BOOK REVIEW ; ROOM

Title : Room

Author : Emma Donoghue

Heart-wrenching.

Posted my review of Frog Music (http://thebuddinglibrocubicularist.blogspot.com/2014/01/book-review-frog-music.html) while on the road, so I might not stressed enough how she writes really well.

In Frog Music, Donoghue writes an adventure thriller jam-packed with interesting characters, but Room is really something else.

And reading Room reminds me of Little Bee that I read earlier in this year.

Room lets us into the world of Ma and I, and their world that revolves in the room they live in. Never given the chance venturing out, I learns about life as he sees it; the room. Ma has to invent stuff such as exercises around the room and explanation as to why the man comes only at night. 

Until one day, I learnt a little about reality. And together they hatched a plan to run away from their world of the room, to the world which holds promise although is ridden with harsh realities. 

A police investigation turned into a hauntingly beautiful novel. Must read. 

Rating : 10/10

BOOK REVIEW ; SOUTHERN SEAS

Title : Southern Seas
Author : Manuel Vazquez Montalban

I read this back in Professor Dienst's class. Not the last book, by the way. Kept stalling due to my awful experience.

God. Professor, I wished we did another Ripley book.

I HATE YOU FOR PUTTING US UNDER SUCH PAIN.

So this is about Pepe Carvalho, a detective who is more interested in his gastronomy and other annoying habits rather than focusing on the investigation itself. His assignment was to look for Stuart Pedrell, a businessman who went missing a year ago.

But instead of talking heavily about the plot Montalban went winding over food and it's recipes (yes you can easily get 5 recipes from this book), how skillful he is in his wines and sex. Not the kind people are interested/worth reading anyway. Seriously, I am not trying to dissuade with all my heart from reading it, but....nope.

Yet Montalban has around 19 Carvalho mysteries, and is a very celebrated writer, so...maybe a clump of people in this world are entertained.

Rating : 2/10 and how I wish it could go lower. Just thanks for bringing me around Barcelona.

PS : so far a lot of other reviews online and in class have similar views as me. So, blame isn't entirely on my shoulders. Urgh yuck.

BOOK REVIEW ; SNOW

Title : Snow

Author : Orhan Pamuk

Whoever reading enthusiast has heard of Pamuk, and hasn't read his My Name is Red?

Me.

His literary fame was enough for me to pick up his book in the Strand (oh how I miss the rows of second hand books on the New York pavement!) and stash it for "future" use.

Listless with the dismal life I am now leading at home, and missing seeing snowflakes fall on the ground, I figured out "future" in Pamuk's case is now.

This book, translated from Turkish tells about the life of a political exile poet nicknamed Ka and his struggle in finding his own voice back. Having sought asylum in Frankfurt, Ka came back to Istanbul for his mother's funeral and found Turkey same yet somewhat changed; he wanted his childhood memories back. Better yet, he wanted to relive it.

Driven by this and the urging of a friend to discover a lost schoolmate, Ka travelled to Kars, a forgotten Turkish town near the Armenian border where snow, suicide girls, religious freedom, a coup, and a beautiful woman held him back.

Desperate to find meaning in the topsy turvy of sleepy Kars while waiting for the roads to reopen, Ka experienced more emotions than he had for years. Poems flow out of him incessantly, he felt moved by the slightest event, and Ipek, the lost schoolmate beguiled his heart and soul. Terrified of the revelations he experiences, Ka tried to make the best out of the situation; taking sides in the coup and at last, destroying many hearts, including his own.

Orhan as Ka's friend wrote this memoir as a remembrance for his poet friend after Ka was shot in Frankfurt, 4 years and 36 days after leaving Kars forever.

Pamuk walked the journey that Ka traveled while in Kars, met the people central to Ka's poetry, and tried to find the assemble of 19 poems Ka had produced in his stay there. Only one was discovered through an old video of Ka's televised reading of it.

The rest of poems, as the souls who inspired it, were lost forever.

Rating : 9/10. 

I am back, and I have graduated!

Hey people. 

Abandon is a loaded word. 

Although that was kind of what I did to this blog, my time still has been occupied beautifully with books. 

So, reviews coming up. 

Meanwhile, I have graduated ( yes I am revealing who I am nowwww) from Rutgers University (hey my beloved alma mater is now Big10! Woohooo!) with a double degree in Economics and Human Resource Management. 

Yes I question myself everyday why oh why didn't I triple major in English too. Note : Must believe in yourself. 

Currently seeking for the next step in life. Have some plans, waiting for answers. 

Keep waiting for some reviews, folks. 

PS : should also put some humble reviews on the Broadway shows i've been to. 

PPS : just saying. Phi Beta Kappa! 

LISTS; CRIME FICTION FROM PROFESSOR DIENST

The perfect ending. A comprehensive list of crime fiction books from dear Professor Dienst.

ps : some suggestions were from what we did in class throughout the semester.

FEAST FER YOURSELVES, FELLOWS!

