100 Books To Read 2006 Version 4.0

1. The Names of Things:
   Life, Language, and Beginnings in the Egyptian Desert Susan Brind Morrow
   [02/12/2006 ~ 16/12/2006]


2. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
   Swann's Way
   translated by Lydia Davis
   [11/07/2006 ~ 09/08/2006]
   In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
   translated by James Grieve
   [09/08/2006 ~ 16/09/2006]
   The Guermantes Way
   translated by Mark Treharne
   [16/09/2006 ~ 09/12/2006]
   Sodom and Gomorrah
   
   The Prisoners & The Fugitive
   
   Finding Time Again
   


3. No God But God:
   The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam Reza Aslan
   [11/11/2006 ~ 04/12/2006]


4. A Moveable Feast Ernest Hemingway
   [08/11/2006 ~ 16/11/2006]


5. Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere Jan Morris
   [03/10/2006 ~ 28/10/2006]


6. Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
   translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky
   [12/09/2006 ~ 03/10/2006]


7. Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser
   [17/08/2006 ~ 12/09/2006]


8. The Moonstone Wilkie Collins
   [27/07/2006 ~ 23/08/2007]


9. The Snow Leopard Peter Matthiessen
   [01/06/2006 ~ 10/07/2006]


10. Invisible Cities Italo Calvino
    [27/06/2006 ~ 09/07/2006]


11. The Road to Oxiana Robert Byron
    [07/06/2006 ~ 25/06/2006]


12. The Pure and the Impure Colette
    [12/06/2006 ~ 24/06/2006]


13. His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
    Book I: The Golden Compass
    [26/05/2006 ~ 29/05/2006]
    Book II: The Subtle Knife
    [29/05/2006 ~ 31/05/2006]
    Book III: The Amber Spyglass
    [31/05/2006 ~ 12/06/2006]


14. Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    [26/05/2006 ~ 09/06/2006]


15. Praise of Folly Desiderius Erasmus
    [29/05/2006 ~ 05/06/2006]


16. The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion
    [11/05/2006 ~ 15/05/2006]


17. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
    [14/02/2006 ~ 13/05/2006]


18. Beyond Belief Elaine Pagels
    [09/05/2006 ~ 12/05/2006]


19. Istanbul : Memories and the City Orhan Pamuk
    translated by Maureen Freely
    [05/05/2006 ~ 09/05/2006]


20. Natasha's Dance Orlando Figes
    [26/02/2006 ~ 07/05/2006]


21. Death In Venice Thomas Mann
    [09/04/2006 ~ 26/04/2006]


22. Dhammapada
    [22/04/2006 ~ 23/04/2006]


23. Wanderlust Rebecca Solnit
    [09/04/2006 ~ 22/04/2006]


24. The Quiet American Graham Greene
    [28/03/2006 ~ 01/04/2006]


25. Book of Five Rings Miyamoto Musashi
    [12/01/2006 ~ 28/03/2006]


26. Letters To A Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke
    [17/03/2006 ~ 18/03/2006]


27. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
    [12/03/2006 ~ 15/03/2006]


28. Master And Commander Patrick O'Brian
    [04/03/2006 ~ 08/03/2006]


29. Kim Rudyard Kipling
    [16/02/2006 ~ 23/02/2006]


30. Break, Blow, Burn Camille Paglia
    [25/12/2005 ~ 09/02/2996]


31. The Night Watch Sarah Waters
    [26/01/2006 ~ 29/01/2006]


32. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
    [07/01/2006 ~ 16/01/2006]


33. The Deptford Trilogy Robertson Davis
    [03/12/2005 ~ 14/01/2006]


34. Meditations Marcus Aurelius
    [30/12/2005 ~ 05/01/2006]


35. Fruits of the Earth Andre Gide
    [01/01/2006 ~ 05/01/2006]


36. The Burial at Thebes: Sophocles's Antigone
    translated by Seamus Heaney
    [26/12/2005 ~ 26/12/2005]
    & The Three Theban Plays: "Antigone","Oedipus the King","Oedipus at Colonus"
    translated by Robert Fagles
    [26/12/2005 ~ 31/12/2005]


37. The Prophet Khalil Ghibran
    [26/12/2005 ~ 30/12/2005]


38. Taras Bulba Nikolai Gogol
    [17/12/2005 ~ 26/12/2005]


39. Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair Pablo Neruda
    [09/12/2005 ~ 10/12/2005]


40. The Four Quartets T. S. Eliot
    [01/12/2005 ~ 09/12/2005]


41. A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf
    [25/11/2005 ~ 03/12/2005]


42. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson
    [23/11/2005 ~ 25/11/2005]


43. The Claudine Novels Colette
    [22/07/2005 ~ 30/08/2005]


44. Death and the Dervish Meša Selimović
    translated by Bogdan Rakić & Stephen Dickey
    [17/11/2006 ~


45. Yogasutra of Patanjali
    


46. Dracula Bram Stoker
    [25/10/2006 ~


47. The Black Book Orhan Pamuk
    [17/10/2006 ~


48. War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
    translated by Anthony Briggs
    [18/06/2006 ~


49. Stories Anton Chekhov
    translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky
    [11/08/2006 ~


50. New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle
    Volume I:
    [29/05/2006 ~


51. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
    [26/01/2006 ~


52. Maximum City Suketu Mehta
    [29/04/2006 ~


53. Moby Dick Herman Melville
    [12/07/2005 ~


54. A Crack in the Edge of the World : America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 Simon Winchester


55. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy


56. The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky


57. The Double and The Gambler Fyodor Dostoevsky


58. Steppenwolf Herman Hesse


59. Norwegian Woods Haruki Murakami


60. The Claudius Novels Robert Graves


61. Nightwood Djuna Barnes


62. Perfume Patrick Suskind


63. The House of Mirth Edith Wharton


64. The Iliad Homer


65. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers


66. The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels Freya Stark


67. The Wings of the Dove Henry James


68. Great Expectations Charles Dickens


69. Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham


70. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte


71. A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry


72. Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie


73. The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway


74. Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar


75. The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas


76. Complete Father Brown G. K. Chesterton


77. Captain Alatriste Arturo Perez-Reverte


78. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov


79. The Myths Boxset: "A Short History of Myth," "The Penelopiad" & "Weight" Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood & Jeanette Winterson


80. The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne


81. Blindness Jose Saramago


82. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke


83. The Complete Short Novels Anton Chekhov


84. Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera


85. Fall on Your Knees Ann-Marie MacDonald


86. Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond


87. Art of War Sun Tzu


88. Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton


89. Stiff Mary Roach
90. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee Dee Brown


91. A History of God Karen Armstrong


92. The Places that Scares You Pema Chodron


93. The Histories Herodotus


94. Bhagavad Gita


95. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth Mohandas Gandhi


96. Saint Francis of Assisi G. K. Chesterton


97. From the Holy Mountain William Dalrymple


98. The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Gogol


99. Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol


100. Orlando Virginia Woolf

P/S: The 100 Books To Read List for 2006 has been amended from time to time. Hence, Version 4.0. If anyone is interested, the original list is available here.

Screenshot from Pirates of the Carribean 3

Hey, look. It's Chow Yun Fat as the the pirate from Singapore in the third Pirates of the Caribbean!

You look bad, man. What has Hollywood done to you!

