RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

I'm old, sort of. BUT I have a thing for YA books. My most recent purchase on Google Play books was Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I read the free sample, was intrigued enough that I purchased the book once I was done. I even followed the authors advice to skip the introduction and meet her there later.  I first read a Rainbow Rowell book almost 10 years ago (Eleanor and Park) I wasn't exactly young enough for YA back then too, but that story was compelling as well. I'll get to that a bit later SPOILER ALERTS, I think Like the author, I think if you want to read the book, don't bother with my review. I'm not in the mood for filtering what could or could not be spoilers due to the lack of practice in writing my thoughts and opinions for many years.  It's set in 2011/2012. The story starts with an introduction to Cather (or Cath as she prefers), our young female protagonist. She's 18, is a freshman and at that point has just entererd  her dormroom where she mistak...

  It was Halloween, and although Malaysian culture does not involve trick or treating, we acknowledge that it is fun to enjoy all things scary. The afternoon was warm and sultry and I was heading back home after spending some time with my parents and sister. The radio was tuned to my favourite radio station, and I was just in time to enjoy a special show they had about horror books in which listeners contributed to their favourite horror stories, stories which probably disturbed them the most. This got me thinking about the horror books I read growing up...    Now, while I love horror, I'm what you could call a scaredy-cat. Images of what I just read jump out at me when I'm alone facing the window or looking into the mirror. Sounds which are usually normal seem amplified in their scariness after I've read or watched something scary.  The first horror book I read by myself was one I found in a box in my grandma's house when I was a kid. I wasn't sure whose books ...

Eons ago, when I was a student in school, learning English as a second language (though spoken as a first language at home), I met a stumbling block in the form of grammar. Although using correct grammar was never a problem, explaining why I'd pick A over B when given an option between the two was a problem. Without a doubt, my English teacher would have labelled me annoying since I had the cheek to tell her I picked what I did because it 'sounds right'. I'd have been a much better student if I had this book in my grubby hands back then! Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares: How to Avoid Unplanned and Unwanted Grammar Errors If you're a follower of the blog that goes by the title Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares , you'll find that the posts explain grammar in a delightfully whimsical style. You'll never know what hit you until the end where you finally realise that you've been given an interesting lesson in grammar. You get an idea of ...

When I was a kid, I always had my nose buried in one of Enid Blyton's mystery stories. When I was done with those, I graduated to Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and The 3 Investigators. Now I have a mystery to solve all on my own. (Admittedly, they had more interesting mysteries which involved hiding in cars and spying on people and having their own tree houses as HQ for their top secret meetings, whilst mine is...) A slim, blue jacketed copy of Wuthering Heights has somehow incredibly disappeared right under my nose. I know that maybe two years from now, I might find it hidden in the fridge or something and laugh and probably blog about it, but for now it's missing.  I've turned my book cupboards inside out twice, searched other cupboards, searched in travelling bags, in my car and anywhere else books may take a fancy to hide themselves. So, now, despite promising my sister that I could lend my copy to her friend who expressed some in...

When I was a school-going teenager, there was a man who used to walk along the streets of the neighbourhood. He looked dishevelled at most times, and walked aimlessly day after day. People said he was *crazy. I always hoped that I'd never have to cross paths with him as I made my way back home from the bus stop after school activities. So, why was there this strangely deep fear of someone who was  rumoured to be crazy?  When I was even younger (7 or 8, maybe), I sat with my family one night and watched this film called The Lunatics . Despite only getting by with subtitles, the film was visual enough (as kids, my parents never really shielded us from violence on TV, and back then neither did the Malaysian censorship board - if there was one back then) to scare me into believing that while they were not fully in control of their condition, they were capable of violence. It's impact was so immense that one of the final scenes keeps playing in my head as I'm typing this po...

We pick up books for various reasons. A few weeks ago, my sister and I went crazy in a bookshop named Bookalicious, which had titles you don't often see in the bigger bookstores. After Catcher in the Rye, I had wanted to read Franny and Zooey but just never got the chance because I never found the book. That day we found it, and neatly tucked next to it, was this book, by the same author. Needless to say, we picked both up among various other books.  Now, for some strange reason, at the beginning of October, I had decided that I'd only read horror related books for the whole month - this was after that dream about scary children I had. I only managed three - Let The Right One In The Shining  Abarat (I picked this assuming it was horror because the author was Clive Barker - but it was actually fantasy. Oh well.) I gave up on horror after that, partly because I suddenly didn't feel like reading horror anymore, and also I had ran out of books on horror and ther...

