Books : February List

I finally bought plastic wrappers for all my books. 

Finished wrapping every books I got last year and this year while watching Season 10 Grey's Anatomy. Last night I even slept so late on work night, just because I want to finish off the whole half-season series and continue my busy schedule with no distraction. I haven't looked like a black-eyed panda for so long. Phew. 

I might be taking this too seriously. 

This are all the books and short stories read in February :

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4. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Khaled wrote The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Those two books are highly recommended, he undeniably a great story-teller.

I got the hardcover version as a birthday gift this year, the paperback version that I was waiting for is not even available yet. His third book told another story backgrounded with Afghanistan, about relationships : child and father, cousin and caretaker, foster family, friends and stranger. 

Not the best of him as The Kite Runner, but pretty decent.

Short note : Don't buy the hard cover. It's heavy.

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5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I finally found the cheaper version for this classic 1920s book printed by Collins Classic edition from HarperCollins at Popular - price RM 9.90. That was after several attempts of searching in 1.Kinokuniya - a lot of much fancier versions that cost more than RM60 for a thin classic, 2. Junk Bookstore - tried to find a second hand version, but sold out, 3. Every Popular I came across when I went window shopping for books. Maybe it got a lot popular since the movie. 

On the book -

The writing is much simpler than I thought a classic would be. A bit straight forward, less flowery, quite simple. Comparing with the movie, the book is a bit dull. I loved the movie, that pushed me to read Fitzgerald work. I think this would be one of the rare occasion where the movie is much better than the book. I watched the movie 3 times - in my busy schedule. I can't even believe it.

I think it would be a great book to be in the school English literature list, because it is not too thick, with simple writing but still considered as classic, and a lot of arguments and discussions could arise from the book. Especially on the character's personalities. 

Or maybe I just expected more.

"The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly."

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6. The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

I bought this book from the Junk Bookstore for around RM 30, a second-hand, hard cover 2002 version. I love Cornelia Funke, I wish I bought the trilogy of Inkheart way back when I was in school, the hard-cover illustrated version, the one that I used to borrow from Tasya. That version was perfect ! I only got the last book : Inkdeath in my college years as a Valentine gift. Since then, I never found the exact same version anymore.

So when I found the book in the secondhand bookstore, I just bought it.

I want to read every Cornelia Funke's book to my children. 

It is not as extraordinary with a great storyline as Harry Potter, but it's just a book that is fun and easy to read with children. Every time I read it, I'll be thinking the same way. So it might be just a fun read to kill time for adult.

"Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar."

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Short stories :-

7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I didn't know the book was written by Fitzgerald. I was using Stumbleupon when I stumbled on a database of online classic literature available for free read, and it was a Sunday at work. The three of us were lazying off that late afternoon and I was bored. So I read, it might took around 30-45 mins for the short story, maybe even less.

The book is 'almost' completely different from the movie, like fraternal twins, born from one source, but look different from each other. I never thought the book was as blunt as something I might write in my SPM creative writing paper. I can't imagine Brad Pitt while I was reading it.

"You’re just the romantic age,” she continued- “fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is- oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty."

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8. All God's Children Can Dance & On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami

2 short stories I found from Scribd. I didn't know they were sharing Murakami's short stories! I read all that I could find, selagi permitted for free reading. Rakus. Like all Murakami's work, it got a little bit of oddness, some were quite straight-forward, it might seem like a writing practice. Not a masterpiece, just an easy-read. 

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At this point, I think I might be reading just like people watch television. Taking every words into my mind and process the story and the message and the person who wrote it. By far, my favorite person to study would be : Haruki Murakami.