingly donated his blood to her, while trying to score a date with an attractive doctor. This somehow, mysteriously connected the both of them to each other's world. Joyce began experiencing Justin's memories and feeling what he felt. They finally met at a hair salon when Justin wanted a haircut, and so, inevitably caused Joyce wanting a haircut too. And so, the story unfolds, with Joyce and Justin meeting again and again but never really getting the chance to know one another.


Till Joyce found out that Justin was her blood donor and she began doing things for him and "stalking" him.


This is a story of strange coincidences and fate- a case of serendipity... Read it for a good entertaining afternoon.

The Namesake- Jhumpa Lahiri

Just finished this book. It reminded me alot of Amulya Malladi's two books: Mango Season and A Breath of Fresh Air. This is an equally enjoyable book, with unexpected climaxes, so you won't ever feel bored. The book incorporates a lot of the Indian culture into it; I find it particularly interesting to be able to immerse yourself, through the book, into someone else's culture. This explains why I've been trying to find authors like these, these days.

The Namesake's protagonist is Gogol, a name which he despised. Gogol was supposed to be his pet name. as in the Bengali culture, you will be given two names, one is your good name, which is your official name and the other is your pet name, which is only used by family and close friends. However, a twist of events, saw him ending up with Gogol as his official name. But this was later changed to Nikhil. 

The story reflects the discordance the characters felt being foreign implants in America. The cultures are vastly different and yet, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli (Gogol's parents) had to try to assimiliate themselves into the American culture, for the sake of their children who were bornt in America.

All in all, this is a powerful novel, infused with culture, rich characters, and vivid descriptions. You will feel as if all the characters are real and that you get to know them inside, out, through the book. 

P.S. I don't know why I feel that the author has put herself into the story, through the character Moshumi.

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini

While channel surfing sometime ago, I caught half of “The Kite Runner” on TV. It was quite a good film, I must say. And so it got me started on borrowing books by the author Khaled Hosseini. I managed to find “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, and it was a seriously good read. To be honest, I have never been interested in the middle-eastern countries. But the book inspired me to find out a tad more about Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are where most parts of the stories take place. If what’s mentioned in the book is still reflective of what’s going there, it’s really quite unimaginable what the lives of the women/ pple from the lower castes are going through. It must be torturous wearing the burqha, not being able to go anywhere without a male relative, and being stoned to death if you were to commit adultery. i truly hope that at least some changes have been made to these laws. Coz it reeks of nothing but oppression.

Right now, I’m reading “The Kite Runner”. It doesnt seem to be as good as “A thousand splendid suns” but still quite good nonetheless.
The story took place in Kabul, Afghanistan and speaks of the friendship between a wealthy boy (Amir) and his servant (Hassan).
Hassan was fiercely loyal to Amir and was equally protective of him as well. One incident broke their friendship (you've gotta read to find out what!) and eventually Amir and his father fled to America during the Soviets invasion, and the boys lost contact with one another.
 
Eventually, a twist of events happened, that brought Amir back to Kabul, to give something back to his friend, whom he had started to feel guilt-stricken about. A deeply, moving story, that is steeped in the middle-eastern culture.
 
I realised a lot of stories tend to mirror the authors' own lives. I've read some other books by Jhumpa Lahiri and Amulya Malladi, and they too, put bits of their experiences into their stories.
 
Hosseini was from Kabul as well, and during the Soviets invasion, had migrated to California, which was exactly what happened to Amir.

Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Have been looking out for this book in the library for ages. Finally got my hands on it. Have read one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books, “100 Years of Solitude” coz the title caught my eye. Found his name rather familiar and googled it and realised he was the one who wrote Love in the Time of Cholera.The plot of 100 years of Solitude was kinda weird. Kudos to his imagination. The writing was great but probably not suited to my taste coz I skipped parts that were too descriptive. The same thing happened in Love in the Time of Cholera. But still, it held quite a romantic notion. A guy waiting from his youth to his near-death to be with the woman he had barely talked to. Honestly, too draggy and not much climaxes. Not for impatient readers!!

A Painted House- John Grisham

I actually borrowed the wrong book, thinking “A Painted House” was “The Painted Veil” by W. Somerset Maughan… -_- But I’m glad that I borrowed “A Painted House”. It is a fantastic read! The hubby was still commenting that it looked like a boring book about farming. haha. John Grisham departed from his usual genre of legal suspense such as in The Pelican Brief, The Chamber, etc. This is a simple and moving story narrated from a 7-year old boy’s point of view. You would think nothing exciting or interesting could happen on a cotton farm, but we couldn’t be more wrong. The story ended with the family travelling up North where the money was, leaving behind the boy’s Gran and Pappy to man the flagging cotton farm business. That was rather sad for me but that’s generally how things are in US culture. Family units often break up, with people moving to different states to find better jobs. This makes me somehow appreciate our Singaporean culture a little more. Even when we get married and move out, we are at least still within a short drive (1.5 hrs max!) to our parents’ homes. The guilt of abandonment is a little less, I guess.

