My Legendary Girlfriend by Mike Gayle

So, first it was the inviting colour of its cover that influenced me into buying this book. Second, this was my 2nd book from Mike Gayle. I reviewed about the first one later. So while I have nothing to do, just to wait for maghrib then pray then off to gsc to watch dunia si pari-pari. It's wednesday so mari bazirkan rm6 untuk cerita yang belum pasti kehebatannya. :)

Oh okay, about the book.

Particularly, the story is about Will, an unmotivated English teacher. He actually is still in love with the girl that he thinks, is The One.

While he moves on to whatever life brings him, there are 5 girls whom he seems to holding on to.

There's Martina, the girl he had his one night stand, probably in favour of the broken relationship, who claimed that she's pregnant, and somehow being a little psychotic. And there are also Simon and Aggy. Aggy is his ex girlfriend, and I can't recall anything about Simon. HEHE.

It's Kate that took up almost 60% of his day life. And he'd never met her. It is the phone that had been their connector. They talk to each other everyday. Actually Kate is the former tenant of the apartment Will lives in. They shared everything, and actually they feel they are somehow connected to each other, and they did confess their feelings toward each other, of course they thought they are in love. :P

While at the same time, there's Alice, could call her his best friend. Alice who has always been by his side in every ups and downs. And who listens to every little detail Will will tell about Kate, Simon, Martina and Aggi.

Oh, Alice actually adopted a donkey named Sandy as Will's birthday present!

When things seem to take place, and Will and Kate were ready to make it official, suddenly the past throws them a visit, and things turn to something else.

It was well written in chronological order, and I really love the diary-based novel. It's good, and funny enough.

But it will warm your heart for how life could take turn when we think we have it all planned. :)

Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Why this need arose in me so suddenly, why it happened not with you but with someone else, I have no idea. But the desire I felt then was impossible to suppress, nor did I even try. Please understand: not for a moment did it occur to me that I was betraying you in any way. The sex I had in that hotel bed with him was something close to madness. To be totally honest, I had never in my life felt anything so good. No, it wasn’t that simple: it didn’t just “feel good.” My flesh was rolling in hot mud. My mind sucked in the sheer pleasure to the point of bursting-and then it burst. It was absolutely miraculous. It was one of the most wonderful things that had ever happened to me.

-Kumiko Okada-
Excerpt from the first letter sent to Toru after her disappearence.

Oo-kay… enough with the Vivid-video description ;) hold your pseudo-orgasmic feeling :D hehe… This is my 1st e-book, given by my ex-LDR-bf for my 28th birthday. Apparently, according to him, I reminded him of one of the main character in the book ;p and punya la x best character tu ;p haha!

This story revolves around Toru Okada, a jobless guy who happened to be good at home chores (I so wanna a hubby just like that ;) LDC - hint2 ;p) Eheheks!

Anyway, what seems to be a mundane life for this simple Mr.Okada, a chain of bizzare events took place & completely changed his life. First his cat is missing & the wife asked him to meet a medium to find the cat. Simultaneously while searching for the missing cat, he met a morbid teenage girl who’s not in school by her own choice. Then the wife went missing without a word and at the same time he learnt abt his brother in-law’s secret past through the medium’s sister. Then the wife finally wrote him a letter stating that she’s been having an affair and would like to divorce him. Then he spent the night in the well just to find clarity of the mind and also becoz later on the teenage girl took away the rope ladder & sealed the opening of the well on purpose. So, once he’s out from the well he had sex with the medium sister & the events got weirder & weirder until he nearly died in an attack. Sheesh!

Trust me, no stories will ever get weirder than this and yet, it is so engaging to learn that all these weird stuff is what made you keep on reading it until the end. It’s like a bizzare enchantment – like I’ve been voodooed or something to read the whole thing ;p sigh!

