Archive for the ‘BookWorm’ Category

Before I discovered Kinsella, Griffin, Picoult and all the other authors I read now, I was hopeless McNaughtized. I was a die-hard Judith McNaught fan, to the point of buying every book she has come out with and reading them all. If wireless cctv cameras were installed in our house back then, you would McNaught books on almost all the places I hang out in – the sofa, my bed, even the bathroom. I think Ive read most of her books more than ten times.

I am in the process of reading her latest book:

Every Breath You Take

High atop a snow-covered hill, the stately old Wyatt mansion is perched like a crown, its stone spires pointing upward, its stained glass windows glowing like colorful jewels. Such opulence means success and, surely, happiness. But on the eve of wealthy philanthropist Cecil Wyatt’s eightieth birthday, all the money in the world won’t bring back his missing grandson, William Wyatt. The only thing for certain: Foul play was involved.

The family, the police, the media–all have tried in vain to discover the young man’s fate. Now suspicion has turned shockingly toward William’s own half-brother, the rather distant and enigmatic Mitchell Wyatt.

Kate Donovan never dreamed that a chance romantic encounter on a tropical island paradise would tag her as a suspect in a high-society murder case. But after Kate tangles with the darkly charismatic Mitchell Wyatt, she finds herself cast in a shadow of guilt and mistrust. As the Chicago police tighten their net, it will take all of Kate’s ingenuity to clear her name. With her calm, cool wit, and the help of a man who may or may not be a dangerous catch, Kate vows to claim the life and love she desires.

This one is coming out in December 2011:

And this one involves a Westmoreland modern day prince!

Cant Take My Eyes Off of You

One of the most popular authors is set to dazzle readers again. Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You is the story of a complex, charismatic man and a successful, spirited woman who in their youth fell in love, married, and divorced–but years later are given a rare second chance to rediscover that love can rekindle their relationship.

A brilliantly written, triumphant tale of love lost and regained–with appearances from popular characters from her previous books–Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You will remind millions of fans exactly why her books have won their hearts.

Once work subsides a little, I plan to finish these two books I have bough the other week. I actually keep one in my bag every time I go out – for travel emergency purposes a.k.a keep me from getting bored while waiting.

Eat. Pray. Love.

A celebrated writer’s irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life.

Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly.

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.

Plain Truth.

Moving seamlessly from psychological drama to courtroom suspense, Plain Truth is a fascinating portrait of Amish life rarely witnessed by those outside the faith. When a young Amish teen hides a pregnancy, gives birth in secret, and then flatly denies it all when the baby’s body is found, urban defense attorney Ellie Hathaway decides to defend her. But she finds herself caught in a clash of cultures with a people whose channels of justice are markedly different from her own… and discovers a place where circumstances are not always what they seem.

When eBooks or electronic books were introduced in the 1970s, its popularity slowly but surely grew. In fact, the past few years have shown an exponential growth in its use and popularity. From the usual paperbacks converted into eBooks, many have seen its use in corporate publishing and other forms digital publishing. The introduction of the Kindle and the more recent iPad is enough to make any ebook publisher happy. The dissemination of information has been made easier, more robust, and dynamic because of the numerous digital publishing solutions made available. Among the usual services a digital publishing company may offer are eBook creation, eBook conversion, editorial composition, editing, proofreading, copy editing, indexing, and even artwork and graphic design. In addition to this, many web-based authoring tools like PowerXEditor and Powersuite Tools make it very easy and efficient to undergo a digital publishing project. Even newbies can launch their own projects because many companies are very much willing to guide those who are just starting out by giving consultations and advise. With the popularity that eBooks are enjoying now, the continued growth and potential in the field of digital publishing are endless. Who knows, pretty soon documents, books, magazines, manuals, and all other kinds of publications will be available digitally.

Knowing how much I love drama and grey situations where there is no good nor bad, just a lot of “life’s just like that” situations, I loooooooved this book. Actually I have a lot of mantras that were repeated towards the end, like how everything boils down to choice and that love, the true and kind one, has commitment and choice and responsibility.

