Slumdog Millionare

Previously Published as "Q&A".

It took me 3 days to complete this book. It would have in fact taken me a day to finish it, but due to some other circumstances, it took me longer then it should have.
I did not want to put the book down. As soon as I started reading it, i was hooked. The writer (who is a professor) managed to bring me "meet the character". He is tiffin boy, who managed to win 1 billion rupees by answering 12 questions in a game show. (If you have seen who wants to be a millionaire, you will not have problems understanding this book). But he was brutally taken to prison with the reason that he cheated at the game show. With the video of the game show, he carefully explained how he knew the answers to each of the questions based on the eventful life experiences.

Its a straightforward read, with many teeth gripping life events. Also, after reading this book, it takes my believe in Karma to a whole different level.

I'd rate this book 10 out of 10. Its no wonder the movie won so many awards...

: Watched the movie. The book is MUCH better...

New in Feb....

*The Harmony Silk Factory*




The Harmony Silk Factory tells the story of Johnny Lim, a Chinese-Malaysian man during and after World War II. Tash Aw's novel is in three parts, with each section telling a different perspective on Johnny's life. The first section is told by his son, Jasper, who searches for the story of his father's life to find out how he became such a despicable man. He finds that his father worked in a British-run tin mine in Malaya, chafing at his poor treatment by his racist masters. The murder of one of his bosses allows him a career change to become a brilliant salesman at the Tiger Brand Trading Company. When Tiger Tan's mysterious death puts Johnny in charge of the company, he marries the most beautiful woman in the valley, Snow Soong. The second section of the book is Snow's diary of a belated honeymoon trip, accompanied by a Japanese professor, Mamoru Kunichika, and a British aesthete, Peter Wormwood. The third section is Peter's remembrance of the same trip, and his fond memories of both Johnny and Snow. The Harmony Silk Factory explores the life of a man as told from three different sources, all with their own memories and limitations. Tash Aw's debut novel has received mostly positive reviews with the London Times saying, "From the clunky unreliability of Jasper, through the pellucid prose of Snow's journal to the intelligent, slightly camp, aesthetic eloquence of Wormwood, Aw orchestrates a graceful ballet of dissonances and congruences, of echoes and discords."


* "Slumdog Millionare"
-Previously published as Q&A *


A former tiffinboy from Mumbai, Ram Mohammad Thomas, has just got 12 questions correct on a TV Quiz Show to win cool one billion rupees. But he is brutally slung in a prison cell on suspicion on cheating. Because how can a kid from the slums know who Shakespear was unless he has been pulling a fast one?

In the order of the questions of the show, Ram tells us which amazing adventures in his street-kid life thought him the answers. From orphanages to brothels, gangsters to beggar-masters, and into the homes of Bollywood's rich and famous, this book is brimming with the chaotic comedy, heart stopping tragedy, and tear-inducing joyfullness of modern India.

*Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*


A classic odd-couple duo: a crusading financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, and a freelance private investigator, Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Larsson himself, whose work exposing racism and fascism made him particularly unpopular with his country's far right.

Blomkvist is at a low ebb when an ageing businessman, Henrik Vanger, offers him a diversion. He wants him to spend a year writing the Vanger family history, while secretly investigating a cold case close to his heart: the disappearance of his 16-year-old grandniece, Harriet, over 30 years ago.

Blomkvist agrees, and decamps to the small island, three hours north of Stockholm, where Vanger lives, along with a handful of surviving family-members. These include Harald, a half-mad Nazi-sympathiser, Cecilia, his daughter, and Martin, Harriet's brother and currently CEO of the family business.

The case has intriguing aspects. On the day of the girl's disappearance in 1966, the bridge to the mainland was blocked by a traffic accident, and Hedeby Island itself was chock-a-block with Vangers present for a family dinner. It is, in Blomkvist's words, a "locked-room mystery in island format".

It's a fair analogy. The book feels closer to Agatha Christie than Henning Mankell, more concerned with the idea of detection as an intellectual exercise, like a crossword puzzle of human emotions, than a murky procedure compromised by the buffets and trials of real life. Nor is it a breakneck page-turner. It takes Blomkvist almost half the book to make any kind of breakthrough, when he spots something odd in a photograph of Harriet taken on the morning of her vanishing, and a series of coded numbers are revealed to him as that old serial killer standby, references to biblical chapter and verse.

