::List A Book U'd Like To Share::
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Robin Cook
He has many diffrent series of it
# Seizure (Macmillan, 2003) New Aug 03
# Abduction (Macmillan, 2002)
# Shock (Macmillan, 2001) Pan Pbk Sep 02
# Vector (Macmillan, 1999) Pan Pbk Aug 00
# Toxin (Macmillan, 199
# Invasion ( 1997)
# Chromosome Six (Macmillan, 1997) Pan Pbk 1998
# Contagion (Macmillan, 1996)
# Acceptable Risk (Macmillan, 1995) Pan Pbk 1996
# Terminal ( 1993)
# Fatal Cure ( 1993)
# Blindsight ( 1992)
# Vital Signs ( 1991)
# Mutation ( 1989)
# Mortal Fear ( 198
# Outbreak ( 1987)
# Mindbend ( 1985)
# Godplayer ( 1983)
# Fever ( 1982)
# Harmful Intent ( 1982)
# Brain ( 1981)
# Sphinx ( 1979)
# Coma ( 1977)
# The Year of the Intern ( 1972)
-A series of sci-fi books with suspense and action with a touch of the political side
My opinon- I read a few, such as Harmful Intent, Coma, Terminal, Toxic, Shock, Vector and Acceptable Risk
Rating: 8/10
Certain books of his could be tooo draggy and boring(sometimes too much political info) ...takes a long time to reach to the exciting action stuff -
Tittle: Angel of Changi and other short stories
About This Book
Touching, funny, serious, tragic and triumphant, this is the first posthumous collection of stories by Goh Sin Tub. "The Angel of Changi" unveils a Singapore war heroine most Singaporeans have never heard about, yet she's been honoured in Australia. All of the stories share a common theme - they all celebrate the understated, heroic Singaporean spirit.
The book also contains other heart-warming stories which will touch the inner self of you -
no probs..Originally posted by carpe diem jur:ouuhh... i think i will consider this after all my project by end of this month... perhaps i'll write my review on this too !!
thank Q for recommendation.... anymore nice books pls share here.
reading another book now. non-fict.. kinda self-help..
Rules of Life by Richard Templar..
By telling you this, I would have violated rule #1 of the book haha.. but somehow pple should be reminded of the simple and bare facts of life and how to live it well.. -
fiction or non-fiction?Originally posted by StarPuppy:Tittle: Angel of Changi and other short stories
About This Book
Touching, funny, serious, tragic and triumphant, this is the first posthumous collection of stories by Goh Sin Tub. "The Angel of Changi" unveils a Singapore war heroine most Singaporeans have never heard about, yet she's been honoured in Australia. All of the stories share a common theme - they all celebrate the understated, heroic Singaporean spirit.
The book also contains other heart-warming stories which will touch the inner self of you -
Diary of a Married Call Girl
by Tracy Quan (author of the best selling Diary of a Manhanttan Call Girl)
I've been looking forward for her novel about the Manhanttan Call Girl but it's out of stock !!
Love, Sex, Money, Marriage, Lies, Infedelity, Shopping, and Strap-ons. What more could u ask for in a novel? - David Henry Sterry.
I've always liked sexy novels about living double life and all the decisions n deals the lead would face if she gives up either one choice. I suppose its truly suspenseful and a novel that would pull mi in from the very start and fascinate mi till the very end, ever since I've been wanting to read her former book (Diary of a Manhanttan Call Girl).
I'll write more reviews when I'm done with this book. Cheers !! -
Lord of the Flies by William Golding, suitable for all ages!
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Hilary and Jackie
by Hilary Du Pre, Piers Du Pre
Jacqueline du Pré saw the outlines of her short, brilliant, and tragic life when she was still very young. The first time she heard a cello (she was 4 years old), she said, "Mummy, I want to make that sound." She got a cello for her 5th birthday and made her professional debut at age 16. She went on to become one of the century's most amazing musicians for 10 years. Then her career was ended by multiple sclerosis. She seems to have foreseen that crippling illness, which killed her at age 42 after years of slow deterioration. She was 9 years old when she confided in her sister, Hilary (who coauthored this biography with their brother, Piers), "Don't tell Mum, but... when I grow up, I won't be able to walk or move." Before she was stricken down, Jacqueline du Pré led a life of unusual richness and complexity. Here that life is examined by her siblings in loving but realistic terms, including the flaws and conflicts as well as the achievements.