I won’t spoil everything for you but I just cannot resist sharing this teaser:

How do you know if you’ve found the one? Can you really love the one you’re with when you can’t forget the one who got away?

Emily Giffin, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Baby Proof, poses these questions-and many more-with her highly anticipated, thought-provoking new novel Love the One You’re With.

Ellen and Andy’s first year of marriage doesn’t just seem perfect, it is perfect. There is no question how deep their devotion is, and how naturally they bring out the best in each other. But one fateful afternoon, Ellen runs into Leo for the first time in eight years. Leo, the one who brought out the worst in her. Leo, the one who left her heartbroken with no explanation. Leo, the one she could never quite forget. When his reappearance ignites long-dormant emotions, Ellen begins to question whether the life she’s living is the one she’s meant to live. At once heartbreaking and funny, Love the One You’re With is a tale of lost loves and found fortunes-and will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered what if.

Some excerpts I loved:

"Love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together."

"How different this moment feels, for so many reasons. I tell myself that no two loves are identical – but that I don’t have to compare anymore."

"Love as a verb. Love as a commitment."

"Maybe that’s what it all comes down to. love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all."

"What every girl dreams of when she’s dumped is – that the guy will someday feel regret and come back and tell her all about it. And the beauty of it is you have no regrets whatsoever."

"Did she ever regret her choices? Were her decisions more clear-cut than mine – or are there always shades of gray when it comes to matters of the heart?"

"True love is supposed to make you into a better person-uplift you."

"Instead of relief or gratitude, more guilt washes over me. Andy’s certainly not faultless – no one ever is in a marriage"

"Change can be good but its always tough to let go of the past"

"He threw in the towel before we were tested. Maybe because he didn’t want to be tested. Maybe because he assumed we would fail. Maybe because, at the time, he just didn’t love me enough."

If you have plans to read one of the books, be prepared to read both, because you can’t help it.

Both of these books tell the same story: two best friends, gorgeous bitchy Darcy and smart plain Rachel, get in a fight because Rachel steals Darcy’s fiance. Something Borrowed is from Rachel’s perspective, Something Blue from Darcy’s.

Something Borrowed

Something Borrowed is the story of Rachel White and Darcy Rhone, best friends since childhood. Rachel is used to being the good girl, the hard-worker who exists in the shadow of flashy—often selfish—Darcy. Until her thirtieth birthday that is, when a drink too many results in Rachel sleeping with Darcy’s fiance, Dexter. The fling turns into an affair, and Rachel is forced to decide which is more important, friendship or true love.

Something Blue

Something Blue is the sequel to Something Borrowed, where it tells the story of Darcy Rhone, who thought she had it all figured out: the more beautiful the girl, the more charmed her life. Never mind substance. Never mind playing by the rules. Never mind karma. But Darcy’s neat, perfect world turns upside down when her best friend, Rachel White, the plain-Jane "good girl," steals her fiance, while Darcy finds herself completely alone for the first time in her life…with a baby on the way. Darcy tries to recover, fleeing to her childhood friend living in London and resorting to her tried-and-true methods for getting what she wants. But as she attempts to recreate her glamorous life on a new continent, Darcy finds that her rules no longer apply. It is only then that Darcy can begin her journey toward self-awareness, forgiveness, and motherhood.

———————

Among the two I loved Something Blue more, perhaps because in Something Borrowed I just couldn’t get (in real life) how Rachel and Dex could have kept it a secret for so long. Plus Dex is too perfect he hardly seems real – and how he managed to keep his feelings for Rachel for 7 yrs under control is beyond me. But this is what Griffin does best. She paints real life as not only black and white but with shades of grey. And that is life. People change, love happens. Life sucks sometimes.

Something Blue was different. She illustrates that people can really change and you can really find love in the most unexpected places. Ethan is someone I wouldn’t mind falling in love with myself.

