A Lover’s Discourse came recommended by a very good friend with very good literary taste, so I did not question a thing about the book when I picked it up. I went into it blind. Finding out that it was actually a philosophical treatise on the language we use as lovers was the least jarring of discoveries. Depending on what type of person you are, and what type of relationships you’ve been in, A Lover’s Discourse functions more as a mirror, and it can be a painful and […]
Crazy Rich Asians AKA Kevin Kwan was eavesdropping on my childhood
My decision to read Crazy Rich Asians wasn’t an accidental one. I had just returned from a family wedding in Singapore, and being around so many of my relatives — some of whom I haven’t seen in more than 15 years — aroused such a bizarre sense of nostalgia. Part of it is comforting, like seeing the faces and personalities of my aunts and uncles (all of whom are physical variations of my mother); part of that nostalgia came with relief. It reminded me of how exhausting […]
Wickedly funny, and painfully accurate, satire of journalism
I loved Scoop. LOVED IT. I’m also slightly miffed that I never read it until this year. How could it be that this awesomely biting satire on journalism was not in my life before? What starts out as a case of mistaken identity secures a foreign correspondent gig for the reluctant William Boot, a hapless columnist for the gardening section of the Beast. He is sent to the fictional African country of Ismaelia, where he is told to report the war between the good vs. the […]
Fear and Paranoia in Burma
This book was a random acquisition and comes with a bit of backstory. I was reporting in Mandalay, central Burma, on a number of stories, and one of them required me to interview a comedy troupe that is known for staging vaudevillian shows that harpoons the country’s authoritarian regime. Now that Burma is considered a democracy, this comedy troupe is still putting up nightly shows for tourists, making fun of the fact that the current government is really a puppet for the military. One of […]
The Way Out
It’s been a long time since I was so thoroughly sucked into a fictional universe as I was with Wool. Honestly, that’s what I miss about fantasy, historical fiction and sci-fi books — while the writing may be good, it is rare that I would feel totally enfolded into the history, the context and the world that an author creates. I think the last time that happened was with the first book of the Chaos Trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go. Hugh Howey does this for […]
Who do ya call? Jack Reacher!!
This is my first Lee Child book, and I’ve heard quite a lot of buzz about him, especially right around the time that Tom Cruise movie came out. You know the one, where he steps out of a movie car into a crowd of people waiting for the bus and doffs a cap given to him by a helpful bystander. Anyway, Deep Down came in a series of e-books gifted to me by my friend (This Is How You Lose Her was another one) and […]