The biography formed the basis for the 1998 film starring Emily Watson. It is a sad chronicle of the pitiless disease that twisted Jackie's personality and sanity as well as her body, but also a joyful book about music, the tenderness and rivalries of family life, and above all a singular, tormented, but buoyant personality. --Joe McLellan
Book Description:
From the moment Jacqueline du Pré first held a cello at the age of five, it was clear she had an extraordinary gift. At sixteen, when she made her professional debut, she was hailed as one of the world's most talented and exciting musicians. But ten years later, she stopped playing virtually overnight, when multiple sclerosis removed the feeling in her hands just before a concert. It took fourteen more years for the crippling disease to take its final toll.
In this uniquely revealing biography, Hilary and Piers du Pré have re-created the life they shared with their sister in astonishing personal detail, unveiling the private world behind the public face. With warmth and candor they recount Jackie's blissful love of the cello, her marriage to the conductor Daniel Barenboim, her compulsions, her suffering, and, above all, the price exacted by her talent on the whole family. For proud as they were of Jackie's enormous success, none of them was prepared for the profound impact her genius would have on each of their lives. . . . -
Jacqueline Du Pre : Her Life, Her Music, Her Legend
by Elizabeth Wilson
This biography of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who died in 1987 after a long struggle against multiple sclerosis, has been written with the full support of her husband, the musician and conductor Daniel Barenboim. At first sight it could be construed as something of a counterweight to books critical of Barenboim written by du Pré's brother and sister--in particular A Genius in the Family. But while Barenboim does present his side of the story--in relation to both du Pré's illness and the strains it put upon their marriage--Elizabeth Wilson has in fact presented a balanced portrait of du Pré not only as a woman but also as an artist. And this is the book's real strength.
Wilson, a cellist herself, knew du Pré in her playing days and has paid as much attention to the music as to the offstage emotional dramas. She burst upon the music scene as a phenomenally talented 16-year-old, and ever since, du Pré's fame and tragic life story have made the task of stripping the myth from the reality no easy task. In fact, Elizabeth Wilson has done a professional job in unraveling du Pré's enigmatic life and legacy, but most of all, she reminds us that du Pré became famous in the first place because of her genius as a musician. --Nick Wroe, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. -
Derailed
Derailed is a thriller novel written by James Siegel and published in February 2003. It tells the story of Charles Schine, a man who works in the advertising business, who suddenly finds himself having an affair, being blackmailed, and having the police investigate him for murder, all because he missed his usual commuter train one day.
The movie with the same name starring Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston was released earlier this year. I haven't watch the movie yet, but I like the novel. Great read!
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The Historian is a 2005 novel by Elizabeth Kostova.
Plot introduction
The book is presented as an unnamed first-person account written in the year 2008. Ms. Kostova's explanation of the nameless narrator is a "literary experiment." The narrator is a historian whose father, Paul, unwittingly ended up searching for the vampiric Vlad Ţepeş. Although the narrator's adventures take place in 1972, there are three distinct storylines narrated at once:
* The narrator's actions in 1972 when she, at the age of sixteen, traveled through France with an undergraduate from Oxford, Stephen Barley.
* Paul's travels during the 1950s, when as a graduate student he traveled (initially) to Istanbul in search of his kidnapped professor, Bartholomew Rossi.
* Bartholomew Rossi's own travels in Eastern Europe during 1930.
Much of the story is told through letters, excerpts from books and academic literature, and above all, the narrator's reconstructions of stories told to her by her father. Details of the plot and of Dracula's nature, motives, and history are slowly revealed
The book has numerous settings all across Europe, which are complicated by Cold War tensions after World War II, when much of the action occurs.