BOOKS | Penguin Designer Classics

Re-covered... (from left) Fuel's Dostoyevsky in brown craft paper, Ron Arad's stripped-down binding for The Idiot, Paul Smith's Lady Chatterley's Lover in silk, Manolo Blahnik's saucy Madame Bovary and Sam Taylor-Wood's moody design for Scott Fitzgerald

Recently in our local newspaper, the Books Journalist finally ran a story on the Penguin Designer Classics. In commemoration of their 60th anniversary, Penguin Classics invited 5 designers to give some of their literary works a cover make-over.

We've been selling the Penguin Designer Classics for a while now. The publicity for the Penguin Designer Classics has also been running for a while now. The Guardian ran a feature way back in October this year. It does say something about how slow to respond our local newspaper is in general.

But what annoys me is that the local Books Journalist chose to zero in on the price angle of the Designer Classics. She even quoted the auction price on eBay for some of the Designer Classics, as well as mention how customers are entitled to 20% discount because of our Christmas sale right now. It is as though the most important aspect is about the price. What about the whole aesthetic aspects of this collection? There is something crass about the feature, and it attracted the readership it deserves.

Before the feature in the local newspaper, the sales of the Penguin Designer Classics in the bookstore has been limited to mainly serious book collectors. They are in the know about the Penguin Designer Classics, either though the internet or otherwise. Then the news broke on how you can make a profit on eBay on the Designer Classics, suddenly the bookstore where I work is flooded with customers who do not care what titles we have left. They don't care about the book. They also want to know the serial number of the sets we have, as they want lucky numbers.

I would have preferred it if the Books Journalist from our local newspaper had not run the story in the first place. It would have saved us much grief from these vulgar people.

QUIZ | Which Historical Lunatic Are You?

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

You are Gaius Caesar Germanicus - better known as Caligula!

Third Emperor of Rome and ruler of one of the most powerful empires of all time, your common name means "little boots". Although you only reigned for four years, brief even by Roman standards, you still managed to garner a reputation as a cruel, extravagant and downright insane despot. Your father died in suspicious circumstances, you were not the intended heir, and one of your first acts as Emperor was to force the suicide of your father-in-law. Your sister Drusilla died that same year; faced with allegations that your relationship with her had been incestuous, you responded, bafflingly, by declaring her a god.

You revived a number of unpopular traditions, including auctions of properties left over from public shows. When a senator fell asleep at one such auction, you took each of his nods as bids, selling him 13 gladiators for a vast sum. You attempted to have your horse, Incitatus, made into a consul and hence one of the most powerful figures in Rome. It was granted a marble stable with jewels and a staff of servants. At one point you forced your comrade Macro to kill himself - in much the same vein as your father-in-law - accusing him of being his wife's pimp. You, of course, were having an affair with said wife at the time.

Things went from bad to worse. When supplies of condemned men ran short in the circus, you had innocent spectators dragged into the arena with the lions to fill their place. You claimed mastery of the sea by walking across a three-mile bridge of boats in the Bay of Naples; kissed the necks of your lovers, whispering sweet nothings like "This lovely neck will be chopped as soon as I say so,"; dallied with your sister's lover and made her pull her unborn child out of her womb prematurely. Towards the end of your reign, you had a golden statue of yourself made and dressed each day in the same clothes you yourself wore. When you eventually died, the terrified people of Rome refused to believe that such a cruel reign could ever end, and believed you to be alive for years afterwards.

A Glimpse at BKS Iyengar

Yoga teacher Alex is in Pune, India right now celebrating the 88th birthday of yoga guru B.K.S Iyengar. He's blogging about it.

A glimpse of the great Lion of Pune.

Sexiest Man In Swimsuit 2006

Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. In the baby-blue swimming trunks. With the broad, muscle-packed shoulders.

YES!

Most Overrated and Underrated

Prospect magazine asks editors and writers to list their choice of Most Overrated and Underrated Books of the Year

I am particularly intrigued by Duncan Fallowell's list:

"Overrated, both generally and particularly this year: Norman Davies, Michel Houellebecq, Alain de Botton, London A-Z, Zadie Smith, the Bible, the Koran, Philip Roth."

Hmm.

QUOTES | From Some Unexpected Source

Despite these afternoon misgivings and self-reproaches I clung to my notion, ill defined though it was, that a serious study of any important body of human knowledge, or theory, or belief, if undertaken with a critical but not a cruel mind, would in the end yield some secret, some valuable permanent insight, into the nature of life and the true end of man. . . .

The only thing for me to do was to keep on keeping on, to have faith in my whim, and remember that for me, as for the saints, illumination when it came would probably come from some unexpected source.

-- Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (1970)

No Longer Able to Laugh

I've extracted this from Jenny Diski's blog, Biology of the Worst Kind:

I've just read Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country. I've never read any of Vonnegut's books without a)smiling and b)weeping quietly to myself. This time is no different. I suspect I recognise a fellow depressive who knows exactly what there is to be depressed about. Laughter is how depressives survive, when they do survive (though the Prozac helps). But Mr V suggests that eventually the laughing stops. He's in his mid-eighties now and working on a novel about a comedian living at the end of the world, which he can't finish. The problem is:

'Finally, you get just too tired, and the news is too awful, and humor doesn't work anymore. Somebody like Mark Twain thought life was quite awful but held the awfulness at bay with jokes and so forth, but finally he couldn't do it anymore...It may be that I am no longer able to joke - that it is no longer a satisfactory defense mechanism.'

I really hope he finishes his novel. But I know what he means. I can feel the sadness seeping up through the Prozac like slime through floorboards. Still, Pinochet's dead. Hey ho.

It sometimes seems to me that the most satirical writers are often the most serious. Laughter is a method of lubricating the glass-shards of truth as it goes down. Personally, I've found laughter makes the bad part of life just that little bit easier to bear. Sometimes the people around me think I'm sort of maniac-depressive. What can I say? "If I don't laugh, I'll probably cry."

Sometimes it can get to you though, the way the world's destroying itself. The world overwhelms you and you think your heart's going to cave in. Perhaps you feel it's not worth fighting anymore. Just give in. Or maybe, just numb it out. Feeling nothing can seem like a better alternative than the sadness, the pain.

But then, that's when you've really lost the fight.

I can't bear to do that yet.

A Dance with Dragons delayed

I've neglected the sword-and-fantasy genre for a while now. I used to wait for Robert Jordan's new Wheel of Time titles, but I've since given up on that series. Over a long period of time, the writing and the story has slackened to a point that I don't think the series justify my time anymore.

But I still wait (im)patiently for every new installment of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. The vast scope and mood of his story makes it a little intimidating -- not to mention it's hard to keep track of all the characters and their affiliation with each other. The next installment in this grand epic is A Dance With Dragons, but

I just came across George R. R. Martin's Livejournal Entry, dated 5th December 2006:

Bad news. Work. None of the projects I wrapped up was A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Work has been going well, yes, but not especially on DANCE. I am not going to be able to finish it by the end of the year as I had hoped. I know this will disappoint all of you.

Ah. I wait. Longer.

Visit the Official George R. R. Martin's website.

BOOKS | How Many Rereads

Of the books I've read in 2006, how many are re-reads?

1. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
   
2. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   
3. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

Wow. I need to re-read more books.

BOOKS | What I Would Recommend

BOOKS I'VE READ IN 2006 THAT I WOULD RECOMMEND TO MY FRIENDS:

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

Because I want to see that light in their eyes, when they read it, and tell me, "Ah, remember when Proust wrote about ..."