I finished three books the past two weeks thanks to an iPhone app reader recommended by a friend. Usually at this time, I am mapping out and thinking about what theme our holiday invitations will take for Christmas but I got blissfully lost in reading. I am thankful that I got to stick with one of my resolutions to get back to reading. 2008 and 2009 were so bad, I didn’t read anything new.

I think I will be resting my eyes for a bit and going back to paperbacks as I’ve bought these two beauties a day before yesterday:

I hope work doesn’t interfere with my plans.

Reading has always been my therapy. Nothing makes me happier than being able to get lost in a book’s pages. E-books are cheaper and more portable but I would still prefer reading paperbacks. It just ain’t the same when you get to feel the paper of your books as you turn each page. If I can have my way, I can finish around 5-8 books a month. Unfortunately, I do not have means for this.

Enter BooksFree.com.

If you have wished for a version of NetFlix for books, BooksFree.com is the one. Rent books at their virtual library, with over 250,000 titles to choose from, seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, right in the comfort of your home. You do not even need to come to the “library” to pick them up. They are delivered right at your doorstep, for free, in two to three books per pack. What’s more is that you do not have to worry about the due date of the books. You can read as long as you want, and return it through the return mail envelope they send along with the books. If you have lost the return mailer, it is easy to request a replacement at the site. Audio books on cd are also being offered.

Book rental has never been this easy! Here’s how it works: You can activate your membership by letting them know how many books you usually read on average for a month. From there, they give an monthly membership fee you can pay by credit card. You can keep a queue of books in your account, so that as soon as you claim to return the set of books you have, the next books on queue can be shipped already!

I had to admit I had a hard time finishing the book, primarily because it deals with one’s faith and spirituality and religion cannot be helped but be mixed into it. Being a Catholic with strong beliefs, I am quite wary of stories that depict God as something Else other than He really is.

What more when a child claims she sees God, experiences the stigmata, miraculously heals people with a touch even if she really has no intention to do it, and furthermore, calls her (yes a female) her “Guard”. Faith, the child in the story, does not have any religious background, her parents being non practicing Jews. What she has is a traumatic experience catching her father with another woman right in their house and a mother who had psychiatric problems and have experiences with depression.

Jodi Picoult doesn’t confirm nor negate whether Faith can heal or if she is making this all up or worse, her mom, Mariah, is behind all of this. She does make you see hard facts and make you go into your conclusion. I personally believe the story lets you take a look on YOUR OWN personal views and beliefs on faith, and it really is subjective. I have pored over the book instead of studying the  no exam life insurance quotes being offered to me because I really want to MAKE the story HAVE an ENDING. But there is none. And just as you were about to believe Faith is real, something in the ending makes you think otherwise.

To which Jodi answers in her web site:

What the heck did you mean by the end of Keeping Faith?

At the end of Keeping Faith, I wanted you to feel like Mariah and Millie and Ian and everyone else who comes into contact with Faith – like you’ve had to rethink what you believe. Whether you think she’s a prophet or a messiah or a fake, she is ultimately a little girl who hasn’t had her mom’s attention before. And AT THAT MOMENT she does fake speaking to God, because she isn’t willing to lose that attention. That said, I don’t personally believe that Faith is faking all along…I think that God moves onto someone more needy in that last scene. But I did want you to remember that above all else, she’s a kid – lest you fall into the same mistake that some of the media did during the course of the book.

I bought the book a week after I watched SATC2. A friend told me it was an easy and delightful read and I was curious I had to buy it. It took me two weeks before I actually opened to read it and once I read it, I couldn’t put it down and had to finish it.

It is true – it is easy reading. It is three levels higher than the Sweet Valley High and Sweet Dreams series and if you are a woman, you can somehow relate to all the awkwardness and bad choice of friends you might have made in high school. Back in high school, the most worry you can get is over-analyzing the eczema pictures you have in the yearbook.

When I was reading it, I was visualizing Sarah Jessica Parker on my head and her outfit in the movie circa first step in NYC – the 80’s. Imagine Footloose the movie costumes and you have it!