Plot summary
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
With a permanent home in Amsterdam, the narrator and her diplomat father, Paul, travel together while he tells her about his mentor, Bartholomew Rossi, who disappeared during the 1950s, and how his search for him led to his encounter with a woman named Helen (the name of the narrator's long-lost mother). Before he can finish his story, however, he suddenly disappears.
The narrator searches her father's room and finds letters written to her, explaining all of her father's, and Rossi's, mysterious story. These letters ultimately lead her to a monastery in Pyrénées-Orientales, in the south of France.
On her way there she reads letters of her father's madcap travels through Eastern Europe while looking for Rossi. He eventually found Rossi, and had to drive a silver dagger through his heart to prevent his full transformation into a vampire. Helen (gradually revealed to be the narrator's mother) is also in danger of becoming undead, as throughout the journey she is injected with vampiric venom twice (of the three required to become a vampire).
The accounts written by Paul and Rossi reveal many events, developments and revelations. To name the most relevant:
* The narrator, through her mother, is a direct descendant of Vlad Ţepeş.
* Helen is Rossi's illegitimate daughter; he was drugged to forget about his fiancée (Helen's mother) who was a peasant he met in his travels in his younger days.
* The Order of the Dragon still exists, populated by Dracula's minions. However, it is countered by a group of elite Muslim Turks based in Istanbul, founded by Mehmed II, and dedicated to (permanently) killing Dracula.
* Dracula's tomb and library was constantly moved around in the years following his natural death, making it extremely difficult to trace.
* Scholars around Europe regularly find copies of a mysteriously-printed book almost completely full of blank pages, decorated on the center page with a woodcut of a dragon, which entices them to research Dracula. However, whenever a person delves too deep into these studies, either they or a loved one suffer a tragedy.
* Helen disappeared a few years after the narrator's birth after showing symptoms of vampirism.
When the narrator arrives at the monastary, she finds her father by a tomb there. In an ensuing struggle, individuals mentioned throughout the story mysteriously converge in a final attempt to defeat Dracula. -
I'm tempted to say Harry Potter because its really great but you guys might not be great fans.
Private Dancer - Stephen Leather
Really not bad, despite its sleazy setting, and I love stephen leather so much because all the ending in his books are what you would never have thought about.
Private Dancer by Stephen Leather
New Second Edition
Love, Lies and Death in the Land of Smiles
"I don't know if it was love at first sight, but it was pretty close. She had the longest hair I'd ever seen, jet black and almost down to her waist. She had soft brown eyes that made my heart melt, long legs that just wouldn't quit and a figure to die for. She was naked except for a pair of black leather ankle boots with small chrome chains on the side. I think it was the boots that did it for me."
Private Dancer, the on-line cult novel chronicling the disastrous relationship between a travel writer and a Bangkok bargirl, is finally available in print. The on-line version of the novel, written by best-selling thriller writer Stephen Leather, has been downloaded more than sixty thousand times over the past five years. Now Leather has decided to publish the book in Thailand.
The novel is set in Thailand in 1996.Pete, a young travel writer, wanders into a Bangkok bar and meets the love of his life.Pete thinks that Joy is the girl of his dreams: young, stunningly pretty, and one of the top-earning go-go dancers in Nana Plaza. What follows is a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs, lies and murder, as Pete discovers that his very own private dancer is not all that she claims to be. And that far from being the girl of his dreams, Joy is his own personal nightmare.
Often described as the best book ever written about the Bangkok bar scene, Private Dancer has been a huge hit around the world, and has been downloaded in more than forty countries.
"I have been getting dozens of emails a week asking for the novel to be published, as most people seem to prefer a book they can hold, and put on their shelves," said Leather. "Now that the whole bar scene here is changing, it seemed a good time to finally publish a hard copy."
The striking cover photograph, of a naked girl holding a cut-throat razor behind her back, was taken in Anglewitch Bar in Nana Plaza and features one of the barÂ’s top showgirls.
