Hooked On Bookz

I was half expecting a long queue outside BookXcess, Amcorp Mall in PJ. Thank goodness I was wrong. If you're planning to check out their Spring Cleaning sales (26th Feb - 10th Mar 2010), go during their off-peak hours - Lunch hour 12-ish till abt 3pm. Yeah, I was there for about 2 hours or so. I had, at first, 4 books in my hand, only RM9.90 each! Yep. But the kiasu me wanted to stretch my ringgit to the max so I had my husband google all the titles to check out if they were worth my ringgit (Cuz you'll never know if they are going to have an 'Opening' / 'New Location' Sales haha In the end, I picked 1 out of that 4 :P The book I decided worth my RM9.90 was 'Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by Alexander McCall Smith. Overall reviews on Amazon.com were 4-4.5/5. The other books I decided to forgo were Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (don't ask me why), John Burdett's Bangkok Tattoo and Robert Harris's The Ghost. Before leaving the shop w...

GRAHAM MCEUNE overstayed in Asia for 15 years, but he is still welcomed, especially after capturing the lives of Malaysians so humorously, sometimes explicitly, in his book, Upcountry: Adventures & Misadventures in Malaysia. JEE WAN catches up with him after a book reading. GRAHAM MCEUNE, who was born on a pig farm in rural England, left the comfort of his Wellington boots for a budget journey to Southeast Asia. He stayed for 15 years. Upcountry is the result of this extended trip. His fresh and witty observations about Malaysia—from our languages and our cultures to our food and our animals—are a joy to read. One of my favourite lines in the book is: “The Orang Asli (the indigenous people) wear very little, and used to wear noth ing at all until the road was put in. Even today, it is not uncommon to see a woman with her milk-secreting glandular organs swinging freely or a man out hunting with two blowpipes (the one he made himself and the one God gave him).” How can you not laugh...

Oooh, I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MOVIE! And....I MUST HAVE THIS BOOK!!!! :D Look at the illustrations! AWwwwWesome innit???? Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

There are altogether 11 short stories in ‘Skin and Other Stories’ . When reading any of Dahl’s stories, always expect to be startled, surprised and satisfied! In this collection, I especially enjoyed ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, ‘Galloping Foxley’, ‘The Wish’, and ‘The Surgeon’. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ tops this list. It’s about this lady, who killed her husband with a big frozen leg of lamb and got away with it. I shan’t reveal more than that, as it’d give away the twist of the story. If you’ve read ‘Boy’ you’d have noticed that he relates some of his childhood experience in ‘Galloping Foxley’ . William Perkins thinks that he saw one of his ex school bully in a train he frequents on. He contemplates on approaching this man and thinks of what to say when he does. I really liked how Dahl builds his suspense in this story :) ‘The Surgeon’ is one of the most entertaining! A doctor recently saves the life of a Saudi Arabian prince, who rewards him with a very, very large diamond. Excited ab...

Friend of Willy the Wizard author Adrian Jacobs says addition of JK Rowling to suit raises possibility of multi-jurisdiction action Publishers could face legal action worldwide over claims that JK Rowling stole ideas for Harry Potter from a British author's book called The Adventures of Willy the Wizard. The estate of the late Adrian Jacobs yesterday added Rowling as a defendant in a case originally filed in June against Bloomsbury Publishing, Potter's UK publisher, for alleged copyright infringement. Max Markson, a PR executive representing the estate, told the Guardian the addition of Rowling's name to the action opened up the possibility of multi-jurisdiction action. "We believe that she [Rowling] personally plagiarised the Willy the Wizard book. All of Willy the Wizard is in the Goblet of Fire. We now have a case which is not just against Bloomsbury." Markson, who was a friend of Jacobs, said Rowling was added to the lawsuit after it was learned that the sta...

Hey fellow bookaholics, I came across this list, just thought you might wanna have it too :) "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" 2000s 1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro 2. Saturday – Ian McEwan 3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith 4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee 5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson 6. The Sea – John Banville 7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble 8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth 9. The Master – Colm Tóibín 10. Vanishing Point – David Markson 11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd 12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair 13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell 14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle 15. The Colour – Rose Tremain 16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner 17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift 18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt 19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon 20. Islands – Dan Sleigh 21. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee 22. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair 23. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry 24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters 25. The Double –...

Hi all! CNY is finally here! So to those who are celebrating CNY, here's wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year! May you be showered with lots of love, joy and peace too! This will be my 2nd year giving out Ang Pows. Big big hole in pocket this time, coz we're officially celebrating it here! Last year, we only celebrated the last few days of CNY, so damage wasn't that bad haha :P Till I busy myself with books and blogging again, take care and have a wonderful holiday! Yours, Bookaholic.

When does one of the world's busiest people find the time to read? Her answer is surprising: "I don't watch television," she says. "I don't have to, because my friend Gayle watches more television than anyone—she couldn't believe I wanted to have a house without a TV room!" Oprah continues, laughing. "Honest to God, true story: Stedman and I had been in the house four or five months when he said he was going out to a friend's to watch a football game. Suddenly I thought maybe I'd seen a television set somewhere upstairs. When we found it, Stedman said, 'You mean there's been a TV in this house all this time?'" Given how Oprah looks forward to her reading time—"It's a ritual," she says—it's easy to see how a lone television might have escaped her notice. "This is the thing," she explains. "I come here, and I'm so fulfilled. I will rarely go out. I can just entertain myself." The o...

The novelist, well known for the iconic The Catcher In The Rye , died on January 27th 2010, aged 91. What a great loss to those who've enjoyed some of his published works. I've only read The Catcher In The Rye (reviewed it here: http://worldliteratures.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_of_catcher_in_the_rye_by_jd_salinger) which I loved. As reported in AFP, the author's death has reignited speculation over whether he may have left behind some valuable works which could be published posthumously. Salinger did reveal in a 1980 interview with the Boston Sunday Globe that he was still producing - albeit not for an audience. I loved what he said: "I love to write, and I assure you I write regularly. But I write for myself and I want to be left absolutely alone to do it." A great author who rejected fame and fortune. And yet there are so many writers out there struggling to get noticed, to get published, to get their stories made into movies. Did you know there have b e...