BOOKS | Looking Back at my books of 2006

Everyone's doing the 2006 round-down but I'm at a loss. The question: "What's the BEST book you've read this year?" has me stumped. (Not an unusual feeling, I might add.)

Firstly, what do we mean by BEST?

BEST as in most profound? A lot of profound things bores me. I am not as smart as I pretend to be. But oddly, I seem to have considerable success deceiving my colleagues in this aspect. Now I just need my boss to buy this illusion. But among my reading this year, the more spiritually inclined book that I have responded to personally will have to be The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. All great journey is a trip inwards. I will re-read The Snow Leopard in the near future. This perhaps, speaks of how much I bring the writing to heart.

BEST as in most enjoyable? In spite of my intense, chill-as-ice exterior (oh god, I can't type this with a straight face!), I am also a fan of Riot Grrl punk rock, comic books, Care Bears (are we going to have words about my Care Bears?) and loud, childish, farcical humour. A children's book title like The Cork In the Ocean makes me laugh out loud. (Which I did. In the office. Loudly.) Perhaps, The Wee Free Men? You can never go wrong with Terry Pratchett. Funny, riotous and philosophical -- like a swift kick in naughty places.

So instead of BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN 2006, (because I really haven't read that much) -- let's do a WORST BOOK I'VE READ IN 2006:

WORST BOOK I'VE READ IN 2006: Wild Girls by Diana Souhami

Souhami's biography of Parisian salonist Natalie Barney is waffle-thin on the research, dry, mere repetition on already well-known stories of the American expatriate who founded one of the most prestiguous and exciting salon in Paris. Barney was libertine, lover of women, including Colette, friends to the arts and artists -- Marcel Proust in fact wanted to converse with her when he was writing Sodom and Gomorrah. She knew everybody and her patronage spanned the Belle Epoque across two World Wars. She let life in in all its splendour and light -- and Diana Souhami failed miserably to capture this rich, full life.

If anyone is interested, I would recommend instead Suzanne Rodriguez's Wild Heart, an infinitely more readable, enjoyable and MUCH, MUCH better researched biography of Natalie Clifford Barney and the decadence of Literary Paris. Wild Heart is stuffed full of interesting ancedotes and gossips on the literary figures across more than fifty years.

PROUST | The Guermantes Way

The Guermantes Way
by Marcel Proust
Translated by Mark Treharne
[16/09/2006 ~ 09/12/2006]

I finally finished The Guermantes Way. It took me about three months to finish this volume and it was the longest I've needed so far for the Proustian volumes.

As I've been reprimanded previously, I feel the need to indicate that this entry contains ***SPOILERS*** on the story of In Search of Lost Time. If you have not read the Proustian epic and wish to find out for yourself, please just stop reading here and now. My feelings will not be hurt.

In this third volume, the young narrator makes his entry into the upperclass society, through the Guermantes clan whose association he had sought so desperately. (In fact, at some earlier point of the story, he was virtually "stalking" the Duchesse Guermantes.)

Like Swann, has begun mingling amongst the aristocratic upperclass, an observer of their gossips, their petty bickering -- all the while living only on the surface, at the level of his styled hair and starched shirt.

But there is a distinctive entry of death into the narrative at this point. The death of the narrator's beloved grandmother takes place -- and we are informed in the introduction (no SPOILER alert here) that the death of the grandmother will carry into future narrative, part of the intermittent memories of the Proustian epic.

Then towards the end, we come abruptly into the confrontation of another death. Just before the Duc and Duchesse Guermantes depart in their carriage for a party, Swann reveals he is dying; his doctor does not believe Swann has more than a few months to leave. And in that moment of truth, the way of the Guermantes is exposed in its painful rawness:

"What on earth are you telling me?" the Duchesse burst out, stopping short for a second on her way to the carriag and raising her handsome, melancholy blue eyes, her gaze now fraught with uncertainty. Poised for the first time in her life between two duties as far removed from each other as getting into her carriage to go to a dinner party and showing compassion for a man who was about to die, she could find no appropriate precedent to follow in the code of conventions, and, not knowing which duty to honor, she felt she had no choice but to pretend to believe that the second alternative did not need to be raised, thus enabling her to comply with the first, which at that moment required less effort, and thought that the best way of settling the conflict would be to deny that there was one. "You must be joking," she said to Swann.

~ The Guermantes Way, Marcel Proust

How does one become so used to living on the surface that one forgets the how to live with a heart, that made to choose between a party and offering comfort for a friend's pending death, one is paralysed?

BOOKS | Wee Free Men

The Wee Free Men

By Terry Pratchett

Technically, this book is shelved under the Young Adult section of the library. But this is Terry Pratchett we're talking about, so it's definitely going to be more intelligent than a lot of "Adult Fiction" published these days.

I adore his absurdist humour, probably because it's such a good take on life as I know it. The amazing thing about Pratchett is that he's most serious when he's at his funniest. He slips in truth between the punchlines, and yet never loses his faith in humanity.

This is my first Terry Pratchett novel since The Fifth Elephant. I was disappointed by Fifth Elephant as it felt weak, and without his core of absurdist humour to uphold the narrative it fell into a kind of angsty flatness. For a long time I wondered if Pratchett was losing steam with his one-book-every-year deal. But I decided I had to pick up The Wee Free Men because it's his first Witches book in a long time. (If you're a Discworld fan, you'll probably be familiar with the ensemble cast of the Discworld series — and among my favourites are Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. Given enough alcohol, I could probably do a rendition of the Hedgehog song. Oh, the gods themselves do tremble.)

I love Wee Free Men. It's Pratchett back to form. His humour's intact, with his usual dash of common sensibility tongue-twisting with Discworld insanity.

Wee Free Men is the second of his Discworld story in the Young Adult genre. But this is the one where he introduces the nine year-old witch-to-be, Tiffany Aching — and she's such a charmer that she gets a couple more books after this one — A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith.

The story in a nutshell: Tiffany Aching is a nine year-old girl in a big farming family living in Chalk country. She helps out at the farm and is good at making cheese and butter. Tiffany is also grand-daughter to the previous witch of Chalk country, Granny Aching, and is gifted with the First Sight and Second Thoughts.

Then something went horribly wrong (as they usually do in Discworld. It's necessary plot element to have reality caving on Discworld). Monsters from your worst nightmares are intruding into the reality. Tiffany Aching's baby brother, Wentworth is kidnapped and young Tiffany, armed with a frying pan and her uncommonly sharp common sense is going to rescue him. Along the way she allies herself with the local Nac Mac Feegle — the Wee Free Men — six-inch-high blue men with red-hair and Scottish accent that steals, fights and drinks with roaring gusto. Without a doubt, the clan of the Nac Mac Feegle is Pratchett's most brilliant creation since The Librarian. They are like Smurfs gone wrong — loud, rude, drunk, mad and terribly funny.

This is about how Tiffany Aching comes to her ability and her purpose. Hidden among the farce and the fairy tale is a fable on growing up to ask the inconvenient questions (like where do the baby hedgehogs come from) and taking responsilibity. Pratchett doesn't whitewash the issue in his stories, and that is why I love his books. All choices involve sacrifices, and coming into maturity involves taking responsibility. Being a witch is about the responsibility, and ultimately learning why the most difficult lesson of a witch is learning NOT to use her power. He illustrated this touchingly in the character of Granny Weatherwax in his previous Discworld novels. Here, he's taking it from another angle. Towards the end, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg make cameo appearance. And Tiffany earns Weatherwax's grudging respect — which tells me we're definitely going to see A LOT of Tiffany Aching.