Here you get to see traces of what Carrie really is even after she became THE Carrie of SATC. She was always there for her friends – their priorities always seem to be higher than her own. She gets dense with guys, this time with gorgeous but bad boy Sebastian Kydd, who she has a crush on since she was 12. She freaks out when she realizes all her friends are slowly losing their virginity except her and yet she still maintains not to lose it in the end. Very Carrie for me, circa Aidan vs. Mr. Big time in SATC.

What was appealing here is that she has always been passionate about writing and through a mentor she never thought would be one to her, she claims top spot on doing what she does best – writing about men, love and (her seemingly lack of understanding) in relationships.

All that plot is great and keeps you glued to the page until the end, but what sticks with you later are Carrie’s internal musings.

On boys: "Boys’ mouths are never what you think they’re going to be anyway. Sometimes they’re stiff and sharp with teeth, or like soft little caves filled with down pillows."

Or even on calculus: "You never know when a rogue integer is going to show up and ruin your entire equation."

She maintains this wit even as she struggles between holding strong to the feminism her late mother instilled in her or taking the much easier path of losing herself and doing whatever boys will like more.

I signed up at GoodReads.com not to look for alli reviews but to help me discover new books, even make new friends and expand my reading preferences. There is a group that has a goal of reading 52 books a year and I joined them. Essentially, you just list down all the books you read for the year and most of them already have read 52! And it’s only July! Talk about inspiring!

The thing is, I really can’t stand reading ebooks because I can’t stand scrolling on my iPhone. I am such a cheapskate to buy $6 ebooks when I can buy paperbacks with the same equivalent. Turning the pages provide such a high for me. If only it was not that expensive!

Friends have given me so many ebooks lately but I still haven’t gotten to reading any of them. Every night I try to turn off everything electronic and just read books or even practice my handwriting (Believe me, if you have been typing and using the computer for a long time and using electronic gadgets to keep notes of everything, it changes! Better practice) and reading ebooks gets crossed off my list.

Who knows maybe I will just bite the bullet and read from the laptop. I bet my eyes would love to spank me when that happens!

Here are some Ebook Reader apps you might find useful if you have the iPhone or iTouch:
Read here!

eReader

eReader’s slidebar makes flipping pages easy.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

eReader is one of the most popular iPhone apps in the Apple App Store and it’s the second-most downloaded program in the store’s "Books" section. It’s well liked for good reason.

eReader is designed extremely well, and it makes flipping through pages of your free books or premium titles easy. If you want to skip to a certain page, you can use a slidebar above the text to flip through the book. It’s a simple feature, but you shouldn’t overlook it; this is an ideal way to skip pages that more eBook readers should adopt.

Stanza

Stanza makes personalizing the text quick and easy.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

Stanza is the most-downloaded eBook app on the App Store and it gets that prize for good reason: it’s the best application in this roundup.

Unlike the Kindle for iPhone app, Stanza allows you to read much more than just books. In fact, the program also lets you access newspapers and online sites, and supports MS LIT, epub, Mobipocket, and PalmDoc eBook formats. You can even view Word documents and PDF files in Stanza.

Buying books and getting them into Stanza is simple. The easiest way to access titles and start reading them is through the Fictionwise Reader Store, accessible within the app. It claims to have over 50,000 titles. In my search, it had everything I was looking for on topics ranging from history to sports to fiction. I didn’t have any trouble getting those books and reading them with the app.

Reading eBooks in Stanza is easily the most appealing when compared with its competitors. The app provides for multi-column views or standard book layout view. And by swiping the screen, you can move up, down, left, and right. You can flip pages with just a tap on the screen. You can also change the color, size, and font of your text with a slidebar. Combine those options and you can easily create an experience that can be tailored to your liking.

