Page 69
"Marshall McLuhan, the guru of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), recommends that the browser turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book. It works. Rule One, then: browse powerfully and read page 69."
The above is an extract from John Sutherland's HOW TO READ A NOVEL: A User's Guide.
Interview with Author Joan Hon
Today, I have the great honor of hosting an interview with Joan Hon, a remarkable author and academician. Besides writing books, she also taught Physics to Junior College students and mentored Olympiad students in one of Singapore’s top Junior Colleges.
The Penang-born Singaporean author, already in her sixties, was here in Penang on Tuesday, October 12 to share about her journey as an author. The engaging Book Talk was held at Precious Ones Collections. Now she shares more on my blog! She wrote a science-fiction romance STAR SAPPHIRE (1985) under the pseudonym Han May, which won a High Commendation Award from the Book Development Council of Singapore in 1986, the same year she was awarded a Commendation prize for her book RELATIVELY SPEAKING on her father and childhood memories in Penang. Please join me in welcoming Joan Hon!
Joan Hon Book Talk
I’ll be taking a day off from work on 12 October to attend a book talk and meet with author Joan Hon. Such bookish events are rare in my part of the world (Malaysia), so when Jo Lau contacted me about the author, I was excited! The Internet brought Jo and I together in July this year in a blog event. She is a Singaporean living in Penang with her husband. Jo told me she found me through my blog and I’m really glad!
Here’s more on the bookish event: […]
Mockingjay
I loved EVERYTHING about this series, and particularly, MOCKINGJAY, the last book of the trilogy. Brilliant plot, lots of action, plenty of suspense. It’s such a page-turner. Terrible, brutal truths are revealed in this installment. It is shocking to learn of the things the Capitol did or will do to the victors of the Hunger Games where children fight to the death. It turns out that Katniss and Peeta are not the only ones plagued with problems. You will learn more as the story unfolds.
What will it take to break Katniss Everdeen?
Special of the Day
SPECIAL OF THE DAY by Elaine Fox is a charming and witty story with an interesting male character named Steve Serrano. Steve is not just a handsome and charismatic bartender, he is also a smart guy who is a regular at the Library of Congress!
The pub where Steve works has been bought over by a lady and he knows where she lives: in the same building as his. With good intention to welcome his new neighbor, he goes to visit her at her apartment with a very good bottle of wine. Here is where things go wrong right at the very start.
Driven to Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery
DRIVEN TO INK by Karen E. Olson is the third book in the A Tattoo Shop Mystery series. The protagonist, Brett Kavanaugh, is a female tattooist who owns her own tattoo shop, The Painted Lady.
The series can be read as a standalone. No, you do not have to read the books in sequence, but if you do, you would most definitely benefit from knowing who Brett Kavanaugh and her friends are, and appreciate them more.
Girl, Interrupted
GIRL INTERRUPTED is a memoir that is all of these: Poignant. Funny. Optimistic. Fascinating. Stirring. It is heartbreaking and it is memorable. It drew me in immediately and got me hooked like drug.
In 1967, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put into a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital to be treated for depression. There she met with the other girls in the psychiatric ward: […]
Dead Men’s Dust
DEAD MEN’S DUST, the first Joe Hunter thriller is a good read. Joe is a former Special Forces soldier who has worked 14 years as a counter-terrorism agent. The book has the necessary ingredients that make a good thriller, but it did not excite me as much as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.