The Truth About You

This post has been “hibernating” in my draft for months. It’s either I trash it or post it, I just wanted to clear everything in my draft today… when you see this, I think you know what is my choice.

Actually I do not know how to choose a book, when I was in a bookstore, I just pick what attracts me, such as nice cover or I just walked to the bestseller chart and pick whatever in the chart. For example this, peaceful cover, “The no. one bestseller”… When I read the title, i thought this is something like helping you to understand the inner you, the secret lying beneath your subconscious or something… but nope… it’s a fiction. (I only noticed after few chapters, ya, I’m this clueless most of the time).

The interesting part about this book is all the twists and turns, I can imagine the story can turn into a soap drama like Gilmore’s Girl or Desperate Housewives… The story begin with a baby found on the doorstep of a cafe in town and some of the girls in town have their own secrets which haunted their lives.

Although I’m not a fan to fiction, but this book really very nice to read and sometimes the story kept me continue reading too, it helped me to pass a lot of waiting time to my customer.

P/S: do you have a secret too? A secret cannot be a secret if more than 1 person know about it. So, I can say, I have no secret, just a matter I choose to tell somebody but not everybody.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Friends have recommended this book – Tuesdays with Morrie, an old man, a young man and life’s greatest lesson, to me long time ago but I’ve just finished the book in March. It’s not a book that you can keep it for yourself after reading, you will actually feel that you need to share the story with somebody eagerly . The book that I read is a Chinese translated version and now I’m looking forward to reading the original one.

The story is about the author, Mitch Albom, by chance seeing his professor, Morrie Schwartz’s interview on TV and knowing his favourite professor who he used to call him coach, had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease which eventually lead to death. Then, both of them decided to meet each other every Tuesday to discuss about “Life” before his ended. Each Tuesday, they will have different topics to talk about, for Morrie, he wished to share as much as he could and for Mitch, he wished to write down and tell the world what had he learnt from this life’s greatest lesson.

Topics that they discussed include family, regret, culture, love… It’s not a long story, but every words made you think. I watched the movie too, and these sentences got my attention:

“Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

“Love each other or die.”

“What’s wrong with no. 2?”

“We think we don’t deserve love, that if we let it come in, we’ll become soft. But love is the only rational act, let it come in.”

“Dying is only one thing to be sad over… Living unhappily is something else.”

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”

“Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.”

“There is no experience like having children… if you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.”

“Love wins. Love always win.”

“Afraid of aging reflects one’s life haven’t found a meaning.”

Frankly speaking, I am still searching the meaning of LOVE, I’m trying to find out how to define LOVE in a rational way, in a way that my stubborn and square head can understand. Anybody can spare me your understanding about LOVE?

Attracted to Books after Library?

I never thought that I'm a book person since young, I only read when there's an exam, I can read (because usually my score was okay in exam), just that reading is never my option to kill time or take reading as my hobby.

Lately, I'm facing a dilemma, and I think "Somebody" has sent me a signal. I seldom go through newspaper page by page, the most, I read about some entertainment news (with photos then only I read) or advertisement (picture again) or horoscope reading of the day. But in an off day weekend (I need to work during alternate Saturday), I bought 2 copies of newspaper, and I went through (force myself to) page by page and I was lead to a good book recommendation column, there were 3 books in that column - Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and Q and A by Vikas Swarup (aka Slumdog Millionaire's author).

My good friend once mention and recommend me Kite Runner (the movie), but I don't think the movie was showing in any cinema in KL, so, I got an impression, the book must be a good one, then, I personally very attracted to The Alchemist. So, without a second thought, I grabbed my car key, run to the nearest bookstore and bought these 2 books at a shot (Q&A, I haven't has an interest in that book yet).

I'm an impatient person, if I choose the English version, I knew, I gotta check dictionary from time to time, so, Chinese will be good for me at this moment, while I got to cultivate some reading interest in me first.

The Alchemist

Kite Runner

I even bought a cute bookmark to encourage myself to continue reading

and stickers too...

When I bought back these 2 books, guess which one I read first?
- The Alchemist

When I'm writing this, I've already finished The Alchemist (I finish this book in a week, for me this is quite fast, and I'm very proud of myself for this), now half way reading Kite Runner. As expected, it's an interesting book, sparked me in some where, I couldn't express how a book can change my thought, but it just did! Kite Runner is quite touching as well, I haven't finish the book, but I can tell, it is also a good book.
I have been actively recommended this book to some of my friends too! So, Mr. Soo, please read and return my book in it's original condition, my order!!!

p/s: is it because I have been to the Library (the gastropub) the weekend before that made me wonder in the world of book? hehe...