u should read flowers in the attic by vc andrews...its a series..but its a very sad sry but still nice.....

is it abt incest and erm one of them died of poisoning?

There's this book by Elizabeth Knox, titled 'The Vintner's Luck', which was published in 1998 in paperback edition. I grabbed my copy back then, and I was really absorbed into the story and the characters so much it's like they've become a part of my life. Here's part of the editorial review from Amazon.com:

"A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptize the first real sorrow of his life."
The year is 1808, the place Burgundy, France. Among the lush vines of his family's vineyard, Jodeau, 18 years old and frustrated in love, is about to come face to face with a celestial being. But this is no sentimental "Touched by an Angel" seraph; as imagined by Elizabeth Knox in her wildly evocative and original novel, Xas is equipped with a glorious pair of wings ("pure sinew and bone under a cushion of feathers") and an appetite for earthly pleasures--wine, books, gardening, conversation, and, eventually, carnal love.

The fateful meeting between man and angel occurs on June 27. After an evening during which Sobran spills all his troubles and Xas gently advises him, the angel promises to return on the same night next year to toast Sobran's marriage. Thus begins a friendship that will last for 55 years, spanning marriages, wars, births, deaths, and even the vast distances between heaven, earth, and hell. In addition to the wonderfully flawed Sobran and his mysterious angel, Knox brilliantly limns secondary characters who are deeply sympathetic--from Sobran's unstable wife, Celeste, and his troubled brother, Leon, to his dear friend and confidante, the Baroness Aurora. Love, murder, madness, and a singular theology that would make a believer out of the most hardened atheist all add up, in The Vintner's Luck, to a novel that will break your heart yet leave you wishing for more. --Alix Wilber --

Anyone looking out for fics pertaining to the historical culture of France, especially its suburban life, should really get into this one. You can still find it in Borders and MPH Midvalley if they should still be there.

xsaintx: if i remember correctly, someone did die of poisoning. all i remember was that the children were locked up in the attic (by their mom, i think)...

funkychips: thanks for the recommendations... neil gaiman's sandman (the comic/graphic novel) did have a somewhat similar story, although the guy was immortal and he was dealing with the Morpheus, lord of the dreams.

I need recommendations on fiction books on lesbianism. I know, seems like a weird request... but I haven't found a single book about it, so want to find. Haha. I can find books on gays tho.

Since the last update have read ..

1. Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami (very good! 2nd fav by Murakami)
2. Amrita - Banana Yoshimoto (tedious to read)
3. Invisible Monsters - Chuck Palahniuk (really bad)
4. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea - Yukio Mishima (very very good!)

Now working on Crime & Punishment, and trying to finish it within this week.

Planning to buy a book for this summer. Any good true story, those encouraging book or something? I like those articles in RD but I finish reading them quite fast. Need one that can keep me for a while. Recommendations please.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons, is by far the best sci-fi I've ever read. It has everything. Murder mysteries. Lovecraftian horror. Starship trooper action. Space battles. Time travelling. Several amazing love stories. Gumshoe. Cyperpunk. Rambo II chain-gun action. Monsters. Poetry. Comedy. Tragedy.

But, it's not a sci-fi that I will recommend to the uninitiated. You need a solid grounding in Geek [sic], or phrases like time-debt, AU, FTL travel, singularities will all be Greek to you. Otherwise, better to start with kindergarten stuff like Robotech.

You'll need to know some astronomy to understand what the author meant when he wrote, "Hyperion is afflicted with its Deep Ice Ages, although here the periodicity is spread to thirty-seven million years by the long ellipse of the currently absent binary dwarf."

You don't need to be Einstein to understand the effects of time-dilation in Faster Than Light travel, but it helps.

A useful primer perhaps, will be Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything, which will give you the solid grounding in real sciences before you can understand the speculated science.

And this is part of the appeal of Hyperion.

But if you just want to machette through the science stuff and just revel in the characters' stories, I suppose that's good too.

The story begins with seven pilgrims arriving at Hyperion, a planet on the border of known space. A planet also under threat from an Ouster invasion, a tribe of barbarians (read 'hippie communists̵' ) who had left the web worlds of cultured capitalists several centuries ago.

The planet is distinguished by the existence of the Time Tombs, an archeological find of great mystery. A mystery protected by the Shrike, a four-armed, metallic personification of bladed death. And that's where the pilgrims are headed, to petition the Shrike to grant a wish. One will receive his/her wish, the others will receive death.

On the pilgrimage, each of the pilgrims tell their tale, to prepare each other for the mysteries ahead. Sounds like The Canterbury Tales, no?

