books (part 2)

A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end.
You live several lives while reading it.
--William Styron

love story
this masterpiece by erich segal starts with "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful, and brilliant, that she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles and me." it tells a story -- a love story -- that's both happy and sad. part of the book's appeal to me is the fact that the story unfolds using the guy's point of view. the first lines alone are haunting enough and the first person narrative style makes the story believable and more heartwarming. in this book, love is not treated with much mush.


first-meeting repartee:
"What the hell makes you so smart and me so stupid?"
"I wouldn't go for coffee with you?"
"Listen! I wouldn't ask you."
"That." she said "Is what makes you so stupid."


the bridges of madison county
i like the way robert james waller wrote this story -- i almost thought it wasn't fiction... what a profound and haunting love story! the way i see it, it's both simple and complicated. the book depicts the kind of love that i would like to experience and it tells the kind of story that i don't want to happen to me. it's so wonderful, it's heartbreaking...


quote: "Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty humming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together."


tuesdays with morrie
this must-read book is mitch albom's "thesis" with his mentor, morrie schwartz. to say that it is a nice book is an understatement.


quote: "The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads -- none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of -- unconditional love, unconditional attention."


the god of small things
reading this novel by arundhati roy is like reading poetry. the author's wonderful word-weaving makes the gloomy story breathe with so much emotion and does things to one's imagination. the book is peppered with local colors and unusual but heart-tugging phrases like "she closed her face like a cupboard". the reading experience with the god of small things is like feeling a song and a lot more.


quote: "Do you know what happens when you hurt people? When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do... they make people love you a little less."


cryptonomicon
this is a book that probably has everything in it -- it's a quite long entertaining read. if you like diving into geek stuff, world war stories, code generation and code breaking, cybertechnology, brilliant minds and personalities and you like to read about philippines and the asia pacific and the world in general, this book is for you!


quote: "...the real gold is here--" he points to his head "--in the intelligence of the people, and here--" he holds out his hands "--in the work that they do. Getting rid of our gold was the best thing that ever happened to Nippon. It made us rich. Receiving that gold was the worst thing that happened to the Philippines. It made them poor."