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.