When computers were invented and went into “mainstream”, it would only take awhile when everything went digital (read: “computer able”) as well. Add the advent of what is now called the internet technology and then everything went “online”. It seems it is today’s mainstream media, with most businesses setting up web sites and stores setting up online merchant accounts so they cans start selling online.

I really think we reached a new level in multimedia. You have online shopping stores where everything can now be downloaded especially multimedia – songs, videos, movies and even books.

It is really true that digital publishing has changed the book publishing industry. With book readers like the Sony Nook, Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iPhone and iPad, it has certainly taken e-books into another level.

Ebooks have changed the economics of the publishing industry. Very soon, most people you know will have at least one and probably two convenient ways to read electronic books. They will take them on the plane or vacation to save space. They will read the books friends email them.

Digital publishing companies have added ebook publishing in the long list of things they can do digitally. With Aptara, you can have a current book in any format converted into eBook.  eBook creation involves producing them in all formats that are supported by eBook readers. Aptara’s PowerXEditorTM fast publishing tool enables collaboration between content professionals, subject matter experts (SMEs) and reviewers, for more efficient eBook creation, faster-time-to market for web-ready and print content, and lower cost of production.

Aptara provides eBook Production Outsourcing solutions that deliver significant gains in cost, quality and time-to-market for eBook publishers. Having converted tens of millions of eBooks pages for the world’s leading publishers, Aptara offers comprehensive solutions across all content source types and delivery media, including the Amazon Kindle, Apple iPhone/iPad, Sony Reader, and Blackberry devices.

I love reading anything. Sometimes when I am bored, I read the labels of cans in our pantry.

I love checking out the bizarre homes in the book You Live Where?. I find it artistically appealing and I cant help but be amazed how people manage to live in those kinds of houses. There are helpful book reviews in 7Books, just in case you need a recommendation on what to read.

If you are business-minded and these types of books appeal to you, you can find online marketing advice in BS Free Marketing. And Lawsome is a play on words on Law+Awesome (sarcastically) because it is all about the dumb laws people make (and get approved, heaven forbid!).

I got this from sister’s Tumblr site and she claims to have read only 10 out of the thousand books featured. I haven’t even gone through the massive list yet, but I assume I might have only read 5 or less. I got caught up reading romantic novels when I should be reading brain books – before my brain turned into mush. My sisters have a massive collection of books from different genres – everything but the stone sink, as the saying goes.

But I would look to this list for future reference

click the image to view the covers of the books

2000s

1. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday, Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty, Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man, J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest, Peter Manson
6. The Sea, John Banville
7. The Red Queen, Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
9. The Master, Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point, David Markson
11. The Lambs Of London, Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining On Stones, Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
14. Drop City, T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour, Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch, Alan Garner
17. The Light Of Day, Graham Swift
18. What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Mark Haddon
20. Islands, Dan Sleigh
21. Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee
22. London Orbital, Iain Sinclair
23. Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry
24. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
25. The Double, José Saramago
26. Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
27. Unless, Carol Shields
28. Kafka On The Shore, Haruki Murakami
29. The Story Of Lucy Gault, William Trevor
30. That They May Face the Rising Sun, John McGahern
31. In The Forest, Edna O’Brien
32. Shroud, John Banville
33. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
34. Youth, J.M. Coetzee
35. Dead Air, Iain Banks

Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of the books I read this month. I actually wasn’t very much into it, it didn’t make me laugh as much as Twenties Girl – and I really wasn’t in a rush to finish it. Usually, with Kinsella books or chick lit books, if I like it, I finish it within a day – they are light reading anyways. Maybe I was just preoccupied with work or have been avoiding buying the best eye cream for wrinkles so I have been trying to sleep early.

I also cannot hold on to the plot that Lexi lost her memory and couldn’t even recover it six months later. I like how Kinsella approached the love affair between her husband and her lover. Truly, even amnesia cannot contain attraction nor passion.

This book is all about a woman’s journey to self-discovery, and since I seriously doubt my rating of this book, when I am in a better mood, I will try to read this again.

When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.

Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.

Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?

