To me, November is a month that underlines the importance of a lasting relationship. My parents have their anniversary at the 3rd, while me and my wife have ours eight days later. Every time it gets to this time of the year, I cannot help but stop what I am doing, close my eyes, and pray that I will make my marriage last as long as I can. Oh, it’s not that we are having some marital problems or something. It’s just that I don’t know how much longer I …

When Nindya tagged me at her blog to write a post about boobs, I silently cursed the idea of viral blogging..  Oh yes, I’m perfectly straight, before you start to question my sexual orientation.  Yet, I was, - and still am, puzzled about the concept of boobs.  I don’t have one, - let alone a pair of them.  You can imagine my serious dilemma here…
This was made even harder since apparently I was known in the online world as a blogger who write inspiring posts, - sometimes even philosophical.  How …

A stream-of-consciousness kind of book could be very hard to tackle.  Yet when you prevail, it often rewards you well for the efforts.
“Man Gone Down” is no different.  Frustratingly absurd at times, it simply refuses to be read as your usual bedtime story.  I had to read it in a full-concentration mode to fully appreciate it.  Oh yes, in some lighter passages you can let your attention wanders, but you would risk missing some beautiful thoughts which more often than not, lurks masquerading behind some imageries and powerful allegories.
Using metaphors …

I had high hopes with this one.  After all, Gaarder was the man who penned one of the modern classics that is Sophie’s World.

And he didn’t disappoint me.  Maya is definitely a worthy successor to the likes of Sophie’s World and Vita Brevis.  Staying true to his calling, he takes us in a tour-de-force of hard philosophical questions that were difficult to imagine, - let alone deliberate, by anyone alone.  This, - I think, is where his greatest influence is supposed to be : in his provocations where one is …

If you’re anything like me, you must have some judgement ( however slight ) of a book you’re going to read.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be interested to read any books at all.
Half Broken Things, I’m ashamed to say, is one of the books that I underestimated.  Two days later, after I finished reading it, I was completely humiliated.  Not that I mind, though..
You know.. I’ve always been fascinated by writers who can take some dull, bland and tasteless events and painted them with his words to form a vivid picture …

I am forced to answer a question whose answer I’ve always taken for granted all this time :  Do you have to be able to fully understand a book to appreciate it as a work of art ?.  I reckoned that the answer must be yes.  Boy, was I wrong.
Confessions is a difficult work.  De Quincey apparently did not try very hard to make himself as readable as possible.  Instead, he resorted to a strange method where he seemingly just recorded whatever happened in his head.  The proverbial flight-of-ideas, so …

Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
By far, this would be one of the best works I’ve read this year.  Where have I been ?  Indeed, I went as far as stating in Twitter that “my life reads like a bastard child of Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo and Hesse’s Steppenwolf”.  In the word of a good online friend of mine, this one definitely is a “mindfuck”.
The book deals with the most profound issue of mankind : the self.  It painstakingly describes the state where the self is torn by conflicting desire between …

What can I say ?  This book speaks for itself.  A tour-de-force of human tendency to believe strange things.  In fact, it’s eerie how Hitler words ring true about this :”It’s easy to lie, just make it big.”
Factoid did a very good job by bringing this series.  You could read some serious references without diving into that scholarly encyclopedia.  In other words, this is information made enjoyable.  With honest, humorous and sometimes cheeky illustration, it’s also easier to grasp some concepts which otherwise would need a lot of pages to …

This book is guaranteed to make you giggle like crazy. At some of its best point, you would even shake with laughter.

David Sedaris wrote with some shameless sense-of-humor here. He freely talked about his speed-addiction, sexuality, and characteristically, even some childish hilarity like turd ( you heard me right, turd ). Based on this tone, this book is not for everyone’s fancy, though. …