However, I have yet to decode the subliminal message within this book but to learn that my ex thinks that I’m just like Kumiko Okada, it’s err… kinda disturbing ;p lol! But I do think it’s something to do with Kumiko’s childhood that made him think she & I were very much alike. Or maybe the fact that Kumiko always keep things to herself perhaps ;p

I won’t say this is one of the best book I’ve read but the manner of Murakami’s story-telling is so intriguing that it makes it read-worthy – you’ll sorta be drifted away in this weirdo-land of wonder.

P/s: Whoever wish to read the book kindly provide me your email address, I’ll email to you a.s.a.p :) Sometimes I wish I cud have my own Kindle & have more e-books but to think that I can’t flip through the pages with my bare fingers & smell that paper-back scent, urgh! What’s the point of reading, really.

Footnote : LDR stands for long-distance relationship & LDC is o’course my Leo DiCaprio ;) haha!

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

i just finished reading this book this afternoon. and just like the statement written on the book's cover, it is indeed a book not to be read in public as you would snort and laugh all the way.

Bryson takes us to a journey with him all around Great Britain, a country he loved so much but he had to touch base after 20 years of working there. yeah, Bryson is an american writer who enjoyed so much living there that he had to take a last tour of the "island' before he leaves for United States.

He is definitely frank about the English, and the Queen's English, and how englishmen are so into using words like Bottom, Bowells, Titsey as names for places. i find this hilarious, and of course, informative. u get to understand and to know places u have never heard of, and descriptions of the place. pre and post civilisation, or more specifically, pre- this book, and post-the book he compared it to.

This is my second book from Bill Bryson and i think he soon gona be my next StephenKing kinda addiction :)

owh, happy new year!! may we read more and share more and discuss more on the books we have read or the books we have not.

cheers!

short history of nearly everything by bill bryson

this is seriously a good book.a very serious read nevertheless. it takes lots of thinking and conforming into the writer's ideas.

i definitely recommend this book for those who loves seeking for worldly explanation like where do all the dinasours gone to? how did the earth exist? how mankind has become what they are today?

i like the style of writing where one could actually imagine the era that he was discussing, and the way he explains things makes u imagine them in real size picture.

it reminds me of 'sophie's world'..the trains of thoughts are easy to follow and ideas are easy to digest.

Dead Souls by Ian Rankin

i borrowed this book from kak masita which seems only to cumulate dust in her office. since she was pretty ignorant about the book being on her shelf, i decided to borrow them :)

the novel lingers around the story and the problems dealt n faced by an inspector in edinburgh.
it was a slow read for the first quarter of the book but once u got familiar with all of its characters (which is not much), u'll start to get cosy with the book.

it discusses of a psychopathic killer who was detained in US but wanted to be back in edinburgh for unknown solid reason. it discusses ofpaedophiles, of old flames, of teenage rage, spoilt rich brats, of cross dressers, of unstable intimate relationships. all in all, it is a town's detective drama.

i love the language coz it's simple and the things or features discussed are imaginable :)

readers digest select edition - volume 1

This book is a bumper edition where reader's digest editted 4 novels to fit in a book. definitely a good bargain. got it in amcorp's flea market for rm6.

the watchman - chris ryan

the writing sucks that i can't proceed more than 10 pages. but if ever i'm out of books, i might be getting back to this particular novel :D

best foot forward - jeane ray

this is a good one. it portrays so much about a family that at one point u would realize it happens to your family too. a real family drama. the mother has 3 kids, one married, one is getting married to a very rich guy, n her boy is dating their contractor's daughter. it holds some racial issues, adult marriage problems, mid-life crises, a spinster's desperation or basically confusion on their love life.

Open Season - C J box

kinda dull because i just couldn't relate to things the writer was describing. but then again, once i'm lacking of reading materials, i guess i'll get back to this one too.

envy - sandra brown

this is indeed a splendid read. i'm considering the book itself despite knowing the gist of the novel already. it discusses friendship and the dark side of being bestfriends. how situation would change a very desperate and envious character. friendship will falter due to greed. and how the writer writes about another writer and its editor. it's simply like several small pictures that in the end fits all in a big picture. the writer's description of the characters are very vivid that as a reader u actually would fall in love to the person she's in love with, and hates those characters she hated.