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Showing posts with label iq84. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iq84. Show all posts

Book : IQ84 *updates*

April 08, 2013

Notes :
Although I am a woman, I am not much of a normal-chick-lit & romance fiction's reader. Book reviews reading experiences mostly came from something as odd and heavy as this or as light and inspiring as Mitch Albom & Paulo Coelho. I know majority of this blog reader is pre-adult : below 24, due to my doodle interest. So I hope you won't take my book recommendation into your account, unless you are as bookaholic as me and read for life. Thank you ❤

*

Book 1 : IQ84

It has ended well, I took longer than I intended.
Maybe due to the very slow start.

It reminds me of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo trilogy with less big words, odd names, political complications and wordily-visual brutal scenes. Both touch topics on publication and the dark horrifying side of rape cases. Aomame is a lot like Lisbeth Salander but without the super genius brain and photographic memory. If you loved Stieg Larsson's trilogy, most probably you'll love IQ84. You can read synopsis & reviews here.

This book is not suitable for young adult, because it is a little disturbing especially the terrifying scenes on child rape - at least it was disturbing enough for me. *Although Haruki Murakami did not visually written any of those scenes - the simplicity of his writing is quite impressive. Stieg Larsson was too visual and that was impressive in a different way. If you want something different than normal fictions, maybe you can try the book. 

Self-note : 
IQ84 is not IQ level - 84 but 1984, the year the event took place and Q stands for 'question'. 
One of the main character in the book, Tengo, reminds me of my colleague at the lab. Although he doesn't write books and teach at cram school.
I love his simple way of telling stories & emotions. Might read more of his books later.

*

Book 2 : IQ84

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning. - IQ84
Along with the long story dragged slowly, I managed to keep on reading, sometimes for hours in the bus, and train, completely unaware of my surrounding. *which was pretty impressive. There were disturbing intense scenes : on Air Chrysalis and those creepy Little People from the book that Fuka-Eri wrote, on finally meeting the Leader, on purification part between Tengo &  Fuka-Eri? - I need a deeper understanding on why must intercourse has anything to do with self-purification , this reminded me so much of the Dan Brown's book - Da Vinci's Code. 

If Haruki chose not to explain it in the third book, well, he would be some-what a very irresponsible person. And I'll dislike him. He can't possibly dug a hole and leave it empty. A good writer needs to explain his story.

*

Currently on
Book 3 : IQ84


*

PS : Amazon bought the GoodReads ! 
Is that good? I hate Amazon, they are not Malaysia-friendly.

Little Things 67 : 26 Movie & Book List

March 22, 2013

For my 2013 goal here , I wrote a geeky goal :

This year, I am turning 26.* I want to read another 26 books and watch 26 movies *


Those little * asterisks * are little pretend-stars, assuming 5 asterisks as highly recommended by me and 1 asterisk means boring. But, this is only based on my interest, because from what's been told by my siblings, I have a very odd-slow-boring taste of movies *so be warned. Books, my taste in books are self-claimed-great, I can be book recommender based on people's interest. 

Movies :
  1. Now You See Me (2013) - ***
  2. Mr. Nobody (2009) - ****
  3. Girl, Interrupted (1999) - ****
  4. Conjuring (2013) - ***
  5. Peemak (2013) - ***
  6. Man of Steel (2013) - ****
  7. After Earth (2013) - ****
  8. KIL (2013) - ***
  9. Mother (2009) - ***
  10. Straight A's (2013) - ***
  11. Easy A (2010) - ***
  12. The Brass Teapot (2012) - ***
  13. Tree of Life (2012) - ****
  14. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) - ****
  15. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) - ***
  16. The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - *****
  17. Marie Antoinette (2006) - ***
  18. Somewhere (2010) - ***
  19. Lost in Translation (2003) - ***
  20. The Virgin Suicides (1999) - ***
  21. The Host (2013) - ***
  22. One Day (2011) - ***
  23. The Croods (2013) - ****
  24. Diary of a Wimpy Kid : Dog Days (2012) - **
  25. Not Suitable for Children (2012) - ** 
  26. Warm Bodies (2013) - ***
  27. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) - ***
  28. Pitch Perfect (2012) - ***
  29. The Wizards of Oz (2013) - ***
  30. A Thousand Words (2012) - ***
  31. Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) - **
  32. Cloud Atlas (2012) - ***
  33. Meet Joe Black (1998) - *****
  34. Jack Reacher (2012) - *
  35. Life of Pi (2012) - *****
Current favorite : Life of Pi & Meet Joe Black & The Darjeeling Limited.
* I promised it is not because of Brad Pitt's alarmingly great look, but it is because of the idea of Death falling in love, and the movie was all about life, love, and sacrifices. Not in cheesy chick-lit version, but a very thoughtful slow one. 
* For obvious reason, Life of Pi, I wrote a long review on that, I can't brag more.

*

Books :
  1. By the River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept by Paulo Coelho - ***
  2. Reborn : Susan Sontag's Diaries - ***
  3. Yasmin, How You Know ? - ****
  4. Tokyo on Foot - ****
  5. How to be an Explore of the World - ***
  6. Selected Poems of Rumi - ****
  7. Fearless by Cornelia Funke - ***
  8. Stardust by Neil Gaiman - ***
  9. Rahsia 2Pria by Adi Wafi & Mosyuki Borhan - ***
  10. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink - ****
  11. Ring by Koji Suzuki - ***
  12. Conversations with God by Neale Donald - ****
  13. Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho - ****
  14. The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho - ***
  15. The Sufi Book of Life by Neil Douglas-Klotz - ****
  16. Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho - ****
  17. Life of Pi by Yann Martell - ****
  18. Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martell - *
  19. Reckless by Cornelia Funke - ****
  20. IQ84 by Haruki Murakami - *****
  21. The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - ***
  22. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom - ****
  23. For One More Day by Mitch Albom - ****
Current favorite : IQ84
* This reminds me of Stieg Larsson's trilogy, The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, the Japanese version. But this book is too thick, around 1000 pages and I can't bring it to places, so I Googled it down on how to read a great thick & heavy  book - because I only got time to read while I commute to work nowadays, and I found a sinful suggestion : cut the book. 

I was curious, I am a book lover, can I possibly cut a book? But I wanted to read it so bad. And what is the point of having a great book that you can't enjoy because it is too heavy? I thought about it for awhile and I decided to try it. First book lover's sin : Cut a book. Second book lover's sin : It was a personal gift. Third book lover's sin : I chose to mutilate a book !

This is when my principle was being tested : how strong is my statement about not being personally-overly attached to a human-made object ? I cut it, put a transparent tape on the book's bone and stared at what I did. Okay. It got more personal now, my first book that I cut, and I fell in love with the flaw nonetheless. Will I ever lend it to people? Probably not - no one can possibly take a good care of a fragile book as much as I can. The book got its own casing now. No, I don't want to do this ever again. It felt exactly like an hour after drinking coffee, the mouth will give an odd wrong taste.

And I love the story. 
Highly recommended.