I have been struggling with reading "The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition" for the past few months - since somewhere in February this year. In between, due to my frustration at being unable to digest the words as my eyes move over them from left to right and top to bottom, I had gone on a holiday and took it along with me for 'reading up in the air', left it in my bag with hopes that I'll pick it up again, read plenty of other books, and finally decided to neglect it in favour of reading lighter material . What's really horrifying about this is: a) It's the bloody concise version! Imagine if I had the actual lengthy version  that goes on and on in my hands... b) The topic is actually one of particular interest, and having the words pass you by is really, really bad. IMHO.  I picked it up again about two weeks ago, seeing that I had a long break and could probably read it in a few sittings, but it wasn't meant to be as I suddenly had pl...

A few days ago, I received a surprise tag from an old friend on facebook - surprise because I thought tagging on Notes ended when 2009 drew it's last curtain. However, I decided to take on the task of doing the tag, but with a little bit of Secret Agent Woman twist... modified rules! The original Rules are as follows: The Rules - Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors, poets included, who've influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag a few friends, including me, because I am interested in seeing what authors you choose. To do so, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note. I ended up taking a little more than 15 minutes to come up with the list, because I thought I'd explain how each author played a role in my life and how they influenced me and such. 1. Enid Blyton 2. Carolyn Keene  3. Fr...

The impulsive shopper who goes by the nom de blog Terra Shield stood in front of the fiction shelf where  authors whose names started with P decorated the spines of the books they once wrote. And for the first time in over two years, the name Pratchett seemed to dominate the shelf. So there went the impulsive shopper, picking out books she wanted to read but couldn't because it was never easy to find Pratchett in the local bookstore she visited. With the help of her sister and a bewildered cousin (said cousin has never seen her in such a frenzied excitement), she grabbed a total of 11 books! That's going to be about four to five months worth of entertainment! The 11 books obtained during the shopping frenzy The whole collection from 2006 till now

A few years ago, I answered 6 questions and was told that the book that best describes my life was Catch-22 . It was interesting and yet odd at the same time, because yes, the situation of my life back then was one where I could never win any way I tried to look at it. At the same time, while Joseph Heller makes me laugh all the time, the book's repetitiveness was a little painful to bear at times. I just took another quiz because it's a bit too late for a full fledged post at this time of the day, and well, this week is going to be a pretty busy one, so posting 'proper and well thought out posts may be a bit out of the question...My comments on the result are in Italics . Your result for The Which book are you? Test... 1984 You are 53% Great Book One of the best known and well crafted works of modern literature, you are a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. You are 1984. (Twenty questi...

Eons ago in the mad days of schooling I had learned about the "Perang Tiga Segi" , loosely translated into the Three Angled War. Now the only reason why this particular war stands out among all others is because I happened to have three classmates who sat in a triangle while discussing the war while we had a teacherless class one day... Everyone, including the three of them thought it was funny and laughed for days on end each time anyone mentioned the irony of a discussion about the three angled war while sitting in a triangle. (It sounds so much funnier in Malay, though) Our history books back then were dead boring, and some of our teachers even more so. My Form 1 history teacher would make us read paragraphs aloud and force us to underline the "ímportant" passages with a red pen. The only interesting thing about her was she wore a necklace of seashells every single day which we all imagined were the shells of the "Siput Cowrie" , which was used as cu...

I suppose it must have been in the far away days of the Triassic period when I first found out that I had fallen in love with him . The reason was never really clear, but then, when it comes to these things, what is? All I remember is that he had a sort of intense, albeit comical hatred for almost everyone and everything around him, accusing them of being phony and all that. I did find that particularly endearing. Of course this was way after the Permian period of my life when all idealistic thoughts of the knight in shining armour had been thrown away and flushed into the nearest toilet. Alas, it went all unrequited due to the fact that he was only 16, and above all, a fictional character who went by the name Holden Caulfield, a fragment of the imagination of a man who was known as JD Salinger. I had found out last Friday that JD Salinger had died, not as surprising as me finding out that he had been alive all this while, although I do remember reading about him some time ago, whe...

Books and memes happen to be two of my favourite things, books in the real world, and memes in the virtual world, and therefore, I had pilfered this meme from Trav's Thoughts. The rules are simple enough and seem pretty fun.  1. Find the nearest bookshelf of your favourite reads, cookbooks, tech books, magazines. It doesn't matter. This will work for all print media. If you don't have seven books lined up on a shelf, grab the first seven you see around the house. (I had to modify this a bit seeing that my books are  a) practically everywhere or  b) may cause an avalanche with attempted removal from the cupboard they're arranged in (term used very lightly),  which led me to pick the last seven books (fiction) I read (they're in a box) arranged in the order they were read. I have also eliminated about 3 books because they're from the same author - went on a mad Roald Dahl marathon recently) 2. Book #1: Turn to page 21. Read the 21st sentence (you may hav...