Leather, a frequent visitor to the Land of Smiles, is the author of seventeen thrillers that have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including The Tunnel Rats, set in Bangkok and Vietnam, and The Solitary Man, set in Thailand and Hong Kong. He has sold more than a million books worldwide. Two of his novels, The Bombmaker and The Stretch, have been filmed for television in the UK and he has written for TV shows such as LondonÂ’s Burning and the BBCÂ’s Murder In Mind.
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In the process of reading:
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
All children should believe they are special. But the students of Hailsham, an elite school in the English countryside, are so special that visitors shun them, and only by rumor and the occasional fleeting remark by a teacher do they discover their unconventional origins and strange destiny. Kazuo Ishiguro's sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, is a masterpiece of indirection. Like the students of Hailsham, readers are "told but not told" what is going on and should be allowed to discover the secrets of Hailsham and the truth about these children on their own.
Offsetting the bizarreness of these revelations is the placid, measured voice of the narrator, Kathy H., a 31-year-old Hailsham alumna who, at the close of the 1990s, is consciously ending one phase of her life and beginning another. She is in a reflective mood, and recounts not only her childhood memories, but her quest in adulthood to find out more about Hailsham and the idealistic women who ran it. Although often poignant, Kathy's matter-of-fact narration blunts the sharper emotional effects you might expect in a novel that deals with illness, self-sacrifice, and the severe restriction of personal freedoms. As in Ishiguro's best-known work, The Remains of the Day, only after closing the book do you absorb the magnitude of what his characters endure. --Regina Marler
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On its surface, NEVER LET ME GO tells the story of three special young people - Kathy H., Tommy D., and Ruth - all of whom meet as students at an idyllic private school called Hailsham. Kathy H. is the narrator, now 31 years old, telling her story in hindsight. She recalls her student days at Hailsham fondly, filling her tale with numerous minor anecdotes about the most mundane affairs that slowly reveal the nature of the school and its students' place in the world. (...) Ishiguro creates a convincing vocabulary, milieu, and mythology for this setting: guardians, carers, donors, completing, Exchanges, Sales, the Gallery, Norfolk, and an eerie sense of the students having "been told and not told."
NEVER LET ME GO accomplishes the remarkable challenge of presenting 288 pages' worth of reading between the lines. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are not the real main characters of this story, only the visible ones. The real main characters are invisible, the ones who have not only facilitated the use of cloning as a form of organ farming, but who have created a conditioning environment in which their victims accept their fate without question, as the natural order of things. Kathy, Ruth, Tommy, and their ilk live among normal people yet virtually never approach them, willing segretating themselves from the rest of society as though they were lepers. They live in Skinner boxes without boundaries, conditioned to believe they exist only to sacrifice their lives for the continued life of others. We never see the bioengineers or social scientists who create and maintain this horrifying use of humanity. Instead, they are represented (only on a limited scale) by Hailsham's headmistress, Miss Emily, and the mysterious, art-collecting Madame Marie-Claude.
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NEVER LET ME GO is a transcendent novel, an astonishingly powerful work of literature. The pace is slow and the details seem trivial, but patient readers will be rewarded for their efforts with a thought-provoking exposition on whose life is worth living and who, if anyone, has the right to set the terms and conditions. Arendt contemplated the banality of evil - Ishiguro warns us of the evils that lurk behind banality. -
Juz finished reading:
Tony Parson - Man and Wife
Allison Pearson
author of I Don't Know How She Does It
Hilarious and heartbreaking.
The Independent (UK)
Tony Parsons is an astute social commentator, a dry wit, and an independent thinker, and his concern about the damage we do with our butterfly lifestyles is sincere and compassionate....This is lively stuff: intelligent popular literature for a streetwise yet sentimental readership.
Daily Mail (UK)
Funny, tearjerking, and reassuringly feelgood.
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Book Description
Harry Silver is ready to try again at living "happily ever after." It won't be easy: not when he has to juggle his wife, his ex-wife, his son, his stepdaughter, his work, and his new wife's fast-growing career. Did Harry commit to marriage to Cyd too soon after his split with Gina? Can you love -- really love -- a child who is not your own? Can you be a good father to a child you only see on the weekends? When Harry meets a woman who makes him question all these things and more, his tangled web becomes even more knotty.