Salander joins forces with Blomkvist for the novel's second half, a 24-year-old anorexic and bisexual loner with multiple piercings and tattoos, a history of mental illness, a photographic memory and some useful – and never explained – computer hacking skills.

She is at once a vision of female empowerment – a kind of goth-geek Pippi Longstocking – and an echoing agglomeration of clichés, not least in the scenes where she is viciously sexually assaulted by her mental health worker and proceeds to take her revenge. Her understandably pitiless view of men ties in with the grisly secrets that the duo's investigations unearth in the Vangers' past and present, and informs the later books, which deal with sex trafficking and government corruption.

*Keeping Faith*


In the small town of New Canaan, N.H., 33-year-old Mariah discovers that her husband, Colin, is having an affair. Years ago, his cheating drove Mariah to attempt suicide and Colin had her briefly committed to an institution. Now Mariah's facing divorce and again fighting depression, when her eight-year-old daughter, Faith, suddenly acquires an imaginary friend. Soon this friend is telling the girl how to bring her grandmother back from the dead and how to cure a baby dying of AIDS. As Faith manifests stigmata, doctors are astounded, and religious controversy ensues, in part because Faith insists that God is a woman. An alarmed Colin sues for custody of Faith, and the fear of losing her daughter dramatically changes meek, diffident Mariah into a strong, protective and brave womanAone who fights for her daughter, holds her own against doctors and lawyers and finds the confidence to pursue a surprising new romance with TV atheist Ian Fletcher, cynical "Spokesman of the Millennium Generation."

Reviews are from internet and book covers. My review will be in separate posts after Ive finished reading the books. :)

Innocence...by Kathleen Tessaro

Writer: Kathleen Tessaro
Ratings: 10/10

My favourite book this year! Took me only a couple of days to finish reading it despite the heavy work load and being 7 months pregnant. :)
The writer managed to bring me into character, Evie Garlick a 30 something American girl, lives in London, being haunted by her dead best friend. But its not one typical ghost/paranormal stories which you've come across, its more about live, how the haunting made her realise what she has become and how her best friend has helped her getting through hectic London lifestyle.
Being somewhat a failed student actress due to a huge love for a man type decision she made in her 20's which affected her career, she then ends up being an acting teacher, stuck in her own world.
But not all the decision she made in her 20's was bad ones, she does however has the best thing that ever happened to her, Alex, her son.


Book cover synopsis:

It's 1986 and eighteen-year-old Evie dreams of being an actress. Leaving her hometown of Eden, Ohio, for the first time, she's heading to London to study drama. Together with fellow students Imogene (a born-again Laura Ashley poster child and frustrated virgin) and Robbie (a native New Yorker, budding bohemian, and very much not a virgin), Evie's flung into a thrilling new world -- a world illuminated by the glamorous, outrageous Robbie. Together, any thing's possible.

But then life, and love, intervene.

And everything changes.

Fifteen years later, Evie's a single mother teaching drama to night students and living with the eccentric Bunny in her house of artistic renters. Robbie's gone now, killed in a car accident. And Evie's doing her best to forget the past, as well as the dreams they once both shared.

Then an old friendship comes back to haunt Evie.

Literally.

And suddenly everything is about to change again.

New in this month...

I got a few new books in this month....

Micheal Crighton - State of Fear

In Paris, a young physicist performs an oceanographic experiment-then dies mysteriously after a romantic tryst with a beautiful stranger.
In the Jungles of Malaysia-powerful hypersonic cavitation technology capable of toppling mountains with sound is purchased by private interest for an unspecified purpose.
In Vancouver- a businessman leases a small research submarine for use in the waters off New Guinea
In Tokyo, in Los Angeles, in Antartica, in The Solomon Islands...an intelligence agents races to put all the pieces together to prevent a global catastrophe
*Ive not read this but from the synopsis, it sounds thrilling!*

Stephen King- Thinner

"Thinner"-the old gipsy man barely whispered the word. Billy felt the touch of a withered hand, gentle on his cheek.

