This autobiography lends a sneak peek into Winterson’s childhood and psyche. Through her lyrical prose she recollects the specific incidents in her past that befuddled her, killed her, and rebirthed her. Even though these incidents are piteous, she does not intentionally inspire pity. She narrates from a distance, rationalizing and yet at the same time, she does not shy away from exposing her sore spots. She is wise enough to know of her longing, her desire to belong, and how she may have spent her life and may still be in search of that. She is not overtly making a point in this autobiography – she doesn’t pretend to be a triumphant survivor or a pitiful orphan; she is just being who she is and telling her story to those who care to read about it. Brilliant read this.



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Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, the tale is told through the perspective of 3 people- Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. Aibileen and Minny are black domestic helps to rich white women, while Skeeter is an unmarried white woman living with her mother. Skeeter witnesses the horrid racism and abuse that goes on in their town, and decides to write a book to expose that. How does a rich white woman in the deep South write a book about civil rights when she still uses a different bathroom as the help? With the assistance of Aibileen and Minny and eleven other helpers, Skeeter launches into a literary civil rights movement and thereby shaking up lives in peaceful Jackson.

This book is an absolute page-turner despite being more than 500 pages long. The reference to real events leading up to the civil rights movement lends a certain Forrest Gump charm to this tale.



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Logos Hope is a volunteer-run missionary bring-books-around-the-world gig on a cruise ship. They are docked at the Vivocity Promenade from 17-29 December, admittance is free.

Logos Hope is touted as the “largest floating book fair in the world”. So naturally we expected something big. Unfortunately it was not as big as we expected. It’s the size of a small bookstore, if you get what I mean.

This missionary startedi n the 1970s, on a different ship. There is a history gallery onboard before you enter the main book fair area. Throughout the ship are Christian-related exhibits such as a modern redux of the parable of The Prodigal Son.

The books are tagged in units for convenience because they visit some many countries. The exchange rate will be different at each country, and the books are relatively cheap. Novels go for 100-250 units, which translates to S$4 to s$10. Afforable by local standards. This is part of their mission – to bring affordable reading material to underprivileged countries (in our case, more as novelty).

Needless to say, the crowd was daunting. There was hardly space to browse. The reading material are all positive wholesome stuff, if you get what I mean. The fiction books are all clean; no sex, booze, drugs, profanities, violence, etc. All the good stuff, really. There was a large collection of the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye, and Amish romance fiction. Very interesting as these aren’t usually spotlighted in local bookstores or libraries. Yes, our libraries carry these book but it’s the first time I see some many of them congregated.

It was a fun trip going there; getting up and down a cruise ship, walking about marveling and Christian reading material and trying not to laugh out loud. Is it worth going? Not in my books; if you happen to be at Vivocity and if the line is short, maybe you can take a twirl and score some cheap cookbooks and dictionaries.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading this book, I understand why it’s almost permanently on hold at the library. This novel is written in letters told from Charlie’s point of view of his one year in high school. It’s more than just a coming-of-age story; it is about friendship, kinship, and the self. Charlie watches relationship form and break down, people hurt themselves, people hurting other people. He has an incredible sense of self-awareness, but not the social maturity to go with it. As such he mucks about his freshmen year experimenting and attempting to participate but more often than not, he is still viewing all these events unfolding from the outside. Charlie’s experience and thoughts forced me to face a lot of the issues I have, which is unnerving. Books which make me dig deep into my own life in this manner deserves the full 5 stars.

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Let me illustrate with my experience of simply buying a book. Usually normal people step into a bookstore, pick up a book, read the blurb and maybe a chapter or two to decide if they want a book. For me, it’s a crazy affair involving opening at least 3 tabs on my browser.

First I browse my favourite ebook store. I see a book I may be interested in. I read the Opener and/or free chapter. Then I go to my favourite book review website. I look at the general rating, the expanded introduction and other information about the book.

You’d think I stop there and make the purchase already.

I’m not even half done.

What I do next is to go to the NLB Searchplus catalogue to see if it’s available in the library, or Overdrive. If it is, I’d borrow it. If not, I go on to another search engine – an ebook price comparison site. After comparing prices, I then decide if I want it. Then I browse Bookdepository to see if there is a cheaper paper version, as well as AbeBooks to see if there are reasonable quality used books (especially when it comes to pricey non-fiction). So buying a book requires me to trawl through 6 websites.