Yet the most beautiful parts of Wee Free Men for me is the portrait of Tiffany's grandmother, Granny Aching. Granny Aching was dead by the time the story began, her story told through flashbacks as Tiffany's memories. But Granny Aching has come to occupy the heart of the story; the most important lessons Tiffany learnt were from memories of how things were done Granny Aching's way. Granny Aching is the soul of the Chalk country, the mountains are in her bones. She never rests if a single sheep is lost. She speaks for those who have no voice, and she is silent, always listening. She is the soul of the land that smokes a filthy pipe and walks around in old boots, smelling of tobacco, turpentine and sheep.

BOOKS | Discworld

I'm back in my Terry Pratchett swing. I adore his Discworld novels, even his Young Adult Wee Free Men was fun.

Now, let's see what have I missed?

I've drawn up a list of Discworld titles, grey indicates I've already read them.


List of Discworld titles:

The Colour of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Equal Rites
Mort
Sourcery
Wyrd Sisters
Pyramids
Guards! Guards!
Moving Pictures
Reaper Man
Witches Abroad
Lords and Ladies
Small Gods
Men At Arms
Soul Music
Interesting Times
Maskerade
Feet of Clay
Hogfather
Jingo
The Last Continent
Carpe Jugulum
The Fifth Elephant
The Truth
The Last Hero
Thief of Time
Night Watch
Monstrous Regiment
Going Postal
Thud!

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
The Wee Free Men
A Hat Full of Sky
Wintersmith

POETRY | This Englishwoman

This Englishwoman is so refined

She has no bosom and no behind.

~ This Englishwoman, Stevie Smith

LIFE | Overheard In the Bookstore

Guy holds up a copy of The Da Vinci Code
GUY (proudly): "This is without a doubt – the best book ever written!"

**********

A group of teenage boys are standing around the chick-lit shelves
GUY #1: "I need to buy a book for my girlfriend."
GUY #2: "Buy a pink book! Girls like pink books!"

SPAM | Still single? look at my profile, Irina from Russia

Since we're looking at SPAM.

The techs are trying to look into the SPAM that have invaded our office email for a long while now. Problem is, they have no method of differentiating between SPAM and legitimate emails. This means some important emails from my vendors have been filtered out.

I don't get it. I mean, take this email from Irina -- is there any doubt on the sincerity of this Russian girl who's just looking for love?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Irina O."
To: XXXXX
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 5:58 PM
Subject: [*** SPAM ***] Still single? look at my profile, Irina from Russia

hi!
I am a gentle, smart, calm and romantic young woman who has a
wonderful sense of humor. You will never feel bored with me. I'm a
very sporty lady and I always try to keep fit. I also like meeting my
friends and spend time with them outdoors. I like being on the nature
very much. Swimming in the hot weather is perfect time spending for me.
I would like to find here a man who would be very purposeful, who
could reach his goals and would know how to reach success in
everything. But the most important for me is his ability to love and
to understand. He also should love children and try to be a good
father. The most important thing about my future husband is that he
must be faithful as I'm.

I also have some questions for you if you really want to get aquatinted
with me:

1) What are you looking for in relationships with a woman?
2) Are you going to visit Russia someday?
3) What do you prefer best - to write messages or to talk by the
phone?
4) What is the most important thing for you in creating a family?
5) Do you think that we can match each other?

I am looking forward to your reply to
admin@messagevilleonline.info

Wait for your letters.
Irina

radii class fairway

BOOKS | The Names of Things

From The Names of Things:
Life, Language, and Beginnings in the Egyptian Desert

by Susan Brind Morrow

I'm halfway through the book. We pick up a book with a certain expectation of what we're in for -- but right now the book seems to be taking me in another direction. I'm trying to withhold my prior expectations and allow the book to unfold itself in my mind.

I keep going back to the first page, the page that caught my attention a few years ago and made me rush to buy the book. The stirring rumination on memory and word:

"You could keep some remnant of it, a talisman that would become rare and fine, worn over time into something familiar. It would naturally become more thin and precious the more the air wore it out, like the bones of a saint. After all, it was only an object in the physical world, not something more potent, like something in the mind: memory.

"But the original, the thing itself, would never come back. It had passed away from the world. You could conjure it, though, the emotion that kept it alive inside you, with a trigger: an image, a smell, a combination of sounds that formed it into a picture that stayed in your mind. That was the life of the thing after it died. The only thing that could bring it back.

"This is what a word is worth."

Some of us write to understand. We use language to give form to evanescent thoughts and emotions, the better to explain, either to ourselves or another. In this sense, language performs a process of crystallization, and we use this process for in our the desire to encapsulate experience. I keep a journal. It is my record of the moments that I want to secure for just that little bit longer.

I have been thinking about this desire in us. Memories will forever be about experience that has passed. Why do we write? Why did we create language? Is it nothing more than a means of capturing something lost?

The truth is I am reminded of something I copied down in my earlier journal a long time ago. That was more than ten years ago, but I wrote it down because there was something about it that felt true, and a little threatening to someone who has depended on the written word. The Egyptian god Thoth gave the science of writing to mankind. Thamus warns of the gift:

"This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing;"

~ Phaedrus

I thought this will be a book about writing. It is, in an intimate way -- but it seems to me Susan Brind Morrow also shows how we lost something with our acquired literacy. She tells of the illiterate natives she meets on her travels in Egypt and Sudan, and how she learns a greater appreciation for "something any nomad or illiterate pesant knew; the intangible treasure of memory, of memorized words."

IRONY | My Fellow Christian Bloggers

I received this email today. It's an invitation to join "fellow Christian bloggers". Are they serious? Huh? In what parallel universe does my blog seem Christian to anyone? Hullo?

Dear blog author:

We recently came across your site, darkorpheus.blogspot.com, while searching for fellow christian bloggers.

A small group of us have started a new site called Christian Bloggers. Our prayer and intent is to bring Christians closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community. While many of us have different "theologies", we all share one true saviour.

Would you be interested in joining Christian Bloggers? Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavour.

May God Bless you and your blogging efforts. We look forward to hearing from you.

Craig Cantin
Christian Bloggers
info@christian-bloggers.com

2007 Classics Challenge

Can't believe I'm doing this. Just signed myself up for a reading challenge. From Booklogged's A Reader's Journal, this is the 2007 Classics Challenge.

***The challenge is to read five classics during the months of January and February***

Sounds easy enough, yes? Oh course not! But that's the point. ;)

My choice of 5 classics to read:

1. Candide by Voltaire
2. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
3. Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
4. Emma by Jane Austen
5. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

El Bulli 2003-2004

I had to do a impromptu product presentation at work today, so I thought I just share the highlight of my effort.

El Bulli 2003-2004
By Ferran Adrià Acosta and Juli Soler
List Price: USD 350.00
ISBN: 0061146684

The highlight of my presentation is El Bulli 2003-2004. It is presented as a lavish art catalogue, with lovely food photography and covers every culinary creation, with technical explanations served at the legendary El Bulli restaurant.

