The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2011 12:47 AM PST Coco Chanel GABRIELLE "Coco" Chanel is one of the most well-known designers from the 20th century. She revolutionised women's fashion with her progressive and rebellious style. Her journey from poverty to glamour caught the attention of many influential men of her time. Drawing on newly-discovered love letters and other records, this book reveals Coco's creativity, secret drug habit and lesbian affairs. The Potter's Field AN unidentified corpse is found near Vigàta, a town known for soil rich with potter's clay. Then, a Colombian man with Sicilian origins disappears. It turns out that he is related to a local mobster, but no one knows what exactly the connection signifies. As he delves deeper into the mystery, Inspector Montalbano notices some similarities to the story in the Bible of Judas's betrayal. This is the 13th book in the Inspector Montalbano series, translated into English from its original Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. So Near IT was a tragedy no one could foresee. But the worst thing about it was not what happened that day, but rather, its aftermath. Cal and Jenny's marriage is on the rocks and both are plagued by guilt and are unable to seek comfort from each other. They try different ways to deal with their pain, but nothing seems to work. Then a stranger comes into the picture, and for a while, this acquaintance seems to offer the support they both need. However, the next question is: are they feeling better because they are reconciling, or because they are moving further apart? Gods Without Men WHEN a four-year-old boy disappears in the middle of a desert, what questions does it raise? More importantly, what are the answers? His parents gets involved in a witch-hunt while a rock star goes into hiding at a motel. Wise men say that stories of the present and past are all connected – so what is the link between a Mormon miner who claims to hear the silver singing in the stones and a guilt-ridden aircraft engineer who looks to the sky, hoping to contact Venus. The universe might be chaotic, but maybe there are patterns in chaos, if we look hard enough. Waterline MICK Little is a former shipbuilder in Glasgow. He returned from Australia more than three decades ago, carrying nothing with him except memories of his younger days. His wife, Cathy, has expressed her longing to return to Britain for a long time now. But then, in an unfortunate twist of events, she dies from industrial asbestos poisoning. He thinks it's probably his fault, but there's nothing he can do about it now. He gets a new job and tries to start over, but then is accused of going up against management. He is fired, loses a place to live, and becomes one of London's many homeless. He's reached the bottom, now, the waterline. On Canaan's Side WHAT is the sound of an 89-year-old heart breaking? Lilly Bere's grandson, Bill, has just died. While she mourns the loss, she revisits her past, going back to when she was forced to flee Dublin at the end of World War I. In America, she encounters a world filled with hope and danger, and she tries hard to make sense of the people whose lives she has touched. Told through her eyes, in a first-person narrative, this story of memories, war, family ties and love spans almost seven decades. Take It Like A Mom ANNIE used to be a lawyer who wore clothes that could only be dry-cleaned, but things have changed since she became a stay-at-home mum. Now, she wears cargo pants and pulls her hair back. Then she finds out that she's pregnant with her second child. Not a problem, she went through it all once before, right? But things are different this time: her husband loses his job, she lets pre-school politics get to her, and she has a fight with her arch nemesis on the playground. How is she supposed to take it like a mum when the world seems to be against her? Cabin LOU has hit middle age, and with it comes disappointment – the death of his mother, job loss, a health scare and a divorce. Having been in the city for over a decade, he decides that this would be a good time to build a cabin in the woods and live there. So he buys a piece of land in the wilds of Western Maine and asks his younger brother, Paul, to help him. The brothers first built a house together about 20 years ago – could this project make them reconnect with each other? Chango's Beads And Two-Tone Shoes WHEN journalist Daniel Quinn bumps into Ernest Hemingway at a bar in Cuba in 1957, little does he know how much it will change his life. Eleven years later, Robert Kennedy is assassinated and Cuba hovers on the verge of race riots. Daniel unexpectedly gets thrown into the world of crooked politicians, junkies, gangsters and heroic journalism. His unpredictable revolutionary wife, Renata, gets thrown into the mix too. When will the madness stop? Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2011 12:35 AM PST HAVE you caught those cute ads for the new TV drama, Switched At Birth, that talks about learning a "cool new language" and then has its stars "speak" a sentence in sign language? One of the show's protagonists – one of the girls who was, in fact, switched at birth and given to the wrong mother – is deaf, and she is portrayed by the perkily cute Katie Leclerc, who is hard of hearing in real life and is making sign language all the rage among young people in the United States. Over here in Malaysia, one company has decided that it is cool to learn a new language and is releasing a book that offers Malaysians the chance to not only understand sign language but also Deaf culture. Let's Sign: Understanding Deaf Culture, Learning Sign Language, And Communicating With The Deaf, published by RC Deaf Missions Malaysia, will be on sale tomorrow at their kiosk on the Ground Floor, Centre Court, Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; the book will be available at this location until Dec 18. The first 1,000 people to buy the book will receive a surprise gift. RC Deaf Missions Malaysia was established by siblings Agnes and Mario Peter in 2006 with the vision of making a difference in the livelihood of Deaf persons, and "to be a successful service industry with Deaf impact". For more information, go to www.rcdeafmissionsmalaysia.com. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2011 12:30 AM PST Stephen King's tale of time travel explores the possibilities in — and perils of — changing the past 'for the better'. 11/22/63 A RULE of thumb I follow regarding books: If the author's name is bigger than the title, caveat emptor. When the author is Stephen King, however, perhaps there is some justification. Even more so when the title is the word-less 11/22/63. That's Nov 22, 1963, the day John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot. And yes, there is reason to be wary of this book – but only because it might get hold of you and never let go. The first time I opened it, I almost skipped lunch. The much-anticipated novel about a time-travelling English teacher who inherits a dying man's quest to stop the assassination of the 35th US President pretty much lives up to the hype that has surrounded it since the publishing world first got an inkling about it. Jake Epping is, in his own words, not a crying man. But an essay by one of his adult students, janitor Harry Dunning, manages to make him weep. It's not (just) the atrocious grammar and spelling. It was a horrific account of how, as a child, Dunning survived his father's drunken, murderous rampage that claimed the rest of his family. Then he meets Al Templeton, the owner of a diner that has a portal to an exact time and date back in time: 11.58am, Sept 9, 1958. Who cares how the portal came to be, as long as Templeton gets to buy cheap, good-tasting, chemical- and hormone-free beef from the good old days. A sceptical Epping goes through the portal, and falls in love with the root beer he buys at a store – no preservatives, Templeton guesses. We never know if it's A&W's. Of course there's a catch. On his shopping trips back in time, Templeton had toyed with the idea of changing American history by saving JFK. But Templeton gets cancer before he can do anything, and he's not sure when his time will be up, so he appoints Epping as the heir to his mission. But when Epping has second thoughts after his attempt to fix Dunning's future backfires, Templeton commits suicide. With the weight of a dead man's last wishes on his shoulders, our sentimental English teacher takes a seemingly permanent step into the past. King is said to have done heaps of research for this book. Through the words of Epping, now George Amberson back in 1958, we experience the life of an ordinary American in the golden post WWII era. Much of the book really is about how Epping/Amberson adapts to and lives in the past, which he does perhaps a little too well. We look into his head, see through his eyes, hear with his ears. The book tries to help us experience those days. Store signs, newspaper headlines and billboards are announced in capital letters and different fonts. Phonetic spelling of some words in the dialogue goad us to read them aloud. Go on, say "beer" the Maine way: "beeyah". It's fun ... for the first two times. Yes, I heard about the Easter eggs, too. However, I could only spot references to The Shawshank Redemption and It in the pages; fans of King will undoubtedly find more. It's quite some time to 1963, so Epping/Amberson passes the time by teaching at a school in Texas. And getting involved with its pretty, popular librarian, Sadie Dunhill. But it's only a matter of time before someone discovers the truth about him. This is quite a good read despite the heavy American flavour, the long drawn-out build-up to the confrontation with JFK's assassin, and the shocking consequences that follow, not to mention the multi-font all-caps assault on the eyes. The boring and incredible parts where Epping/Amberson stalks Lee Harvey Oswald and the explanation of time travel physics barely register on the disbelief suspension scale. It's Stephen King, after all. Wish I could say you can't put it down, but if you're reading the hardcover version, you'll have to or you might develop a cramp bearing the weight of this 840-page tome in your arms. Looks like King threw just about everything he'd researched into this book. Hints at a yearning for a rose-tinted past echo throughout King's almost fairy tale-like depiction of the US half a century ago, calling to mind the Camelot myth spun around JFK not long after his death. Perhaps the question, "what if Kennedy survived?" is a yearning for a return to those days, when a charismatic young senator took the White House against all odds and, later, as president, faced up to a belligerent world power an ocean away under the shadow of a mushroom cloud – and won a desperate gamble. Not only does today's US hardly resemble that storied Arthurian realm, its people might also be wistful about a return to Camelot. King's 11/22/63 gives us a tantalising peek at such a possibility, but also cautions us that it is perhaps better to let the past be and work on the now – and towards the future. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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