A brilliant sequel to the international bestseller Man and Boy, Tony Parsons' Man and Wife is a story about families -- and love -- in the new century, written with his trademark humor, passion, and superb storytelling that have made millions across the globe laugh and cry. -
The Spanish Flu killed 30 million people worldwide in 1918. Now, with history threatening to repeat itself, a scientific expedition speeds towards a remote island in the Arctic Sea, to recover strains of the lethal virus preserved under layers of ice. -
Sicily in 412 BC is a land under siege. Greek city-states on the island are under attack by Carthage, a rival power from across the Mediterranean. Dionysius, a young soldier from the democratic city of Syracuse, witnesses the terrible defeat and massacre of one Greek city after another, and is convinced that only under one ruler can Carthage be defeated and the Greek colonies of Sicily united. Tyrant documents the rise of Dionysius to absolute power.
The story of Dionysius has all the trappings of a sweeping historical epic in the same vein as the Claudius novels of Robert Graves. All the elements are there for a riveting read: the fight to preserve a city and its culture; the clash of democracy with despotism; and the self-devouring nature of tyranny. What's more, Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi seems particularly well equipped to do justice to Dionysius and his era. As a professor of classical archaeology, and the author of eight previous works of historical fiction, he ought to bring formidable learning and experience to the story. -
Lisa See - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Lily is the daughter of a humble farmer, and to her family she is just another expensive mouth to feed. Then the local matchmaker delivers startling news: if Lily's feet are bound properly, they will be flawless. In the nineteeth-century China, where a woman's eligibility is judged by the shape and size of her feet, this is extraordinary good luck. Lily now has the power to make a good marriage and change the fortures of her family. To prepare for her new life, she must undergo the agonies of footbinding, learn nu shu, the famed secret women's writing, and make a very special friend, Snow Flower. But a bitter reversal of fortune os about to change everything.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel is surely intended for any reader who likes a compelling, historically-set, moving, suspenseful story. I have been a fan of Lisa See's mysteries, and her sympathies with, and skill in creating characters of both sexes, are apparent in both the mystery plots and the present book.
This plot is beautifully woven, with two women at its center, but there is compassion for both the women and the men in the nineteenth-century Chinese society the author re-creates so vividly. Lisa See obviously LIKES her characters, and she develops some understanding of and compassion for ALL of them. Her natural sensitivity, vast research--including visits and interviews in the remote region she is writing about--make her work fully convincing.
Tender, celebratory, joyous, painful, heart-breaking at times-- this is a memorable, glorious book. After reading it, I found myself thinking more and more about some of the power, motivations, love, violence, and ways of communication in our twenty-first century societies.
Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is an engrossing and fascinating story of women's friendships in nineteenth century rural China. This is an excellent, well-written novel--fascinating on so many levels. Lily, the narrator of the novel is in her eighties, looking back on her life. She shares the stories of her foot binding, nu shu, the secret women's writing, and the various formally women's friendships that society enforced. Lily's sister participated in a sworn sisterhood, where a group of young women formed a friendship that was to last until marriage, but Lily is paired with one girl, Snow Flower, her laotong or "old same." Lily and Snow Flower have a love that is stronger than all of her other relationships--and it causes them both more heartbreak. The novel is really the story of their friendship, its depths, its deceits, its strengths--and it is a fascinating read about a society so different from our own. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan reminds me in many ways of The Red Tent in that it explores female friendship in a setting much different than any contemporary one. A fascinating read -
A huge international bestseller, Alexander, Child of a Dream is the first in Valerio Massimo Manfredi's outstanding trilogy of brutal passion and grand adventure in ancient Greece.
Who could have been born to conquer the world other than a god?
