Books read in February 2014

These days I’ve been reading quite numbers of books. This month alone, I’ve read about 5 to 6 books, all borrowed from library. Perhaps due to the hot sun and no rain lately. It made me lazy to go out from house and preferred to hide inside my bedroom, lying comfortably on my bed with bedside light turned on plus air-con blown cooling out the whole room. Sometimes I even brought a packet of potato chips or peanuts into the room and let my mouth busy munching it. No wonder I gained few kilos due to this habit hehe…

My name is not Konnichiwa by Rodney Ee

My dear son accompanied me as well. He would watch Growtopia or Gundam-in-making in Youtube and lying down beside me. Sometimes I introduced the interesting book to him, like this one: “My name is not Konnichiwa” – written by Rodney Ee, a Singaporean born globetrotter. This book consists of short travelogue – all of what he experienced when traveled from one country to another. It gave us a view of what the country looked like, what culture the country had, what you would expect when it came to shop – reminded me of the interesting carpet-seller story, and so on.

Other Cities, Other Lives by Chew Kok Chang

I tried to introduce him another book by Singaporean author born in 1934, Chew Kok Chang, and translated by Shelly Bryant, titled “Other Cities, Other Lives”. It was another book with collection of short stories. Some stories related to what people (this context referred to Singaporean) experienced while traveling to China (using travel agent service), some was about how parents in Singapore treated his only and beloved son, some about their perception and unexpected maid that they hired, and so on. It’s a mixed story at different places, but the language used was so simple. And Mr Chew loved to put in some Chinese poet into the story (translated into English). It made me thinking that everyone should be able to write the book based on their experience. They just had to keep a note on every detail of the experience that they had. Hm…. *thinking.

Most of stories reflected the Singaporean way of living including their feeling, their concerns, their expectation, and so on. If you wanted to know more about Singapore, this book is a good choice to read. It reminds me of “Then I Saw Her Face” – a short story collection of Bhutanese lives written by Ngawang Phuntsho. It’s more or less like that.

Too bad my son found it boring. Perhaps it’s because he preferred reading books with lots of pictures, comical type of books. But I was glad that he purposely visited the library the day after he rejected reading this book and borrowed two Asterix comics, as long as he developed reading habit for the books of his own choice.

Books by Liane Moriarty

The next two books I want to introduce were “The Hypnotist’s Love Story” and “What Alice Forgot”, both written by an Australian author, Liane Moriarty. At first, my friend recommended me to read one of her novels titled “The Husband’s Secret”. However, I couldn’t find it in the library. Perhaps the book was too good to read. Every time I checked, the books were on loan and even on reserved. But when I browsed to the shelf, I found her other books.

I read “The Hypnotist’s Love Story” first and immediately fell in love with the story. The story was about Ellen, the hypnotist, who fell in love with a man, whose wife had passed away, having one son, plus an ex-girlfriend who was a stalker. But Ellen was so positive overcoming what came to her life and the story was so smooth and really nice to read.

Once finished reading it, I searched for other books by her. That’s how I found “What Alice Forgot”. This book was about Alice, a woman in her 39, who fell down while exercising in gym, knocked her head, and when she woke up, she thought she was only 29 and pregnant. She had forgotten what had happened during the past 10 years and was only surprised that she didn’t even know that she had already had three children and was going to divorce with the man that she loved.

The day when my son borrowed his Asterix comics in the library, I saw both of my sister-in-laws in the library too. The elder one was collecting her reserved book, titled “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin Sharma while the younger one was trying to find the book that she loved reading. Wow! That’s good news as usually I saw the elder one watching her favorite Hong Kong drama on her mobile phone or Ipad and the younger one watching TV after finished work. Never once I saw them holding book or reading book before. So, when knowing that they started reading books too lately made me surprise, and happy too!

Imagine! When I recommended the two books above to the elder sister-in-law, she told me that she almost bought it before. She didn’t, BUT she bought “The Husband’s Secret” instead. Wohooo!!! Now I can read that book without having to wait for the book to be available on the library! That’s good news, wasn’t it? Little did I know that the elder sister-in-law had great collections of books too at her home.

Just an update, I was shocked to find out that she really had great collections of books!!! Look at the pictures below. Yalama!

My sis-in-law books collection

And more book collections

Hohoho... It seems that this year I'll stay at home most of the time and spend my time to read hehe.... ^^

The younger sister-in-law was looking for inspirational book so that she could learn more things about life. Wow!!! That was also another breakthrough for her. She thought of upgrading herself with more knowledge and be wiser. Good job! Keep it up both of you!

The other book I read was “Hotel Tales” written by Hanley Chew.

Hotel Tales by Hanley Chew

“About four years ago, the idea occurred to Hanley that somehow the ‘truth’ needed to be told. He wanted to collect stories from different hoteliers, and in these stories there shall lay important lessons that they don’t teach in hotel school. It was about time someone dispelled the illusion that working in a hotel encompasses merely wining, dining, grooming and smiling, and frankly he wanted to let guests know that hoteliers really do work very hard to get their money.”

As I have worked in the hotel for many years, I found many familiar stories in this book. It was compilation of things experienced personally by many hoteliers such as: CEOs, managers, public relations officers, the front desk, security, F&B and housekeeping staff of various hotels in Asia. If you’d love to know about what happened behind its outer layer of the building, this book was definitely giving you deeper information based on the real situation. Other hotel related book that you could read was “Heads in Beds” by Jacob Tomsky but his experience was on what’s happening in America.

I’m reading half way “The Hero”, a new published book written by Rhonda Byrne.

The Hero by Rhonda Byrne

“By following the journeys of twelve of the most successful people on the planet today, you’ll learn how to use your inner powers to overcome obstacles and to make impossible dreams come true. You'll be inspired to find your own calling and start taking the steps toward making the life of your dreams an everyday reality.”

Well, that’s all about it. So, tell me (in comment or post it on your blog), what books that you are reading now and what you feel about it. Share and recommend it to us (fellow bloggers). Have a nice day everyone and keep reading ;)