I read a lot, and I keep a log. Here’s this year’s log and the complete log (which goes back to the beginning of 1999). Read the posts in this section to find out what I thought about these books.
I’m glad I got The Many Worlds of Albie Bright from the library rather than the book store. Didn’t like it. Why? See below.
If you’re looking for middle-grade science-fiction/fantasy involving physics and a child who goes on a quest to find a lost parent, you can’t go wrong with Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 classic A Wrinkle in Time.
Continue reading The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge
I know where the book came from, but not how it ended up where it did, in the West Elm home furnishings store in Ponce City Market in Atlanta, Georgia, where along with two other books it was resignedly decorating a console table.
Continue reading Preliminaries to Linguistic Phonetics by Peter Ladefoged
When I moved to Singapore in 2008, my then-husband’s employer put us up in a hotel (The Copthorne Orchid, since torn down) while we looked for a place to rent. The hotel ran a shuttle bus to downtown Singapore’s shopping district, Orchard Road. The first time I took the shuttle bus, I alighted, went up and over a pedestrian bridge, walked in a shopping mall, and immediately encountered a bookstore. “I’m going to like this country,” I thought.
That bookstore, San Bookshop, has since closed. So have all the other San Bookshops. So has another bookshop I found at Far East Plaza that day.
However, ANA Book Store is still selling used books on the top floor of Far East Plaza. That’s where I bought Asian Proverbs. It’s also where I got these (October 20, 2018):
Asian Proverbs is a heavy, compact hardcover volume of full-color, glossy pages showcasing 40 sayings from each of 11 different countries and regions: India, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tibet, China, The Philippines, Korea, and Japan. The quotations are shown in smoothly translated English and the original language opposite a selection of artworks representing the culture of the country or region. Some of the sayings are rather opaque, while others have a familiar flavor. Most have the ring of truth.
I knew that the book would be different from the stage play because halfway through the film of the stage play the organizers showed a short “making of” documentary describing the development of the play and its puppets. Just how different, I could only imagine.
Now I know. It’s hugely different.
See below for more on the book’s characters, settings, plot, style, but you might want to read the book first, because it’s short and this post has SPOILERS. You might also want to read my post on War Horse (the film of the stage play).
Continue reading War Horse by Michael Morpurgo (vs War Horse the stage play)
I have nothing good to say about this book. I do not understand how it can possibly be a bestseller.
I’m not the only one who feels like it’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Here’s an excerpt from a PW review of Wintersong that encapsulates my objections succinctly:
“The plot meanders, the stakes are ill-defined, and the characters lack depth and verisimilitude.”
If you think I’m cherry picking and only this one snooty publishing gatekeeper disliked it, yes, I am cherry picking—but here are some notes from an editor and book blogger who was similarly underwhelmed.
If you want to know more about why I didn’t like Wintersong, dive in to the rant below.
This book of folktales was a gift brought back for me from Uzbekistan with a couple of other items:
The booklet is not a top-quality production, and has some flaws and errors. By far the worst error is that one of the stories was accidentally split into two parts, the second part printed on an earlier page and the first part printed on a later one! Still, the translation is accessible, the introduction is informative, and the folktales are entertaining.
The stories are a mix of humor, wisdom, and foolishness. The central character, Mulla Nasreddin or Nasrudin, is known by a variety of names with a variety of spellings. He is sometimes clever and sometimes obtuse.
See below for some examples of his shenanigans.
I am, still, not a fan of James Joyce.
I read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a high school student. When I re-read it again recently for the Hungry Hundred Book Club I asked myself, more than once, why I’d even bothered, not having liked it the least little bit the first time around.
Enough was enough, I told myself. Lesson learned. I was never going to read more Joyce. Life’s too short to spend time trying to like stuff I don’t actually like, regardless of how ‘important’ the stuff purports to be. But then, I read more Joyce anyway! Why did I do that?!
The full title of the work is The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come. The work tells the story of a man named Christian who reads the Bible and thus comes to fear his doom and to feel that he is carrying a burden. He desires to be saved. Luckily, he subsequently encounters a man named Evangelist who advises him to travel to the Celestial City by a certain path. Christian tries to follow his instructions, with varying degrees of success, and (massive spoiler alert) ultimately reaches his goal.
Is it worth reading this venerable Christian text nowadays?
Little Women, a popular and influential nineteenth-century American novel about the coming of age of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, is familiar, charming, and—for those with a compatible upbringing—only a little bit too didactic.
It’s easy to admire Jo, the fiercely independent heroine of Little Women, a tomboy who cuts all her hair off, looks forward to spinsterhood, and aims to support herself by writing. I wonder if she’s a Mary Sue; others (doubtless more fruitfully) debate whether or not the book is feminist.
Want to see inside? There are links to PDF samples on the publisher’s pages for We Love Chinatown, We Love Geylang Serai, and We Love Serangoon Gardens.
Thus far, Urban Sketchers Singapore and Epigram Books have produced books of sketches of:
Toa Payoh, Tiong Bahru, and Katong are sold out at the publisher.
These are attractive locally-produced books.
Genre: non-fiction (art)
Date started / date finished: 07-Jan-19 to 07-Jan-19
Length: 96 pages
ISBN: 9789810778231, 9789814615181, 9789811700569 (paperback)
Originally published in: 2015, 2016 and 2017