In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem. In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge. -From Nineteen Minutes, page 1-

This is the first book I’ve read by Jodi Picoult and it certainly would not be the last. This drove straight home, as it would to everybody I believe, because it deals with our children, or our friends, who have been bullied one time or another.

What really causes bullying? Can it be so bad that it would drive someone to do something so unimaginable? Would it stem from the family as well? Bullies are troubled as much as the bullied children, and when teenage adolescence and puberty comes in (eczema, pimples, abnormal growth spurts, hormone overload, etc.) it is best to just ignore it to passing changes.

It also explores how much teenagers sacrifice themselves to be part of something they dont even know if they really want to be part of. It just made things easier for them if they were part of something cool.

If you spent you life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask…with nothing beneath it? -From Nineteen Minutes, page 83-

Book Summary

In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five….In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens — until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town’s residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state’s best witness, but she can’t remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Nineteen Minutes is New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult’s most raw, honest, and important novel yet. Told with the straightforward style for which she has become known, it asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who — if anyone — has the right to judge someone else?

But, the theme which resonates the strongest in Nineteen Minutes is that of expectations – those for ourselves as well as those entertained by parents for children and children for parents – and how those expectations shape our lives. Is it fair to judge someone? Should we expect the world to accept us as we are, and if not, is it ever okay to strike back?

Picoult has written a book which is chilling, yet tender…it is a book hard to put down and yet difficult to read.

Sophie Kinsella strikes again!

Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don’t get visited by ghosts. Or do they?

When the spirit of Lara’s great-aunt Sadie–a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance–mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, has a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering, and she’s just been dumped by the “perfect” man.

Sadie, however, could care less.

Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie’s necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different “twenties” girls learn some surprising truths from each other along the way. Written with all the irrepressible charm and humor that have made Sophie Kinsella’s books beloved by millions, Twenties Girl is also a deeply moving testament to the transcendent bonds of friendship and family.

I remember one feedback from this book when I read it. It said, "Laugh Out Loud." And indeed I did! I laughed so hard in one of the scenes from the book – and chuckled to myself how Sadie gets Lara to agree to everything she wants. This girl is one feisty woman, not needing any wrinkle treatment for sure! If you need a light read, this one is on top of my list. I actually want to see this made into a movie!

These are the coolest things ever, especially now that I have a bit of a bookcraze going on!

[via The Dieline]

These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life.

The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from heaven as her family and friends go on with their lives, while she herself comes to terms with her own death.

True to my word of trying to get back into reading, I finished the book The Lovely Bones about two weeks ago. I actually just grabbed it after debating to get another Sparks novel or try a Sophie Kinsella book (That’s how far behind on reading I am!) when I saw it, and the name had movie recall. I saw it was on the bestseller list and thought maybe I’d try it, after all, I was trying to reach out from my usual romance novels.

OMW. That’s Oh My WOW for you.

I could not, would not, put the book down in its first half. I was one with the family, trying to make sure the suspect gets caught and yet I feel for Susie too. The concept of heaven is not meant to be religious and I love how they perceived heaven to be everything you want it to be – which is exactly I believe heaven would be, anyways. It has a happy ending, not the typical ending happily ever after though – but the type when wounds heal and the family moves on. I also like how the world is not in black or white but lovely shades of grey – you get to understand why her mother strayed away but it didn’t justify what she did, you just understand her. You also understand how each of the family dealt with grief (how her father was a ghost of himself and almost needed disability insurance after an accident) and it portrays how serial killers really get away with murder. Ironic but true.

Book and time well-spent. I won’t regret recommending this to people.

"Our story has three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although this is the way all stories unfold, I still can’t believe that ours didn’t go on forever."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

So I finished the book. It seems John is quite the character, the type you only read about in books, the total self-sacrificing reformed rake. Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the movie, which I was told had a better ending. Hey, life doesn’t always have happy endings, they should not have ended up together – because honestly, I think Savannah was really weak. But then what they really had was pure teenage love (and it comes quick like allergy relief and sadly disappears as quickly too).

