The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 22 Feb 2013 01:28 AM PST From Notting Hill To New York ... Actually Author: Ali McNamara Publisher: Sphere, 425 pages THE sequel to From Notting Hill With Love finds movie fanatic Scarlett O'Brien dreaming of visiting the bright city lights of New York. With boyfriend Sean constantly away on business trips, she is left with little choice but to travel with best friend Oscar to the Big Apple for a holiday of a lifetime. Amidst the fun in New York, she is smitten by charming TV reporter Jamie, who shares her passion for movies. Things become complicated when Sean decides to make a surprise visit to New York. Moonlight Masquerade Author: Jude Deveraux Publisher: Pocket Books, 385 pages JUDE Deveraux, author of over 40 New York Times bestsellers, dishes out another romance in Moonlight Masquerade under the Edilean series of romance books. The writer, who is known for her storylines centred around strong and capable heroines, pens down her thoughts on recently jilted Sophie Kincaid who flees to Edilean, a small town in the American state of Virginia, to heal her wounded heart. However, her first taste of county life is far from heavenly after her car breaks down and she is almost run over by a speeding sports car driven by notoriously bitter Dr Reede Aldredge. Close To The Bone Author: Stuart Macbride Publisher: HarperCollins, 511 pages THE sequel to Shatter The Bones returns with the adventures of Detective Sergeant Logan McRae, a dedicated police officer based in Aberdeen, Scotland. In the third consecutive bestselling crime novel of the DS Logan McRae series, a body is found strangled and stabbed, with a burning tyre around its neck. Is this a gangland execution or something much darker? At the same time, Logan worries about other pressing issues including rival drug gangs, two teenage lovers who are missing and issues concerning Asian immigrants. Are You The One For Me? Author: Barbara De Angelis Publisher: Harper Element, 353 pages PSYCHOLOGIST Barbara De Angelis (Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know and The Real Rules) enlightens readers on compatibility and how to create fulfilling relationships. Catering to singles, people who are divorced or those in love, this book shares information on making the right choices, how childhood memories can affect your love life, and ways to spot fatal flaws in a partner. Divided into 12 chapters, the book aims to provide readers with a better understanding of love choices, sexual chemistry and compatibility. Teach Your Children To Learn And Play Author: James Windell Publisher: Advantage Quest Publications, 303 pages EVER wondered why young children throw tantrums or whether a surly teenager is just acting her age or having a mood disorder? This book offers a comprehensive resource on how children think, learn and play – from the final months leading up to birth to their adolescent years. Find out about brain development in children, cognitive and behavioural stages, and the impact family history can have on emotional development. How To Do Everything And Be Happy Author: Peter Jones Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 231 pages THIS step-by-step, straight to the point guide provides an avenue to create happiness in life. It teaches readers how to redress work-life imbalances, regain control and take action to make life much fuller and happier. Besides ways to work on your bucket list, this self-help book enlightens readers on ways to turn wishes into goals. It also offers real-life examples from the author's personal experience and how these can be used effectively to transform your life. The Panther Author: Nelson DeMille Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 625 pages JOHN Corey, an anti-terrorist task force agent, and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, have been posted overseas to Yemen – one of the most dangerous battle grounds in the Middle East. The couple is assigned to hunt down a high ranking Al Qaeda operative known as the Panther, supposedly one of the masterminds behind the USS Cole bombing. As latecomers to a deadly game, John and Kate soon realise that the hunters have become the prey. Naturally Pain Free Author: Letha Hadady, Publisher: Advantage Quest Publications, 308 pages IF you have health problems ranging from sports injuries and indigestion to headaches, this could be the remedy for your concerns. Letha Hadady, a natural remedies expert, guides readers on how to use a variety of all-natural herbs and extracts to ease and control the source of suffering. |
| Short story by Yasunari Kawabata uncovered Posted: 21 Feb 2013 02:45 PM PST A PREVIOUSLY unknown short story by Japan's first Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata (pic), best-known for the novel Snow Country, has been uncovered by researchers decades after his death. Written early in his career, Utsukushii! (Beautiful!) appeared in April and May 1927 in a newspaper in Fukuoka, western Japan, Takumi Ishikawa of Rikkyo University and his fellow researchers found, Ishikawa reported on Monday. Ishikawa and Hiroshi Sakaguchi, publisher and director at a literary museum in Fukuoka, discovered the unrecorded work while looking back through the paper's archives. It was verified as a genuine article by the Kawabata Foundation, he said. The Kawabata Foundation is a body dedicated to preserving the late author's work, and annually awards a prize named after him. Utsukushii! is the story of an industrialist who buries a young girl in his disabled son's grave after she suffers an accident while visiting the tomb. On the common gravestone, the father inscribes: "A beautiful young boy and beautiful young girl sleep together". Loneliness and empathy for the weak are strong themes in the story, which was first published when Kawabata was 27, immediately after the release of another work, The Dancing Girl of Izu, Ishikawa said. "It was during the period when many prominent authors sought outlets for their literary products in local papers after major Japanese publishers and newspapers based in Tokyo suffered devastating damage from the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923," he said. "The story also has a lot in common with his other story that was published in 1954 under the title Utsukushiki Haka (Beautiful Grave)," he added. Loneliness is a common theme in other stories by Kawabata, whose parents died early in his life, and whose sole carer – his grandfather – passed away when he was just 15. In the rediscovered story, "you can see the 'sprouting' of the worldview that is evident in Kawabata's later works," Ishikawa said. Kawabata's works in his later years include Snow Country, The Sound Of The Mountain and The Old Capital and have been translated into English. Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1968, the first Japanese to be recognised in the field by the committee. He committed suicide in 1972, at the age of 72. – AFP Relaxnews |
| Posted: 21 Feb 2013 02:45 PM PST The Yellow World: Trust Your Dreams and They'll Come True EVERYONE who has battled cancer directly or indirectly carries a story of courage, resilience and inspiration. There is Terry Fox who left a lasting memory in the way he defied the consequences of cancer and spread cancer awareness in an unbelievably powerful way. There are enduring memories of great intellectuals like Randy Pausch, who, at the precipice of death, turned around for one Last Lecture. There is Steve Jobs, who shaped the socio-cultural trends of an entire generation with his legacy of art and technology while battling cancer. And then there is Albert Espinosa, whose peculiar outlook on life and idiosyncratic ideologies add an eccentric dimension to the variety that left this reader of his book a little bemused. In The Yellow World, Espinosa shares the discoveries he made while battling cancer for 10 years between the ages of 14 and 24, losing one arm and one lung in the process. From those years, he developed the idea of a "Yellow World", where "yellows" live in pursuit of happiness through "yellow discoveries". The book, he claims, is not about surviving cancer. It is about living your life in this new world where there are no rules. The writer comes off as whimsical and strained in his attempt to smother the reader with platitudinous wisdom. The 23 discoveries that make up the core of the book are a collection of anecdotes from his life that are at times interesting but mostly over-the-top fanciful. Some of these chapters are named after exhausted clichés like "Losses Are Positive" and "The Word Pain Doesn't Exist". However, one can also find in there some fascinating ideas, such as the chapter entitled "Start Counting At Six". Here, the author discusses average brain capacities of human beings and about not accepting the "factory setting" of our brains and improving its usage. That the author frequently emphasises that there are no rules in the Yellow World is ironic, to say the least, as the book in itself can be considered a rule book for "yellow" initiation. For example, there is the ill-defined fixation on the number 23; there are 23 discoveries that make the basis for the yellow world and every person only has 23 fellow "yellows", no more, no less. The whole yellow agenda seems laboured and reads like an idea grappling for acceptance. Like this reader, some readers may find Espinosa way off the rails when going through the chapters on the do's and dont's of the Yellow World. For instance, his declaration that two of the primary activities of yellows are to hug and stroke each other and that "one of the great mistakes we make (is to) not stroke each other more often..." comes off as not just radical but brash and imprudent. Furthermore, the book does not flow smoothly, with seemingly no real intention for one chapter to lead to the next. As much as Espinosa is interested in lists (nearly every chapter ends with a list of steps to follow), the sophistication of his lists and the thought put into each one are limited, if at all present. He recognises this, one too many times warning the reader that they are not in any particular order. There are, however, fascinating chapters that fill the heart with tender, warm feelings. The egghead (the cancer patients in this book nickname themselves eggheads) adventures chronicling the author's little escapades with the other patients during his time in the cancer ward are well narrated and has inspired him to create the TV series Polseres Vermelles which means "red bracelets" in Catalan. The English language rights for the series has reportedly been bought by Steven Spielberg and is entitled The Red Band Society, named after the tags around the wrists of these in-patients. The Yellow World never really got around to defining yellow or the need for this new world order. There is a fine line between insanity and genius, and Albert Espinosa travels recklessly between the two throughout this book. Do we need a new relationship defined somewhere in between friends and lovers? Do we not have enough happiness (and problems) with existing relationships? Am I expected to hug, stroke, sleep with and watch these new yellow friends of mine wake up, as part of the Yellow World rules? I think I'll pass. |
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