Yeah, I've bought that book, but I won't pretend that I've read it. It's a headache....

A lovyere and a lusty bacheler;
With lokkes crulle, as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.

WTF?!

... Digressing again...

The story of the pilgrims began with the Priest's Tale.

The story of how an archaeologist from the Catholic church was exiled to Hyperion, where he undertook to study a lost race in the most inaccesible part the planet. How he discovered the village of 70 inhabitants, all mentally challenged as Down's children, but who respect the burden of the cruciform. Curious how 'Christianity' managed to 'pop' up in an alien world. A mystery that will not be revealed in its entire horror until the next book.


The Soldier's Tale.

A passionate tale of a decorated soldier's hallucination of a lover in the virtual combat simulations, a love affair with a ghost in the machine, and ultimately meeting this lover in the flesh on Hyperion.

This tale is the author's vehicle to build up the history of his universe. Introducing the Ouster threat into the plot. And revealing the stark horrors of how wars will be fought in the future.

"The group went out into the cool evening air, shielding their eyes from the staggering display of silent explosions which filled the sky: pure white fusion bursts expanding like explosive ripples across a lapis pond; smaller, brighter plasma implosions in blue and yellow and brightest red, curling inward like flowers folding for the night: the lightning dance of gigantic hellwhip displays, beams the size of small worlds cutting their swath across light-hours and being contorted by the riptides of defensive singularities: the aurora shimmer of defense fields leaping and dying under the assault of terrible energies only to be reborn nanoseconds later. Amid it all, the blue-white fusion tails of torchships and larger warships slicing perfectly true lines across the sky like diamond scratches on blue glass."

The prose is out of this world...


The Poet's Tale.

The story of a poet who discovers that the Shrike's horrific slaughter of innocents on Hyperion is the muse for his epic cantos, told in the dark sardonic humor of a delusional neurotic.

The funniest part was when the poet suffered a stroke during cryogenic sleep which destroyed the language part of his brain.

"For the record, here is my entire vocabluary of manageable words: f*ck, shit, piss, ****, goddamn, motherf*cker, *******, peepee, and poopoo. A quick analysis will show some redundancy here. I had at my disposal eight nouns, which stood for six things; five of the eight nouns could double as verbs. I retained one indisputable noun and a single adjective which also could be used as a verb or expletive. my new language universe was comprised of four monosyllables, three compound words, and two baby-talk repetitions. My arena of literal expression offered four avenues to the topic of elimination, two references to human anatomy, one request for divine imprecation, one standard description of or request for coitus, and a coital variation which was no longer an option for me since my mother was deceased. All in all, it was enough."


The Scholar's Tale.

This is by far my favourite love story. I have re-read this tale more than twice.

Those who watched Adam Sandler's 50 First Dates will recognise many of the elements.

A young archaeologist is cursed with Merlin's sickness while investigating the time tombs. She begins to age backwards. Every morning she awakens, she becomes a day younger, and her memories regress by a day.

Like Drew in the movie, she weeps in denial every morning, finally catching up with her forgotten days and finding acceptance later in the day, only to forget it all and begin the process anew the next morning. Until the day she tells her father not to let her remember anymore.

So the scholar carries the burden of lying to his beloved daughter every day of her life as she grows younger and younger, while he grows older... Until he arrives at the Time Tombs with a five day old babe.


The Captain's Tale.

This is not told cos he disappeared before his turn to tell his tale.


The Detective's Tale.

Here, the cyberpunk element of the future is introduced, of how the AI's co-exist with humanity, and of their own conspiracies for the fate of Hyperion.


The Consul's Tale.

This is a Shakespearean tale. Of a pair of true 'star-crossed lovers', but who shared a hundred days more together than R+J. A space-boy who fell in love with an island girl. Every journey he makes across the stars means his island lover gains another 11 years of age over him. Blame Einstein for the paradox.


All meshed together, these tales create an incredibly detailed and imaginative universe brimming with endless possibilities. The delivery just blew my mind the first time I read it.

This book earned its rightful place in the very short list of books that I read twice. Right there with Tolkien. But not quite there with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I read three or more times.

And thankfully, also one of the very few books that will get such a lengthy review from me. The story then continues with Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and Rise of Endymion.

Crime and Punishment is really good. It's a grand- daddy to all the thrillers one reads nowadays and with better writing to boot. I wrote a review of it some time ago.. yup here it is.



Recently, I've read One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love In the Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Best reads I've had for a long long time.

Marquez was at the forefront of the form of literature called magical realism, where fantastical occurences (think magic carpets and women ascending to heaven while hanging the laundry out to dry) weave in and out of normal everyday life.

