Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Paulo Coelho



The Alchemist is the first book of Paulo Coelho that i totally read twice and gave me the courage to follow my dream and to explore the beauty of life.Thanks to Meow for sharing his book and introduced me to works of Paulo Coelho.I finished reading Eleven Minutes,'By the river Piedra I sat down and wept' when i was in the Philippines

In my two years stay here in the kingdom ,here are the books that i collected and read from the same author and it gave me pointers,guides and ideas on how to appreciate and understand life more on its highest perspective point of view based on the stories of his novels.

Here is the website of the author http://www.paulocoelho.com/

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Dan Brown



My first set of books that i bought in Jarir Bookstore in Pepsi road in Riyadh KSA two years ago.I was really surprised that they have it here in the kingdom they also translated it to arabic so it means to say arabs also are reading his books.Im a big fan of Dan Brown.I love his creation and he is a true genius.What i really liked about all his books are the setting you will have a glimpse of Vatican,Spain,Louvre Museum and other beautiful historical places as if your having a tour around the place.I also love the plot and the unbelievable twist of the story.
Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code and the 2000 bestselling novel, Angels & Demons.Brown is interested in cryptography, keys, and codes, which are a recurring theme in his stories. Currently his novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian, as he is a Christian himself, and says of his book The Da Vinci Code that it is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith".

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Girls of Riyadh

Alahamdalalah is the word that i muttered (which means to say thanks be to God the expression that i borrowed from the Muslims brothers here in Saudi Arabia)when finally this controversial book is legally available now at Jarir bookstore printed and translated to English and with out any hesitation I purchased this book.The book that I'm talking about is Girls of Riyadh and I'm done reading it.

The book is surprisingly informative and offers a rare glimpse into the secretive lives of Saudi women behind their black cloak and veil.The book answered all my questions on how do Saudi ladies do their shopping, attending parties ,dating,courtship and weddings.

Girls of Riyadh or Banat al-Riyadh, is a novel by Rajaa Alsanea. The book, written in the form of e-mails, recounts the love lives of four young Saudi girls, Lamees, Michelle (half Saudi, half American), Gamrah, and Sadeem. It describes the relationship between men and women in the conservative Saudi-Arabian Islamic culture.

Originally released in Arabic in 2005, Girls of Riyadh was immediately banned in
Saudi Arabia due to (experienced) controversial and inflammatory content. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and Girls of Riyadh has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

one hundred years of solitude

Alas!!!Finally I'm done reading this book.This is my reaction until reading the very last page of this book because I misplaced this book and i don't know where did i put this when i moved to my new apartment,until last week i found it mixed up with my unused clothes in my luggage.

Here in Saudi Arabia the more i develop, I love and appreciate the hobby on reading novels.Reading became my past time here,maybe because I don't have any options aside from blogging because here is very different mind you there is no public cinema here very different from the country i came from and watching movies with my friends is one of my hobbies before.I am an occasional reader and it depends on the book that i read, sometimes too lazy to finish reading a novel.But this novel is a must to be read book,highly recommended by my writer friend in the Philippines.

There is only one bookstore here in KSA that carries English books on there choices and that is Jarir Bookstore and copies is very limited thats why you have to phoned them so that they will reserved a copy for you. I am lucky i get one.What inspired me after reading the book is to make a family tree for my clan to trace my roots.To all my friends this is a magnificent novel please do read and enjoy the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish: Cien años de soledad) is a novel by Nobel Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that was first published in Spanish in 1967 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana), with an English translation by Gregory Rabassa released in 1970 (New York: Harper and Row). The book is widely considered García Márquez's magnum opus, metaphorically encompassing the history of Colombia or Latin America.


The novel chronicles a family's struggle and the history of their fictional town, Macondo, for one hundred years. García Márquez acknowledges in his autobiography
Living to Tell the Tale that Macondo was based on the towns where he spent his childhood. Like many other novels by Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude crosses genres, combining elements of history, magical realism, and pure fiction.

One Hundred Years of Solitude does not have a plot in the conventional sense of the word. Instead, Marquez uses the novel to explore a literary conceit, to wit: that it is vitally important for people to remember their history, otherwise they will suffer for it. Taking this as his theme, Marquez illustrates it repeatedly throughout the novel in a number of seemingly unconnected incidents which make up the narrative.




By using different incidents to illustrate the same theme throughout the novel, Marquez is able to disconcert the reader with significant changes in the emotional tone. For example: in the whimsical case of Remedios the Beauty's assumption into heaven, one is led to think that the lack of memory for history leads to the innocent blurring of myth and reality. However, this is then contrasted with the incident of a violent massacre, which is effectively covered up by the authorities, leading one to question whether Marquez does not intend the novel to be a biting criticism of terrible human rights abuses which may have happened in Colombia, and Latin America generally.


Tellingly, the village of Macondo is completely destroyed at the end of the novel, along with all traces of its existence: implying that its inhabitants have failed to make any lasting impression on history, and that there is now no longer any method of determining whether any of the events in the novel might be true or not.