My Life in France- Julia Child

Une maison sans chat, c’est la vie sans soleil
That’s the line that stuck, after reading Julia Child’s My Life in France (it means a house without a cat, is a life without the sun! how true for cat lovers :) ).I am so tempted to get Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 1st edition, which was published in 1961! but it cost somewhere in the region of USD500! my god…. I think I would have to suffice with the 49th edition…-_- which prob cost around USD30-40. But quite a worthy price since it contained 524 recipes!haha.


My Life in France is quite an inspiring book. Child married late in life when she was in her 30s and moved to Paris, when her husband, Paul Child, was posted there. The 1st meal she had in Paris, had her hooked on French culinary for the rest of her life.


Julia Child, being a housewife in a foreign country, and having nothing much to do, took up cooking lessons at Le Cordon Bleu, which in the 1940s, probably wasn’t the Le Cordon Bleu as we know now. Child started with the 6 week course meant for erm, bored housewives who didnt know to cook. But she later, ended up taking a one year course for professionals. She shone in a class of all male ex GIs.


I guess we can say she found her true calling at the ripe old age of 36. Prior to that, she was just dredging along the road of life, with no real passion for anything. People often expect you to know what you want in life when you are say, 30 or maybe even younger. But honestly, the epiphany of what you are supposed to do in life, can come at anytime. It could come when you are just a 10-year old child, pretending to be a doctor, or when you are a 40- year old, who just got retrenched and are acquiring a new skill, which later could jolly well turn out to be your new found love.


But will God be cruel enough to deny you that epiphany? Will He keep that secret from you? Or perhaps, He did tell you, but you never did listen hard enough? I believe there are people in life who never found what they truly love or are passionate about. Sometimes they could end up feeling bitter, which explains why we come across people who seem to be eternally miserable! But some lucky ones could just be contented with what they have, whether or not they do carve out something for themselves. I guess they are the ones who can find joy in everything, joy in just being.

Three Weeks with My Brother - Nicholas and Micah Sparks

Honestly, I think this is the best book that Nicholas Sparks had written so far. Sometimes, the truth could be better than fiction. I had always thought of Sparks as your typical southern SNAG, who writes sappy love stories that somehow feel pretty much the same. But I still love reading his books coz they are like comfort food on a cold winter day.


Three weeks with my brother is a story that is simply told, as it is, with no frills. Sparks got a brochure in his mailbox one day, for a trip around the world, to exotic places like Machu Picchu, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, etc. And so it is that his elder brother, Micah and he embarked on a sentimental journey.

Apart from describing their travels, there were a lot of flashbacks to their childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. I really couldn’t believe that things like that could happen to anyone. The Sparks were a poverished family of five. Maybe it’s true that adversity breeds familiarity coz the bonding between the three Sparks children was tight. Let me list out what the adversities were:

1. Poverty. Although they weren’t Slumdog poor, they were living in LA, in the area which Sparks thought could pass off as the “projects” (bad neighborhood, with drug dealers, prostitutes, etc)

2. The loveliest person in this story was their mother, who seemed to be pretty much an angel without a temper. After years of hardship, when all her children were grown up and doing well, and her relationship with her husband was on the mends, and when she was just thinking about retirement so that she could enjoy the horse that she finally got to own, she died. At the grand old age of 47. During a slow horse ride with her husband. What an irony… This part of the story got me in tears, I could almost feel the pain that the whole family must have been through.

3. After his mother died, Nicholas Sparks’ father fell into depression and probably had lots of anger bottled up inside him. He started to alienate all the family members except for his sister and especially Nicholas Sparks, for years. After about 7 years of sadness and anger, his father finally came around, made up with his family, and even announced that he was ready to marry his gf. It was also around this time that Nicholas Sparks completed The Notebook, his first published novel. The book was sent out to publishers and one fine day, he got an offer for his book- a one million dollars advance (I didnt know writing books could be so lucrative!)! Overnight, I guess Nicholas Sparks became a celebrity, with movie offer, TV interviews, etc. whilst he was recording a TV interview, he got a phone call from his brother, saying that his father was involved in a car accident, and had died. It’s almost like some psychopath up there is saying, “Ah Hah! You are finally happy, but too bad today is the day you meet your maker too!”

4. One beautiful thing in this story is the love he has for his wife, Cathy. You have often heard about how people just KNOW that this person is the person they want to spend forever with. Corny. but it happens. It happened for Nicholas Sparks. The second time he saw his wife, he said to her, ” You and I are gonna get married one day.” How sweet. However, things started to fray a little when their second son was suspected to be autistic. I can imagine the stress of having a child who has difficulties, whether it’s physical, psychological, or what not. but their patience and love for their children and each other, won at the end of the day.