Billy Halleck, prosperous if overweight citizen, happily married, shuddered, then turned angrily away. The old woman's death had been none of his fault. The court had cleared him. She'd just stumbled in front of his car. Now he simply wanted to forget the whole messy business.
Later, when the scales told him he was loosin weight, it was what the doctor has ordered. His wife was pleased- as she should have been...But... "Thinner"- the word, the old man's curse, had lodge in his mind like a fattening worm, eating his flesh, at his reason. And with his despair, came violence.

*I read this a while back, whilst in University. It was a hardcover Christmas gift from a friend. I somehow lost the book, and found a second hand copy for sale last week. Its definitely worth to be read for the 2nd time*

J.K Rowling-The tales of Beedle the Bard

A wizarding classic, first came to Muggle reader's attention in the book known as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, thanks to Hermoine Granger's new translation from the ancient runes, we present this stunning edition with an introduction, notes and illustrations by J.K. Rowling, and extensive commentary by Albus Dumbledore. Never before have Muggles been privy to these richly imaginative tales.
*An interesting read especially for bedtime stories...Those who loved Harry Potter would love this book*

Agatha Christie- The Unexpected Guest

When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discover a women standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, a gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.

But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? And if so, who is she shielding?

*I was an Agatha Christie's fan when in school, and when I saw this book in a 2nd hand store going for real cheap, I had to purchase to re read it. Obviously being a "mature" reader, the storyline was quite straight forward. But nevertheless, it is a good book for a short flight for those who loves Agatha Christie..*

Janet Tamaro- Breastfeeding Basics

*no need explanation for this one* :)

Kathleen Tessaro- Innocence

It's a long way from Eden, Ohio to London. 18 yr old Evie leaves her hometown for the first time to come to England to follow her dream of being an actress. With fellow students Imogene and Robbie, she studies drama- and life. Her friendship with the Bohemian, outrages Robbie illuminates her new world. Together, anything is possible. But then life, and love-in the shape of struggling rock musician Jake Albery- intervene, and everything changes.

15 years later, Evie is a single mother, teaching drama and living with eccentric Bunny in her house of artistic lodgers. Robbie's gone. And Evie is trying to forget the past and dreams they once shared.

Then an old friendship comes to haunt her- literally. And suddenly everything is possible again....

*Sounds abit like my story when I first went to England, character even shares the same name! :) Not read this book yet, but sounds promising...*

Kathleen Tessaro- The Flirt

Sexy, independent Leticia Vane runs her own bespoke lingerie shop and knows just how to make a women feel beautiful. But love is strictly off limits for Leticia. She doesnt even believe it exist.

Socialite Olivia Bourgaly du Coudray has an exquisite house in Chester Square and everything money can buy, except a happy marriage.

Luckily, handsome young Hughie Venables-Smythe is discovering a secret new profession-the timeless art of the flirt. It can save a marriage or lift a heart faster then any therapy.

Only Hughie is something of a wild card. And when provocative anonymous notes are delivered to both Olivia and Leticia, events take a delicious turn. Who is flirting with whom? And is flirtation innocent- or can it lead to more dangerous territories of the heart?

*can't wait to read this one!*

Lauren Weisberger- Everyone worth Knowing

Soon after Bette Robinson quits her horrendous Manhattan banking job like the impulsive girl she's never been, the novelty of walking her 4 pound dog around the unglamourous Murray Hill neighbourhood wears as thin as the "What are you going to do with your life?" phone calls from her parents. Then Bette meets Kelly, head of Manhattan's hottest PR firm, and suddenly she has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen inside the VIP rooms of the city's most exclusive nightclubs. But when Bette begins appearing in a vicious new gossip column, she realizes that the line between her personal life and her professional life is...invisible.

*Also, can't wait to read this one!*

Death of a Dream

Death of a Dream, a true Crime account from behind the scenes by: Paul Larosa and Ein Moriarty


True crime drama about a dream of a Broadway dancer turned into a nightmare. She was found murdered in her apartment. 2 suspects came into custody, an innocent looking yoga instructor who was her current boyfriend, and a dodgy looking housemate who was her ex-boyfriend.

The book was not as gruesome as you may think, the thorough investigation done by the police took me into my own CSI lab.

I enjoyed the book, the writer managed to bring me into the murder, the life of a dancer and the lives of her partners, family and friends.

Ratings: 7/10

I would recommend those CSI lovers to read this book along with any other more "in depth" books which may sometimes bring you straight to sleep. :)read more on Death of a Dream here