Category: I FLIP PAGES

It might not be the kind of book someone planning to get pregnant should read. Some parts can really scare, trouble, or depress a mother-to-be. But, Annie Lamott writes so vividly, so poignantly about her experience. She just gives you a realistic, non-romanticized story of motherhood. And so, I say anyone planning to be a mom should read this. Colic, baby acne, financial issues, one realizes, are all part of the motherhood package. But so is falling in love with your baby that your heart feels it’s about to burst. This book made me an Anne Lamott fan. I’ll be in the lookout for her novels.

I’ve never heard of this book nor of this author until I found this book at my mom’s place (It’s my sister’s) and I was intrigued enough to read it. What a pleasant surprise. It’s one of those books which you can visualize as a movie, as if the author meant for it to be filmed. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. Martin Clark knows how to paint vivid pictures. He details the settings, the scenarios, the emotions, even the scents, and I felt I was part of this crazy adventure. The narrative is peppered with generous bits of snort out loud humor, wacky characterization, weird events that make you think that maybe Martin Clark is as dope-addled, yet still as lovable, as his characters. I enjoyed this one immensely

How I wish I read this book at the time when I was a first time manager.

This should be required reading for those tackling for the first time the challenge of leading and coaching people. Long-time managers can also benefit from reading this. It details a very simple yet sensible approach to leadership. Some of the lessons you know instinctively, and some make you say Aha. All are presented in a logical, step-by-step manner through a modern day parable.

One of those books that was just too painful to put down. So I finished it in a day. Great story. Hosseini is a skilled storyteller. The description of the settings – the time, the place, the circumstances – is very rich and detailed that you don’t just get involved in the story, you also learn a bit of Afghanistan history. Yet even if it’s set in Afghanistan, certain themes like family, friendships, betrayal, forgiveness are universal. I dare not summarize the plot lest I make it sound trite, telenovelaic; for to some degree it is. It’s just the kind of emotionally charged book that is designed to hit you in the gut and make you cry and you hate it that you do. I dare you not to.

by Anne Fadiman

Word geeks, carnal book lovers, salivate. If you like books about books, books that celebrate your celebration of books and words, you’re going to love this book. Just how many times did I say the word book there?

Anne Fadiman grew up in a family who climax on the joy of sesquipedalians. She and her brother are carnal book lovers – people who love their books to pieces, consider hard use not as disrespect but intimacy, bringing them everywhere, even to the sauna. Then Anne Fadiman marries and the conjugalization of their books is treated with more angst than the marriage of their finances.

As Entertainment Weekly Harlan describes this, “18 stylish, dryly humorous essays that pay tribute to the joy of reading, the delights of a language, and the quirks of fellow bibliophiles.”

It’s not the kind of book I would buy. But I was stuck in a weekend vacation with no book and that was the only one available. I like the stream of consciousness journal style narrative, even though I found it hard to connect with the characters. I mean, they’re quirky and they’re smart. Okay, I’m a bit quirky.

The surprise ending is just that — an unexpected ending that had me in tears. Okay, just microtears. A case of high touch versus high tech.

It takes a certain kind of geek to appreciate this. For my kind of geek, this would do when there’s nothing else to read.

I read this at a time when I did want to escape from it all. To keep on walking and walking and walking and walking until the ground below you is no longer familiar and the faces around you don’t know you. So I loved it then as it fed my fantasy.

Letters from the devil to a tyro-devil. What a novel and effective way to teach Christian living — its pitfalls, its temptations, and the assured victory.

Imagine that in one moment you can see, and then the next you lose your vision. Suddenly, all you can see is a thick fog of opaque whiteness. You’re blind and you don’t know why. The doctor can’t tell you why either. And then you realize that people you come into contact with grow blind as well.

Imagine.

Blindess is my all-time favorite work of fiction. Gripping. It has the feel of reality TV, back when reality TV like Survivor, was about answering the question what if? What if one by one, people started seeing nothing but white. What if blindness became contagious? What if this contagion of blindness grips the city, the country, maybe even the world? What if you put all the blind people in one place and there’s no one to take care of them? Would it bring out the evil or the good in people? If you’re massively interested in human dynamics, this book brings you to the edges of imagining how people would react in extreme, but strangely possible, situations. Against a backdrop so surreal your jaws drop while reading, Saramago paints characters who could very well be real.

If this is not Saramago’s best work, I can’t wait to read his other masterpieces. The wannabe writer in me aches in envy. How can one write fiction without using proper nouns? Saramago did, and his work didn’t suffer any. Excellent writing. He deserves his Nobel.

by Margaret Atwood

Hmmm. I don’t know why this book had a mills & boon feel to it. Or was that precisely how it should feel like? Too humdrum, too lethargic for me. And I have to admit, with a title like that, I felt shortchanged, expecting mind blowing, life altering sex between her and Duncan. But then again, maybe that was intention. Atwood is one of my favorite writers, but this novel is not my favorite Atwood.