When it comes to awesome plots, my favourite author is undeniably Neil Gaiman with his unique blend of fantasy and horror, laden with interesting twists, ideas and disturbing characters that may sometimes leave you gaping in awe. Plus, he's wickedly good-looking. I first 'discovered' him while reading Good Omens which I have read three times so far and have been hunting down his books one by one since then, not an incredibly successful task I'm afraid as his graphic novels seem to be missing hereabouts. Can't seem to figure out which of his other books I like best, though... I suppose it must be one of those 'firsts' for me to have read and watched a movie based on the book within one month of each other and this makes it much more fun. Coraline is a story about a little girl who is bored after she moves into her new house with her parents who somehow seem a bit absorbed in their work, leaving her to seek entertainment on her own. She finds a door in her h...

There is a question that no doubt crosses our mind from time to time, sometimes just fleetingly and occasionally, when the mind is allowed to wander while idle in a more serious manner. Why are we here? That was one of the first few things that crossed my mind while reading this particular book - Childhood's End. When I finished the book the first time though, it made me feel a tad bit sad... I can't seem to be able to explain it well, so I shall not try. Now, the book mainly touches the issue of humans and the changes they undergo under the care of the Overlords - who had landed on Earth from a distant sun. It traces the chronology, from the beginning of the invasion (for the lack of a better word) to people's general reaction in the beginning, how their lives are affected after about 50 years and right up till the end when the Overlords take leave because it their time to do so, leaving the last human on Earth behind to witness the destruction (or is it deconstruction?)...

Blame it on the media - an overexposure to the economic crisis that is currently plaguing the whole world apparently has it's effects, including inducing curiosity in people like myself, who as I have mentioned in a previous post lacks proper knowledge in this field due to the narrow scope secondary school education had provided. In a move to understand things better, I had gone on a search for a book that went by the title Freakonomics - firstly because the long lost friend who had recommended the book said it was pretty good and had in fact made him interested in Economics, so much so that he had actually contemplated doing his post grad in Economics. This was back in December 2006 and we had lost contact since. Secondly, this coming from someone who is a self-professed non-reader was quite interesting in itself, especially after hearing his sad encounter with books (apparently he was handed old copies of girlish boarding school stories by his older female cousins - this I ...

I have a feeling I've done something like this before, way back in 2006, but since time has passed since then and so has the number of books I've read increased, I'll do this one more time. Tagged by the wielder of the argentum sword BBC believes the majority of people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. 1) Look at the list and put an ‘X’ after those you have read. 2) Tally your total at the bottom. 3) Tag a few people you think would enjoy sharing similar information about their book interests. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x) 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x) 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x) 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x) 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x) Revisited at least once a year 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x) 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (x) 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x) 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles -...

Throw in wit - lots of it, a middle age man who flaunts his promiscous ways, a crazy wife and MIL to boot, a school, a prison, a straightfaced prison warden, some crazy criminals and you get Hocus Pocus. I had never set out to get this particular book in the first place, and as I might have mentioned before, some books look for me In this case, I had read one line of about the death of the author on a blog, and was thinking of reading him after seeing a Wikipedia entry on him. About a year and a half later, I see Vonnegut on a book spine alongside book spines labelled with Pratchett, and as they say, the rest is history. The book introduces us to the life and loves of Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam war veteran who married a lady who turned crazy later on. His kids hate him for procreating because it is most likely they will turn crazy someday too. He narrates his life weaving us into his adventures back and forth through the war, his life as a college professor in a school for thos...

The other day, when I blogged about what I've been doing with my life for the past 4 years, Aunty Helpful Dictator's mind went straight to Sherlock Holmes. And another evidence about how everything is interconnected, my sister happened to mention Sherlock Holmes in one of our many conversations about a few weeks before that. The thing is, for the past few weeks, I have also been reading Sherlock Holmes and his adventures in solving crimes. I first got to know the amazing detective (yes, I know he is fictional, but...) at the age of 13 during Literature class (my teacher at that time seemed to be a big fan!) have become a fan myself ever since. At that time, however, our books were abridged versions with a controlled vocabulary of (I can't remember how many) words, which the English Language Department thought was the appropriate number of words any 13 year old should know... (after all, English is only thought as a second language here) I've always been fascinated ...

Every Malaysian, young or old remembers today's date. It's historical, and yet in not such a nice way. Back in 1969, this day marked the beginning of a bloody race riot that changed the lives of many. Recently, I had the opportunity to get my hands on a book written by our very first Prime Minister about the race riots that occured back then. It is a very simple book, written from his point of view of the events that took place before, during and after the incident,and as you read between the lines, you can sense some sort of sadness. According to his book, the communists from a nearby communist country had infiltrated our society and had influenced a huge number of followers. They had a couple of strange tactics to ruin the elections that had been planned. However, the elections had continued despite the hitches, and for the first time after 12 years of independance, the ruling government did not get 2/3rds majority. This ended up with the opposition parties going on a vi...