My class reading list (all books are in a part of a series, so might be worth checking out all)

1. Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
2. The Real Cool Killers - Chester Himes
3. Ripley's Game - Patricia Highsmith (read all 7 in the series!)
4. The Laughing Policeman - Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo
5. Fatale - Jean Patrick Manchette
6. short readings from Andrea Camilleri, Cornell Woolrich, and Massimo Carlotto
7. Southern Seas - Manuel Vasquez Montalban (ergh)
8. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
9. Nairobi Heat - Mukoma Wa Ngugi
10. Brother Kemal - Jakob Arjouni

The standard list

1. Edgar Allan Poe complete works
2. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series (4 novels, 56-ish short stories)
3. G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown 
4. Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre's Fantomas
5. Agatha Christie complete collection
6. Georges Simenon's Maigret collection (75 books)
7. Georges Simenon's other books (also called hard books)
8. Raymond Chandler's collection
9. James M. Cain
10. Jim Thompson
11. Cornell Woolrich
12. Richard Stark
13. Tony Hillerman
14. Michael Connelly
15. Sue Grafton
16. Sarah Paretsky
17. Megan Abbott
18. Stieg Larsson's Girl With Dragon Tattoo series
19. Natsuo Kirino
20. Qiu Xiaolong
21. David Peace
22. Martin Solares=Junot Diaz=Garcia Marquez

Literary Mentions

1. Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn
2. Leonardo Sciascia's "Equal Danger"
3. Jean Claude Izzo's Total Chaos
4. Michael Dibdin
5. Colin Cotterill
6. Luiz Alfredo Garcia Roza
7. Andrey Kurkov
8. Ian Rankin
9. Honore Balzac

Historical crimes (me zoning into this list first)

1. Robert Van Gulik
2. "Aristotle's Crime"
3. Philip Cairn
4. Josephine Tey
5. Umberto Eco
6. Jason Goodwin
7. Oakley Hall
8. Jacqueline Winspear
9. Alan Furst
10. Philip Kerr
11. Bruce Alexander
12. Boris Akunin (I got Professor Dienst's copy!)
13. Walter Mosley
14. James Elroy
15. Didie Daeninckx

Movies! (yes yes yes)

1. Maltese Falcon
2. The Big Sleep
3. Out of the Past - Tourneur
4. High and Low - Kurosawa
5. The Long Goodbye - Altman
6. Chinatown - Polanski
7. Thief - Mann
8. City of God - Meirelles
9. Gommorrah - Garrone
10. Children of Men - Cuaron
11. The Constant Gardener - Meirelles
12. Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) 
13. Strangers on the Train
14. Momento
15. Twin Peaks series
16. maybe a movie from Chester Himes' books
17. BBC's rendition of Case Histories
18. OBVIOUSLY HOLMES. but Professor liked the Jeremy Brett version, I stick to Benedict Cumberbatch. We agreed that RDJ's Holmes ain't that good, though.

Check out the Bulwer-Lytton website for some fun too!

HAVE FUN READING/COUCH POTATO-ING, FELLOWS!

BOOK REVIEW ; THE GIVER

Title : The Giver

Author : Lois Lowry 

Wait. Does that mean they really spell Lois without the "u" here? Never thought of that. 

This book is categorized as a children's book, but I do struggle to understand how can kids even fathom what this book really wants to deliver. I was hashtagging #deep all over this novel.

Maybe kids like Matilda would get it. Roald Dahl had set a fine example.

Sci-fi lovers, here's a tame diversion!

The Giver tells us about a Utopian society where rules govern the community, so much that it will not feel emotions. Love, pain, hunger, etc is non-existent in the Jonases' household. In fact, in the whole community. And the fact that the whole world is built of similar communities gives an impression akin to Orwell's 1984. People are given specific roles when they come of age, and deviating from it means that you're out. Not everyone can give birth, and babies are assigned to families. You get the drift. 

But this young special boy is given the special role. He will feel when everyone remains numb. He will remember things that people have never even dream about. 

He will try and change the people. 

PS : yes I am back! Will update stuff!

Rating : 10/10 must read even if you have a healthy dislike towards sci-fi. Orwell's line of thought, people

BOOK TO MOVIE ; CASE HISTORIES

It was an enigma to me actually while I was reading Atkinson's book. Crime fiction? Really?

But I laughed it off thinking it absurd. Surely Professor Dienst knows better.

Yet, little that I know, he did asked us the same question in class today? What does the crimes in this book mean? What purpose does it serve, really?

Enough of class material.

I was intrigued by the "feel" that I got from the book, that I decided to watch the BBC series. Since Case Histories is part of a series featuring Jackson Brodie as the main character, I had watched the first 2 episodes that corresponds to this book.

All along I was telling myself, " This is so gonna be Jodi Picoult-like."

I was right.

Both episodes hung loosely onto the book, changing tiny facts to the case which bothered me as stories like this depend on the small bits to push it through. The obvious stuff is still there, and Brodie was all you can ask for on screen. He had that appeal in himself that he acted more like a confidante rather than the normal private eye we usually encounter, making you feel that the cases were never meant to be solved in the first place.

Amelia and Julia fared better on screen compared to the book, but Laura was a little bit plain.

Lily Rose was Lily Rose. Theo wasn't that gigantic though.

Overall, I would not say it is a remarkable rendering of the novel, but worth to watch, nonetheless. Especially if you want to see how things flush out using graphics rather than an over-active imagination.

The part where Olivia's killer did the deed was funny or absurd, depending on your level of seriousness. It was dramatic and garish (at least it was for me). It serves the purpose of fleshing out the reasons behind the killing but I felt that the producer took too much liberty on that one.

Oh well. Brodie is Lucius and how can Lucius be so yummy.

Help me wrap that thought into my brain folds.