Background: El Bulli (Catalan for "bulldog") the restaurant is located on an isolated beach on Spain's Catalan coast of Costa Brava, near the town of Rosas. It's a little inconvenient to reach there, but fame of the restaurant is such that it has become a pilgrimage for food lovers.

El Bulli is only open from April to September. Chef Ferran Adrià spends the rest of the year perfecting his art -- he travels to enhance his knowledge, experiments with different techniques and devises new recipes in his workshop, stocked full of books on cooking. You have to give it to this man for his intensity and dedication to the culinary arts.

El bulli is famous for their 30-course menu, but the emphasis is on texture, colour and flavour. One course can be barely more than a morsel served on a spoon - but the complex flavour is guaranteed to explore in your mouth. Hmmm.

Reservation is absolutely necessary and reservation only opens from mid-October. You can contact them with the date you wish for your reservation –- but it’s more likely they tell you when you should show up, and you plan your trip around it. Reservation by email or fax ONLY. No phone. Email bulli@elbulli.com or fax 972150717 -- Spain's country code is 34 -- if you want to try.

According to Moveable Feast on how to get a reservation at El Bulli:

"Albert Adria said this past year they had over 400,000 requests - that's 100,000 more than last year. And yes, still only 8,000 available seats."

To just pile on the laurels: El Bulli is awarded 3 Michelin stars (highest possible honour from Michelin) and is regarded as one of the best restaurants in the Western world.

Every year The Restaurant Magazine draws up a list of the top fifty restaurants in the world, as voted by its writers and critics. El Bulli had already been named top restaurant in 2002. But there was a change in 2006. For the first time, the list was drawn up by over 500 critics, chefs and gourmets from all over the world, which gave it much greater prestige than in previous years. This sizable select jury named El Bulli as the top restaurant.

Blogger Pim has uploaded some pictures from El Bulli on Flickr. Click here to see the slideshow.

Time magazine once did a profile on Ferran Adrià as one of the next wave of innovators in the culinary arts.

Visit http://www.elbulli.com/

POETRY | A Christmas Carol

Jeanette Winterson finally updated her website for December 2006. My favourite section on her site is the Poem of the Month. It's part of her mission to spread the music of the word. She features the poetry that she fancies, and it's apparently the most visited and re-visited part of her website. No surprise. She wrote something in The Times a while back on poetry:

The comfort of poetry is very real, but poetry is not a painkiller; it is a cure. Where there is no cure, poetry helps us to live with the problem. Poems don’t hide things, they reveal things about ourselves, they ‘put into words things difficult to think’, (Dante), and this difficult thinking won’t mask the trouble for a while, like an aspirin for a headache, but it will work to bring out the grief, the pain, the confusion, the mixed feelings, the anger, the impotence. We talk about being ‘lost for words’, about ‘having nothing to say’, but the poem finds the words, and has something to say, which is why poetry is worth our time.

This month we look forward to Christmas, and Ms Winterson has chosen something for us to think about during this crazy season. I would recommend you visit Ms Winterson's website at http://www.jeanettewinterson.com. Take a look around, and if you like what you see, bookmark it. And revisit it often.

Here is Ms Winterson's choice for December. A hymn.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI: Died 1894.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made
moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long
ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold
Him
Nor earth
sustain;
Heaven and Earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In
the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God
Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him whom cherubim
Worship night and
day,
A breastful of milk
And a manger full of hay;
Enough for him, whom
angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which
adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered
there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only his
mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the beloved
With a
kiss.

What can I give Him
Poor as I am?
If I were a
shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my
part,
Yet what can I give Him,
Give my heart.

PS: While I've included the poem here, I would also recommend that you visit Ms Winterson's Poetry page yourself to read what she has to say about her choice. She writes so much more eloquently than me about this poem and the gift of the heart. (This, of course, is an understatement. It's like saying Jupiter is bigger than a duck. True, but so much more. That I stole from Neil Gaiman. It's from Neverwhere, I think.)

SONG | Regina Spektor's "Fidelity"

Consider the lyrics from Regina Spektor's song:

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds

I'm not the sort that falls in love easily. But I have fallen in love and each time love ends I am crushed like a trainwreck. And I swear I will never allow it to happen again.

When I first heard "Fidelity" I wonder how many of us never really loved anyone completely, always keeping a part of ourselves in reserve. There was a story I learnt when I was a child. (Actually, it was from The Jim Henson Hour) A giant hid his heart a long time ago. Because he has no heart, he was cruel and caused great suffering. A young prince tricked the giant and found the heart. In the end, the giant was slain. While the kingdom rejoices at the demise of the cruel giant, the young prince who found the heart -- wept. He wept because the giant had died of a broken heart. Because the giant was slain before his heart could be returned to him. With a heart, the giant might have changed, might have been redeemed. And this is why I love The Jim Henson Hour -- because Jim Henson has the compassion to see the humanity in the story.

But I digress.

Love is dangerous. It demands that you trust your heart to another. It is risky because the heart of another is beyond our control.

Once, to a question, "Have you ever been in love so much it makes you cry?" Carl replied, "Yes. Many times. That’s the only way to love."

Carl is of a braver heart than I. I admire the spirit that could pick itself up with each heartbreak and continues to love. The strongest muscle is the one that is worked most often. A heart hidden in a dark place shrivels up and dies.

Here is the MTV for Regina Spektor, because she has a great, great voice and more people should be listening to her.

YouTube is my friend.

"Fidelity"

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart
Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart

DVDs Watched In 2006

1. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance


2. Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5


3. Deadwood: Season 1


4. Silent Hill


5. CSI: NY Season 1


6. Northern Exposure: The Complete Third Season


7. Northern Exposure: The Complete Second Season


8. Ravenous


9. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
   The Early Cases: Volume One


10. Veronica Mars: Season One


11. March of the Penguins


12. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 5


13. Lovers of the Arctic Circle


14. 东邪西毒


15. Double Life of Veronique


16. Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0


17. Eulogy


18. L'Auberge Espagnole


19. The English Patient


20. The Passion of Joan of Arc


21. Breakfast At Tiffany's


22. Murder In Mesopotamia


23. The Quiet American


24. Trois Couleurs: Rouge


25. Trois Couleurs: Blanc


26. Battlestar Galactica Season 1


27. Suddenly, Last Summer


28. Center Stage


29. Old Boy


30. Winged Migration


31. Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne


32. Serenity


33. In The Mood For Love


34. Diary of A Country Priest


35. Last Life In the Universe

Films Watched In 2006

1. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan


2. Curse of the Golden Flower


3. Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny


4. Battle of Wits


5. Casino Royale


6. Glastonbury


7. Silk


8. Exiled


9. The Prestige


10. The Departed


11. Death Note


12. Scoop


13. Lower City


14. Pulse


15. Imagine Me & You


16. Frostbiten


17. Pretty Persuasion


18. Hard Candy


19. The Beat That My Heart Skipped


20. How Much Do You Love Me?


21. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest


22. King and the Clown


23. Superman Returns


24. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles


25. C.R.A.Z.Y.


26. X-Men: The Last Stand


27. The Da Vinci Code


28. Loin


29. Invisible Waves


30. Three Times


31. Russian Dolls


32. V for Vendetta


33. Transamerica


34. Capote


35. Brokeback Mountain


36. Casanova


37. Cache


38. Fearless


39. The Constant Gardener


40. Memoirs of a Geisha


41. Le Grand Voyage


42. Blood and Bones


43. Broken Flowers

Build Your Own Unseen university

I am in love with this new project:

The Unseen University Cut Out Book

For fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, you can build your own Unseen University! Yay!