One Hundred Years of Solitude tracks the rise and fall of the Buendia family through one hundred years, while Love in the Time of Cholera documents the struggles of Florentino Ariza to win the heart of Fermina Daza. And when the guy says he will wait for her, he means it- 51 years, 9 months and 4 days to be exact.

You need some patience in order to read the book, especially in the case of One Hundred Years of Solitude, which can get confusing after a while with all the Aurelianos and Arcadios popping here and there ( the Buendia family had a habit of naming their offspring after their parents/grandparents). Probably not for the light readers, but I recommend everyone to have a go at it. If you like it,you won't be able to put it down, and if you don't, well it's good to have it around to impress guests. (after all, Marquez did win the Nobel Prize for Literature)

This post has been edited by kyl: Dec 27 2006, 07:56 PM

Will let you know what I think of it when I finish it - really like it so far although my reading speed with this book seems to be so slow. I'll probably only finish it by the end of this week - have been distracted with some others.

Last week
#85 - Y: The Last Man - Kimono Dragons (graphic novel, but so good) - info @ Wikipedia

#86 - Balzac & The Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
I really loved this book, it's a simple story .. about 2 boys who are sent to the country to be re-educated. They manage to get their hands on some forbidden, Western literature .. throw in the "Little Chinese Seamstress" ... and from this certain repercussions spring forth. One of the best I've read this year - but then I said that about quite a few of the books I read this year. - My review @ my blog

Btw Borders @ Curve still has some of these as Vintage East titles on their 3-for-2 thing, it is so worth it since it comes up to about RM 21 or 22 each.

Cool review - thank you. I really loved One Hundred Years of Solitude and agree that it's one of the best books I've ever read. On the other hand I wasn't particularly into Love In The Time of Cholera .. I guess I didn't get it - do blame myself as I had heard all the hype about this book so I built it up into having a spectacular finish like One Hundred Years of Solitude ..

This post has been edited by kirakracus: Jan 3 2007, 12:46 PM

Hey guys,

Just wondering if you all can recommend some good fantasy books to read. Cant really stand Terry Patchet's book thou.. Can't swallow his books down.

CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI - Author for the books mentioned below
I just finished 2 books of the Inheritance trillogy. The first book is Eragon and the second one is Eldest (currently two books only..). Basically its like Star Wars mix with LOTR. Yup, this is the book for the latest selling movie. Personally, i have not seen the movie but im going tomorrow! Wanna know more of the first movie and whats going to happen next, i guess this is the series to pick up!

Personally, i find this book better than any of the LOTR books out there. For a book which is set in a magical fantasy world, LOTR just does not have any magic in it.. Literally.. Inheritance has more magic, elves, dwarfs, humans and heck, they even have dragons.

The characters here are woven intriguely together in the first book and expends more into the second book. The hero, with supporting characters which help him along the way are secretive and enough about them is spilt here and there as the events progresses. From the discovery that the hero was special, to his running away, to his battle, to his education as someone special, this book really kept me hooked to it all the way to 4am in the morning!

This post has been edited by me0wSter: Jan 4 2007, 09:34 PM

Terry Pratchett is BRILLIANT! It's fun, and often satirical of current events. Avoid the Rincewind stories if you don't like the silliness. But the detective Vimes series are wonderful to read. A down to earth protagonist that you can grow to feel for.

But if that's not your cup of tea...

Other great fantasy authors:
***Neil Gaiman
-Stardust (M.Pfeiffer & R. de Niro movie based on the book this year)
-American Gods (No elves and dwarves, but plenty of gods, in a modern setting)
-Sandman comics, Books of Magic comics, 1602

Neil is probably the greatest story teller of our time. Everyone should read 1602. It's a short comic series, which I've seen in a collected paperback edition already. Sorely tempted to buy a copy for keeping.

***David Eddings
More kiddish, but if what you want is magic, then...
The Belgariad series is your archetypal fantasy: young farm boy with hidden destinies, the wizen wizard that brings the boy over the threshold to greatness, lots of magic. But I didn't enjoy this as much, after reading more mature fantasies.

But I'll always have good memories of Eddings' Sparhawk books: the Elenium and Tamuli series. The deadpan wit and humour were unforgetable.


***Robin Hobb
My favourite fantasy series to date: the Farseer Trilogy, composed of Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest.

The 1st book is simpler... the author takes a long time to build up the characters. There won't be a lot of flash-bang magics. The story is not epic. But at the end of the book, you come to KNOW the characters, and come to care for them.

Then in book 2, Fitz makes friend with a wolf cub. What's not to love about a boy learning to be an assassin with a lupine friend? I started with this book cos of the awesome cover art. And I've fallen in love with the series ever since.