I might be writing in Greek here, for those who haven’t read the book. It’s an easy light read, it gave my heart a little hurting thump, but that is the die-hard romantic in me.

"I finally understood what true love meant…love meant that you care for another person’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

"It’s possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief . . . lessens. It may not go away completely, but after a while it’s not so overwhelming."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

"And when her lips met mine, I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world, but nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and knew that my love would last forever."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

The husband has been buying me one book of Nicholas Sparks at a time. While you might immediately gush and say that is the sweetest thing, it has selfish reasons too. He is done reading David Baldacci books so he thought Nicholas Sparks might be interesting.

I got a complete list of his books here. He has around 16 books so this will be a lot to buy in one go. One book every two weeks would be fine with me. I do not really want to collect books now since I can read e-books (They are free!). But I have to agree – nothing beats reading and turning each page. Since we only buy paperbacks we do not need to splurge so much that we need to apply for payday loans online!

Here is the list of his books:

The Last Song
The Lucky One
Dear John
The Choice
At First Sight
True Believer
Three Weeks with my Brother
The Guardian
The Wedding
Nights in Rodanthe
A Bend in the Road
The Rescue
A Walk to Remember
Message in a Bottle
The Notebook

Part of my resolution this year is to read more and so far aside from the tile flooring I need to decide on, yesterday was spent asking for book recommendations in the forum I frequent in.

So far I have these:

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
The Book Thief by Marc Zusak
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Tenth Circle, The Pact, Plain Truth, and Handle with Care  by Jodi Piccoult
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Emma and Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Room With A View and Howards End – E.M. Forster
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
What the Dog Saw And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Now, what would YOU recommend?

I am making a conscious effort to read more – my brain needs food, and this time I am trying to feed it dishes that it normally doesn’t eat

Got these from this site.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

What it’s about: Protagonist Robert Langdon is back in a compelling thriller that will have the Harvard-educated symbologist following a trail of mysterious clues involving a ciphered pictogram in an important talisman, the Hebrew Key of Solomon.

Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman By Hank Wagner, Christopher Golden, and Stephen R. Bissette

What it’s about: For the first time, Neil Gaiman and the many worlds he has created are being revealed to readers in Prince of Stories. His stories and characters are featured in detail, allowing fans to discover hidden layers in favorite Gaiman works.

Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

What it’s about: In this true story, Albom shares his experiences with two men of faith: a dying 82-year-old rabbi who asks him to deliver his eulogy and a pastor who preaches to an impoverished congregation. As the two leaders struggle, Albom learns to rekindle his own faith and discovers the striking similarities between the two beliefs beneath their obvious differences.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

What it’s about: This haunting and moving novel centers around a pair of twin teenagers and another set of twins, their mother and aunt. Julia and Valentina Poole move into their aunt’s London flat when she dies, unaware that they have landed in the middle of a tangle of fraying lives, including the ghost of their aunt, who can’t seem to leave her flat.

What the Dog Saw And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

What it’s about: Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most sought-after journalists in America, and What the Dog Saw is a compilation of his best and most compelling pieces from The New Yorker. Tackling all subjects, from the crucial (homelessness) to the mundane (hair dye), Gladwell writes in a way that can show his readers new and extraordinary ways of looking at the world.

I stopped reading books other than what is required at school four years ago. The result is a backlog of must-read books that can fill up my whole house if ever I get lucky enough to own them. I am slowly getting back to reading and again, I am thankful for technology for letting me read books for free – courtesy of e-books. I just need to have the pdf reader installed on my phone and my PDA and I can read anywhere without worrying my pages would be torn because a bratty toddler demands attention.

You would need a pdf software to be able to open .PDF files. They are better than Word files in a way because they have settings that will allow users to print directly as if from a book. Do not worry if you have Word files as e-books – there is such a thing as pdf conversion that will allow you to convert them!

Any suggestions though as to what books I need to read?
Emphasize on the READ please