The artwork is fantastic, but I suspect I may need to buy two copies of this - in case I screw up the first one. Actually, I think they missed the details like tentacles coming out of the tower or something. And where is The Librarian? Am I supposed to add that in myself?

Oh, fun, fun, fun!

Whedon on Wonder Woman

Entertainment Weekly interviews Joss Whedon, and he has some things to say about the Wonder Woman movie:

Everything that was hard at the beginning is still hard. I don't feel like I've nailed it yet, and I think the studio agrees. So I'm still plugging away. It's probably not as hard as I think it is, because I'm still a little fired from my TV decade. I should have taken a year off. It's now too late to realize that. But it's a big job. And besides her great origin story, there's nothing from the comics that felt right 100 percent, no iconic canon story that must be told. Batman has it made — he's got the greatest rogues gallery ever, he's got Gotham City. The Bat writes himself. With Wonder Woman, you're writing from whole cloth, but trying to make to feel like you didn't. To make to feel like it's existed for 60 years, even though you're making it up as you go along. But who she, and what the movie, is about, thematically, has never been a problem for me. But the steps along the way, it could be so easy for them to feel wrong. I won't settle. She wouldn't let me settle.

You go, Joss! Give Wonder Woman the respect and movie she deserves! Yay!

Poetry Meme

I jump on the bandwagon. I do poetry meme.

Via Dorothy W.

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was.... it’s a Chinese poem. I think all Chinese children with a vague working knowledge of poetry knows it. It’s by the Tang poet Li Bai, and the vulgarizes/satirized English translation goes, “Bedside Moon Bright Bright…”

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and........ Shakespeare – we had to memorise lines from Antony and Cleopatra and The Merchant of Venice. Oh, Miss Anne Sutherland, my tutor for “A” Levels made us memorise John Donne. You know what? I have no regrets or resentment for having to do it. It was good exercise for appreciating poetry actually. I will do it again in a heartbeat.

3. I read/don't read poetry because.... I read poetry because I am lucky enough to encounter poems and poets that touch me deeply. It’s not just because I'm an English Literature major. I know some friends who did Literature that do not read poetry -- because they never found a poem that truly engaged them. Sad, I think. I always believe poetry is like falling in love – an game of kismet and pure blind chance.

4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is ....... it’ll be something by Mary Oliver – but I’m at a loss to choose ONE single favourite poem. My first Mary Oliver poem is The Journey, and it is special because of the circumstance when I first read it. I was looking for a way out of my old life, and The Journey was like an arrow to the chest. But there is also In Blackwater Woods, which I love because I know here lies the message to remember, to carve onto my heart: “To live in this world/you must be able/to do three things:/to love what is mortal;/to hold it/against your bones knowing/your own life depends on it;/and, when the time comes to let it go,/to let it go.”

5. I write/don't write poetry, but..............the best poetry I read charge simple words with great emotional power. And I suck at that in my writing.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature..... My response to poetry is more emotional, more spiritual than novels. Novels allow me a kind of rational distance. I can appreciate a novel without liking it, but not so for poetry. I read a greater variety of books, but not so for poetry.

7. I find poetry..... deceptively difficult. Too many people think it’s just short lines on a page. And so they think they can write poetry, and trick other people (with prize money) into thinking they have talent.

8. The last time I heard poetry.... was in school, actually. Not every good poet reads well. And some poets should not write at all. Okay, I’m being mean.

9. I think poetry is like.... Poetry is song, poetry is prayer.

My Nerd Score

Hey. I am so cool, they need a new vocabulary to describe me. *grin*

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Not nerdy, but then again maybe not all that cool either.

Pink Elephant in Brain

Last night I found myself comparing professional reviewers/critics against litbloggers - and the antagonism between the two. My mind was suddenly stretched for sustained rational thoughts - something it was never meant for. I will stop now. Headache!

But right now it's like someone stuffed a pink elephant in my head - and I can't stop thinking about it.

Recently in the Observer, Rachel Cooke wrote negatively about the standards of critique and writing she found amongst book blogs. The article, "Deliver us from these latter-day Pooters", earned some (well-deserved, I feel) outrage from litbloggers from all around.

Alan Bissett wrote a response, "In defence of the blogerati." He concludes his argument:

Cooke states that professional criticism is better, yet her case rests on internalised values which she presumes to be true: that professional criticism is better. What does "better" mean? Better for people like Cooke. It is only a valid argument that a critic "knows more" than the average person if you can qualify that knowledge as being intrinsically important. She cannot. For the majority of readers it just ain't an issue. Why else do we look to friends, not reviewers, for recommendations? Because art criticism is merely a conversation between critics, its first duty being to itself rather than the public, or even art. Art will get on just fine without critics, who seek only to protect their own status. That we must depend on "experts" to discuss fiction - made-up stories about made-up people - is deluded nonsense.

Remember the music?

It's midnight and I was getting a little nostalgic. Went on YouTube and dug out some of the old favourites.

Remember "Joey" by Concrete Blonde?

Linda Perry's still around, but mainly as a music producer these days. Her solo singing career never really took off. What a shame. I love the 4 Non Blondes way back then. Here's the music video for "What's Up". From YouTube.

YOGA | Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana

Some time back I wrote about my difficulty in coming to Urdhva Dhanurasana(Wheel pose) during yoga class. I am glad to say I am now able to rise to Wheel without too much difficulty. In fact, I feel immense strength in Wheel.

I wanted to bring my practice just that bit further. So last weekend I tried a variation on the Wheel - I attempted Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana. [See picture on the right]

To do Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana, first come to the Wheel. When you're steady, you bring one leg up at about 45 degree from the ground.

I felt steady and strong in the Wheel. But when I lifted my leg, I felt myself wobble a little, as though my grounded limbs were going to give way. The variation tested the balance in my posture. My foundation was apparently not as strong as I have assumed.

For a while I was getting comfortable in the Wheel pose. Now, a single variation pushes things into uncertainty again. There was the tiniest tinge of fear when the leg lifted - the fear of falling.

I find that I quite enjoy this experience.

Yoga | Gratitude

I was on the Yoga Journal website and they are featuring an article by Philip Moffitt on Gratitude - and that elusive quality known as Grace.

"Reflect on this: You, with all your flaws, have been chosen for this opportunity to consciously taste life, to know it for what it is, and to make of it what you are able. This gift of a conscious life is grace, even when your life is filled with great difficulty and it may not feel like a gift at the time."

Give thanks. How I often forget.

Fourth World

There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones. They come in all colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communitites, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it. It is the nation of nowhere, and I have come to think that its natural capital is Trieste.

~ from Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, by Jan Morris

Finishing the Year 2006

This afternoon, while writing in my journal, I realise it is 25th November. It's exactly one month from Christmas. I finished Patrick O'Brian's Post-Captain this morning and I decided I was going to try to finish reading The Guermantes Way and whatever half-read books I can, before the end of 2006.

I'm compiling my books to read for next year, and I regret that I have not picked up some of the titles on the 2006 list. There are just so many books, and so little time. I also hope to really go to Istanbul next year.