Now, that happens when I’m at home. If I’m already in a bookstore – I do every of those step on my iPhone. I usually wind up not buying the physical copy, opting for a library copy or an ebook. This is also why I can spend such long time in a bookstore. Not only do I comb the physical shelves, I comb virtual shelves and library shelves on my portable device.

In the words of plebs, FML.

This tome is about two mentally unstable sexually-starved individuals off their meds.
Or at least it felt that way. Consider a long epic novel (originally made up of 3 installments) told through two central characters, and later a Mary Sue. Throw in the usual suspects of cult, murder, sex and Murakami absurdity and you get this thing called 1Q84. Throughout this book I felt mostly pissed off at the gratuitous elements and ridiculous conveniences. Which supposedly strong-willed woman sees two moons together in the sky and fails to confirm this observation for fear of embarrassment? What man believes when a woman claims she is carrying his child despite the fact they have not met, let alone copulate in the past 20 years? There is no central theme to this book apart from the worst love story ever told. I haven’t read a book with this many Mary Sue characters in a long while; I suppose I am impressed in that sense – the utter laziness in terms of character development amazes me. This book is definitely overhyped.

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David was born as Bruce, raised as Brenda. Due to a botched circumcision accident at 8 months, his parents, together with a team of psychologists decided to sexually reassign him as female. The twist in the tale; Bruce is part of a pair of twins. Such circumstances made them the ideal experimental study subject — Bruce and his twin brother have the same genes, socialized differently as male and female. After struggling though his teens trying to identify as female, Brenda decided she was done with it. Then came the gradual re-masculinization process and living as nature made him.
This is a harrowing and tragic book about science, abuse and psychology. It definitely makes us reflect on Nature vs Nurture, the issues of gender and sexuality, genes and socialization. A very remarkable read that is not only compelling, but also illuminating and thought-provoking.

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This is a book about other books about love. This is a harrowing tale of the lives of three graduates in the 1980s lost to religion, madness and love. Then again all three sometimes seem synonymous. The book chronicles Madeline’s conflict with living a life and loving someone; Leonard’s losing battle with bipolar disorder; Mitchell’s undying obsession with Madeleine and search for meaning. Eugenides paints a bleak and dark picture of their lives, and yet at the same time readers commiserate and recognize how their own battles are mirrored in these characters. I don’t identify with any of the characters, but somehow I find bits of the book that resonate with me.

There were many lines that I really love and highlighted, here are a few:

“That was when Leonard realized something crucial about depression. The smarter you were, the worse it was. The sharper your brain, the more it cuts you up.”

“Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch where it hurts.”

“In Madeleine’s face was a stupidity Mitchell have never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.”

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My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my first time reading a book by Virginia Woolf. I have previously tried to read Mrs Dalloway, but found it difficult to finish. Orlando read differently, and I really enjoyed it. The book is a biography of this person named Orlando. He grew up as a boy in a rich household that allows him to meet beautiful Russian princesses. He goes through Elizabethan England and finds himself on an adventure at sea. Later he wakes up in a gypsy commune in Turkey, as a woman. Female Orlando returns to Victorian England, and falls in love with dashing Shelmerdine, of ambiguous gender himself. The story ends in 1928. This absurdist tale highlights different gender roles through history, and to me, the fluidity of gender identity. I particularly liked how Woolf subverts gender stereotypes.

Favourite line:

“…there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.” p167

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My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Awesome collection of stories premised on a Machine of Death, which predicts accurately the manner of death using one drop of blood. The drawback – no date no time, just the manner in simple words, like DROWNING, NUCLEAR BOMB, SUICIDE and HEART ATTACK. These stories are reader-submitted, many of whom are first-time published. Each story is insanely interesting. I love the irony, I love the emotions, I love how as a human race we fear yet yearn to know. This is Possibly one of the best books I have read this year! I am eagerly looking forward to volume 2!

One of my favourite stories is the one about a couple testing their unborn foetus. Due to two prior unfortunate miscarriage, the couple decide to test their foetus; should the results be “Miscarriage”, they would choose to abort it earlier to save themselves the pain and danger. Of course, through the story we see their emotional struggle. How does it end? Read it yourself.

And guess what? This book is available via their website, free of charge! The downloadable PDF is free, and you are free to doante towards their website. Alternatively for other ebook formats or the printed version, check out the stores listed on their official website at http://machineofdeath.net/ .

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