A 10yr relationship. Robin pops out a book regularly every year around September-ish.

The series only gets better with many memorable moments. Continuing in the Liveship Trader trilogy, and the Tawny Man series.


***Stephen Donaldson
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

This series is one of a kind. Very dark and depressing most of the time.

It starts with a man in our world, being 'teleported' into a fantasy world where giants and magic is alive. And everyone believes that Thomas wields a wild magic that will be crucial in the ultimate battle between good and evil.

But the protagonist spends most of the books being depressed, disbelieving the 'hallucination', and fighting his own inner demons. While others give their lives to protect him and aid his quest.

No force of evil ever had greater potency than Lord Foul in this series. The name sounds corny, but he has the ability to corrupt the most heroic sacrifices to his purposes. Instead of fighting with might and numbers, which he has abundance of... he fights by making heroes despair, corrupting their goodness to serve his ends.

For a change of pace to something more substantial, this is a good read.


***Raymond E Feist
Read the first two Magician books, then stop.

I got stuck after that, and couldn't bring myself to finish the rest. Supposedly his daughter of the empire series gets better, but I've moved on by that time.


***Terry Goodkind
Read the first book. Nothing new. Every idea is derivative of some other story or another. And there are frequent bits where the story telling was clumsy. Characters doing/saying something just for the sake of advancing the plot. You don't get the feeling like you *know* the characters, and understand why they made the choices they made.

But maybe his skill improved in later books.


***Robert Jordan
The true test of how dedicated a fantasy reader you are.
13 books, and counting.
There are so many characters in the series, that the book comes with a glossary.

But I'ld wait to see if he lives long enough to finish his final book before recommending his series. He is fighting sarcoidosis now.


***Anne MacCaffrey, the Dragonlady
If you like dragons, you can't go wrong with the Dragons of Pern series.

But no magic. Just dragons. But well written.

Managed to finish Crime & Punishment last week - read the bulk of it within 2 days, which I don't quite recommend as you tend to get sucked into Raskolnikov's mind completely. Very emotionally taxing IMO.

It's definitely one of the best books ever written and even after finishing it, I want to go back and re-read it again. I love the flow of words and the story, it was so satisfying.

I'm now reading Syrup by Max Barry (who wrote Jennifer Government which I recommend to anyone who likes sci-fi/satire type stuff) and War & Peace (from Daily Lit where you can a segment emailed to you each day).

hmm..where can i get The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M Weinberg?

Amazon or Ebay is your best bet.

I vaguely remember I got mine somewhere from sellers at Amazon.

It's a good book to keep

How bout local online bookstores? Any recommendations?

Anybody read this book: The Nostradamus Code: World War III?

Wondering if it's available in major local bookstores? Found it that it's interesting.

http://www.nostradamusonline.com/

This post has been edited by David83: Jan 21 2007, 12:46 PM

I've used MPH Online - although please keep in mind, that their prices on their website may be raised according to the current price from the publisher. Basically the prices on the website may or may not be the price you will end up paying. It only happened 1x out of about 4 orders, but after that I stopped using it. Shipping is free for over RM 80 - and it's good to find books that are difficult to find, they scour all their branches and send it to you.

Also used Kinokuniya Bookweb - the only disadvantage is that it's shipping is not free. I doubt one would spend over RM 300 in one order. It's good to get graphic novels and such, but keep in mind that any discounts (10% off for Gem of the Month) will not be taken into account. Felt that this was a tad unfair, so again stopped using it.

Went on a book shopping rampage. Bought myself Pendragon Book 4-6 , Pendragon : The territories of Halla , Jamie Oliver book 1-3 , and my cousin bought for me Alex Rider : Operation STORMBREAKER.

Will give u guys a review asap

Well a few of my favourite authors are

Raymond E Feist- his first book magician is truly a gem..i read it several times and its still a nice read..well his following series are quite good to read but gets boring at times.( cant really remember all his books actually) His current series, the conclave of shadows starting from talon of the silver hawk is recommended

David Gemmel- his books are simple and has very good fighting description IMHO, try reading his rigante series 'sword in the storm' or his newest and last novels the Troy series. ( He died last year..RIP)

Terry Brooks- well his shannara series is rather good..albeit he tends to repeat some stuff at times..havent got the chance to read his new novel armageddon's children though

Robert Jordan- its good! but be warned..its lengthy and long winded..his first few books especially The Shadow Rising were very good but the next few volumes gets draggy after that..(he better finished it up! )

U may also give Tad Williams a try .. have fun!