Serendipity in Reading

What fun it is when your current reading evokes the book you last finished, and somehow by serendipity creates a domino effect. The Year of Ice evokes Maurice in the way the character splendidly but also sadly describes how happiness in such forbidden love can only be found in sleep–a dream from which ones doesn’t [...]

[244] The Year of Ice – Brian Malloy

But if Randy’s death taught me anything, it’s that life is short. I know it’s nuts, it’s impulsive, I haven’t thought it through at all. But sometimes, Kevin, you just have to say ‘what the heck?’ and take a chance. [144]
The Year of Ice follows a year in the life of Kevin Doyle, who turns [...]

Hint, Hint: Holiday Wishlist?

With the holiday season now upon us, have you left any hint – subtle or otherwise – for books family and friends might buy you for Christmas? Do you like to receive books, or do you prefer certificates so you can choose your own?
I do not drop hints for books anyone might acquire for [...]

[243] Howards End – E.M. Forster

Life’s very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I’ve got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged—well, one can’t do all these things at once, worse luck, because they’re so contradictory. It’s then proportion comes in [...]

Obligation to a Book

“Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation. Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?
I [...]

Update of Your Choices

You might be interested in an update of how I’m doing with the list of books that I solicit help from you. I will only be reading books from this list until the end of the year. I have finished The Calligrapher’s Daughter, which is slower than I anticipated, but otherwise worth reading. I’m close [...]

Airport Reading

At the Los Angeles airport, people choose to munch away at restaurants, nap, on a row of seats, hog the electrical jacks to recharge all their gadgets or play video game to kill time until the boarding call. I find a comfortable seat within eye-sight to monitor that might announce gate change and coop up [...]

[242] The Calligrapher’s Daughter – Eugenia Kim

“You must always think first of your family, your father, and put your own thoughts and desires last. We live in hard times hat we pray will get better. Hard times. You must be careful and obey your parents in all things. Agreed? [10]
Nicknamed Najin when she was eight, the heroine in The Calligrapher’s Daughter [...]

[241] Maurice – E.M. Forster

Read my first review from almost three years ago.
Maurice looked at him with tenderness. He was studying him, as in the earliest days of their acquaintance. Only then it was to find out what he was like, now what had gone wrong with him. Something was wrong.” [114]
Written in 1914, E.M. Forster was ahead of [...]

Last Call for Reading: Help Me Decide

Have you fulfilled (if any) your reading goals this year? As the days of 2009 are numbered, and that the holiday seasons imply considerable disruption to reading routine, do you have an immediate list of books that you’d like to finish before year-end? Willful abstinence from joining reading challenge affords a flexibility to peruse books [...]