Perhaps next year I will see further progress in my yoga. I attended MD's yoga class this morning and I was amazed at how good I felt. A lot of twists and stretches, and I felt the work on some hard-to-reach muscles. This is the first time I attended one of MD's class. I will be attending his Power Yoga class tomorrow. I have focused too much on my favourite teachers - and two of them went on leave recently. Their absence motivated me to try new teachers, with different focus and teaching styles. This opportunity gave a refreshing new perspective on my practice.

This morning, I was a little surprised that I can do the side-plank pose. In a few months, one of my least favourite poses came to me without my realising it. I have acquired strength through practice. It feels good.

I know I will continue with my yoga in 2007. Everything else continues from there.

Meme | In One Word

Meme. In One Word.

via Make Tea Not War

Yourself: Sigh
Your Partner: Where?
Your hair: Punk
Your mother: depressed
Your father: restless
Your favourite item: journal
Your dream last night: forgot
Your favourite drink: grape
Your dream car: Jeep
Your dream home: Bookshelves!
The room you are in: crowded
Your ex: psycho
Your fear: loss
Where you want to be in ten years: Elsewhere
Who you hung out with last night: Yogis
What you’re not: focused
Muffins: hot!
One of your wish list items: sports-bra
Time: Night
The last thing you did: wrote
What you are wearing: comfy
Your favourite weather: Rainy
Your favourite book: Mouldy
Your life: fearful
Your mood: content
Your best friend(s): wonderful
What are you thinking about right now: laundry
Your car: None
What are you doing at the moment: Chillin’
Your summer: Fever
Relationship status: regret
What is on your tv: Nonsense
What is the weather like: Rain
When is the last time you laughed: everyday

Reading the Yoga Sutra 2

Report on Chip Hartranft's translation of the Yoga-Sutra. It's not so much his translation that I have problem with, but more his commentary which gets a little too abstract. My brain cannot deal.

Now contemplating another version: The Essential YogaSutra by Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally. It has been described as "deceptively simple".

Oh dear.

QUOTES | Anne Dillard

God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with God that demands these things.

Experience has taught the race that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operates. You do not have to do these things; not at all. God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things — unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on him.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

~ Anne Dillard, An Expedition To The Pole

Forthcoming in 2007

Some Farrar, Straus and Giroux releases I'm looking forward to in 2007:

At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman
Release Date: 15 May, 2007

Varieties of Disturbance: Stories by Lydia Davis
Release Date: 15 May, 2007

BOOK | The Bastard of Istanbul

Just received the uncorrected proof for Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul.

Will have to read fast.

Reading the Yoga Sutra

I've been practicing yoga on-and-off for about 3 years now. I've read a few books on the practice and I have always found something in my readings to encourage me in my practice. But as far as the Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali is concerned, it is untouchable.

I have several translations of the yoga-sutra in my personal library. They are often translated by Sanskrit scholars with commentaries that the layman like myself find inaccessible. Why do I always reach for the thick, scholarly translations of the Yoga-Sutra? To simply purchase a layman's translation seems amateurish somehow. Out of sheer egoism, I am making life difficult for myself. I know that, but I still do it. It's a compulsion.

I am an over-reacher in many aspects - a manifestation of my ambitious, competitive character. Even in my reading, I always want to read many books at the same time - I set up reading challenges just to motivate myself; I am at my peak when I am competing against someone, or something.

But - yoga has brought into my life a sort of clarity - although these epiphanies come in intermittent bursts and often have to be re-learnt. One of the lessons learnt is this: we can only start with the here and now. Everything proceed from here forth.

What does this mean? In class, I often push myself to do the difficult poses even (or especially) when I am not strong enough for them. This compulsion to push to the limits is the ego acting out. Wisdom is to know when to stay at the building poses, until strength is acquired to go further. It also takes humility, to accept yourself as the beginner that you are. This is something I am still working at. ;)

So in the here and now, I have to accept that to read the Yoga-sutra, I need a more beginner-friendly version. In fact, maybe I need a Dummies Guide to the Yoga-Sutra. Until that is actually published, I will make do with the Chip Hartanft translation published by Shambhala and see where it leads me. It looks approachable enough (I hope). If it also proves too challenging, I'll have to go look for yet another translation. I just hope my humble mind is adequate for yogic metaphysics. Will update on my progress. If there is any.

News Corporation Cancels Simpson Book and TV Special

New York, NY – November 20, 2006 – News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch today announced that the company has canceled publication of the book If I Did It as well as the corresponding FOX broadcast network special.

Mr. Murdoch said: “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson."

News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of September 30, 2006 of approximately US$58 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$26 billion. News Corporation is a diversified entertainment company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin.

For more information about News Corporation, please visit www.newscorp.com.

You know, the fact that they even considered publishing this book is arse-headed. I hope heads roll, and some insensitive over-paid executives get fired.

Gay Penguin Book

From The Observer, furor over a book, And Tango Makes Three, based on actual GAY penguins at the New York Central Park Zoo that raised a penguin chick together. Oh, the horrors.

Just for fun, you might like to check out this other GAY penguin book, Gus & Waldo's Book of Love.

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Thinking of my Book List for 2007

I'm in the midst of compiling my 100 Books To read 2007. I was also staring at my stacks of books yet unread. It's about time I try harder to pick them up.

Perhaps I should just do a list from existing books on my bookshelves.

From The Book Sale Part 2

I fell to temptations. Went back to the book sale where I picked up more books:

1. The Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield

   Mansfield has often been compared with Chekhov. I read Rereadings recently, and Patricia Hampl wrote convincingly about Mansfield as an author to check out. Apparently Virginia Woolf considered Mansfield her “rival” – and is there a better compliment than that?



2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

   I’m a sucker for tales of justice and revenge as a child. Perhaps it’s my sense of fairplay that demands retribution. Or maybe it’s the culture I was brought up in. Growing up, TV was full of martial arts movies where young men (like Jackie Chan) had their family massacred. These wrathful young men would suffer great hardship to learn martial arts for revenge. What is wrong with the Chinese? Guess forgiveness is not a Chinese trait.

   Then the question is: is it a French trait? I read an abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo when I was young younger. There was even an abridged comic version back then. I’ve decided that it is time to attempt the actual Dumas epic. All 1,200 pages of it.

   No problem at all.



3. DK Eyewitness Travel Guides: Istanbul

   I’ve wanted to go to Istanbul, the land that was Constantinople, for the longest time. Until I actually get there, I’m reading whatever I can on the city that was the heart of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

   The DK Eyewitness Guides are wonderfully illustrated reference that’s worth keeping just for itself. Too bad they are always so pricey. Thank goodness this one is on sale today.



4. The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule by Joanna Kavenna

   Legend tells of the land of Thule, a northerly dreamland. Joanna Kavenna set out on a journey to discover the story behind this icy Eden. Her search led her to Shetland, Iceland, Norway Estonia and even the Artic wilderness – in short, all the places I dare not go because I am a child of the Sun. Along the way Joanna Kavenna discovers some fascinating history about the Thule Society, which my friend the Hamster called, the “Icelandic Nazi cult.”



5. The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell

I remember Larry from Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, who will later be Lawrence Durrell to the literary world. His books: grand epic tomes of searing passions against lush exotic cities. Seems dramatic enough to pick them up.



6. Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski

I've been visiting Jenny Diski's blog (see links at the side) and she's the kind of writer I enjoy - candid, a little cranky and irreverent but utterly fun and honest. I think I'll enjoy this one. It's about her journey to the Antarctica, but it's also about memories and her wry observation of the insane world.