5. His youngest sister, Dana, was diagnosed with brain tumor. Horrifying! But she fought on with the illness for years. But in the end, she died. But again, you could find something good out of this unfortunate event. She died after fulfilling her dreams of having her own family- a husband and a pair of twins (which is no mean feat, considering the fact that she conceived while she was doing her chemotherapy). I guess it was not a life wasted. And that is the most important thing.

Some lovely life learnings from Nicholas Sparks’ mother:

“It’s your life+ social commentary.



What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.

No one ever said that life was fair . ”



All in all, great book. I will put it on my to-buy list!

Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Bringing over some of the reviews I did on my other personal blog...

Read Sam’s Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson. Quite a good read- I finished it in one seating and in 2 hours! It’s a sweet love story between a granddaughter and grandmother, as well as a love story between a young woman, who had lost her husband in a surfing accident, and a dying man. It is also a love story of an unhappily married woman, who found her true love, and married him in old age. So many love stories rolled into one book. Read it as a comforting bedtime story.

Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

Got this book during the close-out sale of Raffles City's MPH for SGD$12. Quite a good buy coz I saw the exact same book going for about SGD$30 at Harris!Definitely over-priced.

This is a fantastic travelogue on Weiner's quest to find a link between where you live and happiness. My idea has always been that city people are always at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the happiness department. But I guess I may be wrong. I think at the end of the day, it's your own perception and how you fit into a particular place, whether it's a bustling city or quiet suburb, that really matters.

In this witty and funny travelogue, Weiner travelled to Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India, and America (where the writer is from). What strikes me as interesting is Bhutan, where as the chapter explains, "Happiness is a Policy". Bhutan actually has a policy called Gross National Happiness, as opposed to Gross Domestic Product, which most of us are familiar with. Instead of measuring a country's progress by its economic output, Bhutan measures it by how happy its people are. I think that is a wonderful policy in a world where people often measure their success by how much assets they have, their place on the social ladder, etc.

Another place that left an impression on me was Moldova. Truth be told, I've never heard of the country before reading this book. Moldova, a former Soviet republic, lies between Romania and Ukraine, was listed as one of the unhappiest places on earth, according to a certain researcher (Ruut Veenhoven) quoted in this book. Through what Weiner wrote, this is definitely one place you do not want to visit. Misery seemed to perpetuate the air and even its people agreed that the country is full of unhappy people. Why is that so? I think the chief reason is that it is a dirt-poor country and as the writer, explained, it has no culture of its own. This seems to oppose the National Gross Happiness policy in Bhutan. The Moldovian's income is so low that most cannot afford a meal at McDonald's, which sorta reminds me of Maslow's Hierachy of Needs:

Yes, it's true money cannot guarantee you happiness and happiness cannot be measured by how much you have in your bank. But on the other hand, you cannot be so poor that there is no secure knowledge when and where your next meal is. Poverty coupled with the knowledge of your poverty, seem like a sure-fire way to unhappiness. Yes, there are people in the world who are dirt poor and yet they are happy. But I think that is because they have no access to the outside world, so they do not know just how bad their life is compared to their richer fellow human beings. What you do not know cannot hurt you. Perhaps we can find our bliss in ignorance. 

Nicholas Sparks

Read 4 of his books in a row. Which is really not a good thing to do coz you will feel that stories become a tad generic, as if they are all made from the same mould. Even the characters are almost always similar and it's hard to tell this character from the other one part. The females are always naturally beautiful, witty, and in some sort of trouble (e.g. divorcee with a kid, widow, you get the picture). The male leads are always rugged and not great looking but with a good heart. I've to admit it gets quite boring after a while but his books are really not about fantastic storylines but rather, to give you a heartwarming feeling. I didnt get much of that from the five books I read this time round though. They are "A Bend in the Road", "A Walk to Remember", "The Rescue", "Message in a Bottle"and "The Guardian". I actually read "Message in a Bottle" twice, without realising it!!
I think I still prefer his "Three Weeks with my Brother". The movie "The Notebook" and "Nights in Rodanthe" were quite nice as well. I think you can read his books when you just wanna while away your time on a cool, rainy day, in bed, with a cuppa coffee.   

The Time Traveller's Wife

Read and forgotten some books along the way since January. Can barely recall the titles now. One of them was corks and forks- as the title suggests, it's a book about wines and food. Great if you love wine, otherwise it will probably bore you to tears. I quite like that little anecdote about Julia Child too and generally, how the author seemed to be able to be social with just about anyone in the world.

I won't do a review on that book. What I wanna review about was The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (what a name!).

To be perfectly honest, I almost dropped this book. I seldom give books up halfway in case they might turn out to be interesting in the end. And am I glad I pressed on for this book.