Mesmeric beauty, consuming desires, an insatiable hunger. Then premature death. This is the story of a boy, born to a great king - Philip of Macedon - and his sensuous queen, Olympias. It tells of the stern discipline of Philip and the wild passions of Olympias, and how, together, they formed Alexander, a young man of immense, unfathomable potential, capable of subjugating the known world to his power, and thought of by his contemporaries as a god.
Alexander's swift ascent to manhood, as a protege of Aristotle and close friend of Ptolemy and Hephiaston, and the start of his great adventure to conquer the civilised world is recounted in this awe-inspiring novel.
This is a wonderful evocation of the far-off and fascinating civilisation of ancient Greece, revealed in vibrant tones and scholarly detail.
ALEXANDER Volume II: THE SANDS OF AMMON
A thousand years after Agamemnon fought the Trojan War. Alexander, the king of Macedonia and descendant of Achilles, follows in the footsteps of Greek legend . He has gathered a mighty force to liberate the Greek cities of Asia -- from legendary Sardis and Miletus to Halicarnassus. But vengeance is just one of Alexander's ambitions.
Great oracles and loyal followers claim Alexander is more than mortal -- a powerful warrior, and insatiable scholar, a political genius. Yet,in battle after battle, one man blocks his way. Memnon of Rhodes, a Greek-born mercenary chosen by the Persian Great King to lead his vast army, is a cunning strategist who challenged Alexander's claim to the title of Lord of Asia. In Memnon, Alexander confronts an enemy who inspires his admiration. And in Memnon's wife, Barsine, he finds a woman who captures his heart. But neither bravery nor love can stem the tide of Alexander's destiny. For with Persia defeated, Alexander's thoughts turn to Egypt and beyond....
All his life, Alexander defied the limits the gods gave mortals. That passion overwhelmed cities and armies...and united a vast empire. Alexander was no longer simply King of Macedonia: The Pan-Hellenic League had named him Supreme Leader. Egypt crowned him Pharaoh. And all Persia acknowledged him as Great King. He was a true heir to Achilles and Hercules, a leader who had guided troops to victory beyond the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. Now, conquering India would place all of Asia in his hands.
But his army reached the limit of its endurance, and the cost of triumph had been high -- in blood, betrayal, and tragedy. Alexander lost Barsine, his first beloved; Bucephalus, a steed unequaled; Peritas, his loyal hound; and Hephaestion, the closest companion of his youth. Still he sought the wisdom and might to transform the empire he had claimed into the one of which he dreamed, no longer divided into victors and vanquished, but a unified people under his rule. For Alexander was destined for timeless glory in the domain of heroes and gods -- both in his lifetime and in the realm of eternal legend. -
I like his books too!! Especially the medical thrillers. Also read Michael Palmer books. Very nice too.Originally posted by StarPuppy:Robin Cook
He has many diffrent series of it
# Seizure (Macmillan, 2003) New Aug 03
# Abduction (Macmillan, 2002)
# Shock (Macmillan, 2001) Pan Pbk Sep 02
# Vector (Macmillan, 1999) Pan Pbk Aug 00
# Toxin (Macmillan, 199
# Invasion ( 1997)
# Chromosome Six (Macmillan, 1997) Pan Pbk 1998
# Contagion (Macmillan, 1996)
# Acceptable Risk (Macmillan, 1995) Pan Pbk 1996
# Terminal ( 1993)
# Fatal Cure ( 1993)
# Blindsight ( 1992)
# Vital Signs ( 1991)
# Mutation ( 1989)
# Mortal Fear ( 198
# Outbreak ( 1987)
# Mindbend ( 1985)
# Godplayer ( 1983)
# Fever ( 1982)
# Harmful Intent ( 1982)
# Brain ( 1981)
# Sphinx ( 1979)
# Coma ( 1977)
# The Year of the Intern ( 1972)
-A series of sci-fi books with suspense and action with a touch of the political side
My opinon- I read a few, such as Harmful Intent, Coma, Terminal, Toxic, Shock, Vector and Acceptable Risk
Rating: 8/10
Certain books of his could be tooo draggy and boring(sometimes too much political info) ...takes a long time to reach to the exciting action stuff -
Kamasutra