7. God's Terrorists by Charles Allen

About the Wahhabi sect of Islam that has gained prominence in the political world today. Like many people after 9/11, I realised that I do not know enough about Islam, and it is our duty to understand one of the most important religion in today. Wahhabism is just one of the more disturbing aspects of a mutli-faceted religion.



8. Emma by Jane Austen

Ms F and I were talking about Jane Austen a while back. During the conversation, Emma was mentioned, as it was our 'A' Level text for English Literature. I mentioned that I liked Jane Fairfax more than Emma Woodhouse. Jane Fairfax was obviously the superior, a woman of intelligent, pride and grace. Then Ms F asks why would Jane fall in love with Frank? I assume what she's saying is this: an obviously intelligent woman is supposed to know better, and would choose someone more worthy of her affections than weak, floppy Frank Churchill.

I disagree. Frank was handsome, and charming and young. Jane Fairfax is human, and she was in love. We are never rational with whom we fall in love with; love is a state of grace that cannot be bargained or earned or denied. It comes to us when we are so undeserving of it, and that is the miracle and tragedy of it. I felt for perfect, elegant Jane Fairfax then, and the heartache when Frank and Emma taunted her.

That night after our discussion I went home hoping to re-read Emma. To my dismay, I found that I’ve misplaced my. Now I have another copy.

What Inspired Them

The Guardian ran a piece where five writers reveal the people, places and things that inspired them. I like the one by Lionel Shriver:

I am sometimes asked where I got the idea to write a book about an American boy who murders several people at his high school, and I have to suppress a "What, are you stupid?" expression.

Are There Vampires

The office received some galley copies of forthcoming titles recently. We were sorting them out when a discussion arises on whether I read romance novels. My manager assumed I was too snobbish to touch romance novels. Another colleague disagrees. All eyes turned to me.

ME: "That depends. Are there vampires?"

All eyes rolled.

Booty From the Book Sale

One of my supplier is having their long awaited book sale. A list of my booty:

1. Woods Etc by Alice Oswald


2. Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene


3. Street Haunting by Virginia Woolf


4. Love by Stendhal


5. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov


6. The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell


7. Freedom From Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi


8. Letters from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi


9. Middlemarch by George Eliot


10. Tigers in Red Weather by Ruth Padel


11. Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver


12. Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski

As you can see - I've been really disciplined!

Okay, maybe not. I'm going back this Saturday. My friend the Hamster has offered transportation. Heh.

OLIVER | In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind

In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind

On cold evenings
my grandmother,
with ownership of half her mind--
the other half having flown back to Bohemia--

spread newspapers over the porch floor
so, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath,
as under a blanket, and keep warm,

and what shall I wish for, for myself,
but, being so struck by the lightning of years,
to be like her with what is left, that loving.

~ Mary Oliver

I am in the kind of mood that wonders what really matters in life. Have I done well, these past thirty years?

I am watching my parents grow old, and realising that the time may come when I have to take care of them. The cycle of life, coming to parent our parents. Their memory is not as good as it used to be. Their health is declining. This year, my father and I travelled to Tibet. For him, it was important to do these things before the human body fails on him.

We don't like to think of old age and senility and terrible names like "dementia" - but they are reality. We have made so much of ourselves, of all the strength and splendour of our youth. After we lose our minds, either in madness or senility, what is left?

Is there enough kindness left?

MANGA | Death Note

I've recently caught the Death Note life-action movie and I was impressed enough with the storyline to check out the 12-volume manga that the movie was based on.

Tsugumi Ohba wrote the original story and Takeshi Obata provided the comic art. It was a splendid collaboration as Obata's graceful artwork gave visual depth to Ohba's highly suspenseful plot. I haven't been reading manga since Slam Dunk ended its run, but enjoyed Death Note immensely. Perhaps it is time to pick up more manga, just to find out what other great stories I've missed out. The manga source material was far richer than the movie, and I am looking forward to Death Note 2, coming out later this year.

In a nutshell: the story is set in present day Japan. A bored Shinigami (or Death God) drops his Death Note in our world. (I'm curious about how the action is initiated by boredom. To paraphrase the saying, all the evil in the world, all because we could not sit still in a room.)

The Death Note is a magical item possessed by the Death Gods. When a person's real name is written in the Death Note, that person will die of heart failure in 40 seconds. There are many more rules and clauses to the use of the Death Note, some of which drive the twists and turns in the plotline.

Needless to say, Yamagami Light, a bored (boredom again) Japanese high school student with a genius IQ, gains possession of the Death Note and proceeds to use it to eliminate criminals around the world. Yamagami Light is the dangerous embodiment of how power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A sociopathic mass murder that justified his actions with abstract, lofty ideals, he is later hailed as a god known as KIRA. He is feared by the world, yet also worshipped as the harbringer of a New World Order.

In Death Note, the characters are made to question if the present political system of the world should really be allowed to continue, and the ultimate question: is KIRA a criminal or truly a god that promises to remake the world as a New Eden? I've often observed a prevailing sense of social existentialism or discontent in many of the Japanese manga I've read. Often, the story features an Ubermensch anti-hero that advocates a "cleansing" process to bring forth a New World Order. What is it about Japan?

Against KIRA (aka Yamagami Light) is the anonymous world-famous master detective known only as L, who has made it his mission to apprehend KIRA. (It is also part of the tradtion of Japanese manga where far-fetched superhuman abilities are attributed to characters. We are meant to suspend disbelief. Really. You will enjoy the story better when you do.)

L is one of the most delightful manga characters I've encountered. An eccentric but brilliant sleuth, he possesses a genius capacity for observation and deduction. He is the spiritual antithesis of KIRA/Yamagami Light. Where Yamagami Light is handsome, suave and respectable in all outward aspects - L hunches when he walks, dislikes wearing shoes and exudes an almost primitive physicality. Yet L represents our best hope, and he is portrayed with a boyish, endearing sweetness that is convincing. L represents humanity in its innocence. He believes justice will prevail, he believes in us. And we want him to win.

The whole thrill of Death Note is the mind-game between L and KIRA/Yamagami Light as they plot and strategize, anticipating each other's move. We are caught up watching two geniuses so similar in the way they think, yet so different in the way they have evolved. Tsugumi Ohba is a masterful writer - he somehow always manages to pull the carpet out from under you. Most of all, he is the kind of writer that believes characters are subordinate to the story and he is willing to kill off important characters to drive the story forward. (Without giving away too much of a major plot-twist away, a few Death Note fans have stopped reading after Volume 7 because they were too upset.) For a long time, it really seems that KIRA/Yamagami is destined to win.

So for the past few weeks I've been hooked on the battle of wits between between KIRA/Yamagami Light against those who goes against him. It is one of those classic battle of Good versus Evil, yet with enough ambiguities thrown in so that nothing is ever simplistic.

My real complaint is that towards the end, the energy of the pursuit loses steam. The conclusion was a little unsatisfying. It felt a little forced. But I also understand it would be extremely difficult to manage a more satisfying denouement; the writer did what he could.

At the end, order is restored and justice is poetic - but wait - nothing is as simple as it seems. On the very last page, Death Note leaves us a message of how KIRA is merely a manifestation of a very important aspect of our humanity. KIRA never dies, can never die, because deep down inside, we pray for a god-like figure to deliver us from the world we created for ourselves.