The book started out rather dry and confusing, with Henry jumping from one time space to another. It got a bit hard to keep track who he really was at that time (a 32 Henry DeTamble, a 6 year old Henry? Has he known the female lead already, or has he not?). But once you get the feel of the book, you find it rather bittersweet and touching. You can almost feel the longing of The Time Traveller's Wife, which in this case, was Clare Abshire. I love the ending. A sorta resurrection of Henry after YEARS of waiting, for Clare. The story is written such that you can't help but wonder whether a love as strong and as fascinating as theirs, truly does exist on earth. And if it does, you wish with all your heart that it happens to you.

Would you wait almost 40 years to see someone you loved again? Or would you have moved on? When Clare met Henry again, after he died at the age of 46 (i think), she was already in her 80s and had been waiting for that moment for a good half of her life. Just because Henry had told her that he had seen it happen (he'd travelled to the future).

All in all, a worthwhile read if you can get past the initial confusion.

A Moveable Feast-Ernest Hemingway

A memoir of Ernest Hemingway's life with his first wife, in Paris in the 1920s, as a struggling young writer. It sounds like a wonderful life spent writing in cafes, drinking wines and coffees, enjoying good food, and mingling with other writer friends like F. Scott Fitzgerald (who I think was cast in a relatively bad light, especially when they went on a road trip together)- a sweet, romantic way of life. In this memoir, he included the names of cafes and restaurants he had visited, and according to what I found on the internet, some of these places still exist. Wonderful, if you are living in Paris!

The opening quote of the book:"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

A quote from the book read to Meg Ryan by Nicholas Cage in the "City of Angels" movie: "As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans."
You can almost taste the lure of the oysters from his description... It is actually through the movie that I borrowed this book. I had read some of Hemingway's past works like For Whom the Bells Toll, Snows of Kilimanjaro, etc., but honestly, they can get a bit dry and lengthy. But the Moveable Feast is a fairly good read, especially if you are a food/cafe/Paris lover.

The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol pales a little in comparison to Dan Brown's two other major hits: Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. The story kicks off with a slow and dry start but it gets more interesting mid-story. The ending of the story was also disappointing and I think, it ended a bit hastily. But nonetheless, it is quite an intriguing story if you are into his past works about the Free Masons. The Lost Symbol is set in Washington D.C., which people tend to associate with politics more than religion, so I guess that's a nice twist as compared to say, a setting in Rome/ Vatican City. Quite a worthwhile read, if you are a fan of Dan Brown. Otherwise, it might be good to start with Da Vinci Code first.

The Library

Was thinking that the library should give us a record of what books we had borrowed over our lives. I think that would be pretty interesting. I've already lost track of what books I had read. so I guess it might be a good idea to just list the books I borrow, on this blog from now on. The last round of books were:

Augusten Burrough- You better not cry: True Stories for Christmas
Jill Mansell-Rumor Has It
The Rough Guide to Travel Survival
Bobbi Brown-Living Beauty
The Silk Road

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello
Atlas of the Human Heart
12,000 miles
Amulya Malladi- A Breath of Fresh Air
A Moveable Feast- Ernest Hemingway
Cant rem the other one..hurhur

When Life Gives You Lemons;Atlas of the Human Heart

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello by Anura.
This book title caught my eye coz I quite like all things Italian. It's one of the three travelogues I borrowed from the library 3 weeks ago. It's an enjoyable, humorous read of Anura's stint in Italy, where he worked as an English teacher, in a rundown language school. Anura is of Sri Lankan descent but had lived in New York most of his life. The story is filled with characters of all sorts; the character i liked the most was his last gf from I think mm Bulgaria, Czech, oh whatever. As mentioned in the book, this is his first and last book! Which I find a real pity coz his writing is witty and he has a sardonic sense of humor, which I enjoyed tremendously. Definitely a worthwhile read to lighten up a gloomy day.

Another travelogue. This one has none of the light-heartedness or humor found in Limoncello or 12,000 miles. In fact, I found the story and the author really dark and depressing. it was disconcerting to find a 16-year old, brave and independent enough to travel alone to unfamiliar places. The author, an American, left school to travel to Beijing, Hong Kong, Nepal, Amsterdam, england, Italy. The travelling was done in the 1980s, when China was still quite "conservative", I would say. Foreigners were probably not as commonly seen then, as compared to now. Her travel through these places was quite an adventure, she was a tutor in China, a smuggler, a prostitute at one time, a beggar, actress, etc. The things people do to survive. Subsequently she met a guy in Amsterdam, who would become her abusive bf, and father of her child. She was pregnant at the grand old age of 19! I dont know how to put it, it's like her life has been put on the fast track, squeezing what people would have experienced in decades into the three years of her teenage life. A very interesting read.