Last book I read

   The last book I read was called The Railway Man by Eric Lomax. 

  
   The beginning was good, you got involved and interested in real TRAINS (surprisingly). I had really high hopes. Unfortunately you cannot keep yourself from comparing the book with King Rat by James Clavell, after all the topic was similar- P.O.W.s in Japanese camps during the second world war.

   Sad to say, but the best parts of the book were the Introduction, by the screenplay writers Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson, and the first 40 pages where Eric Lomax talks about his passions for trains and railways.

   I think only 3 occasions of my book-reading passions had put me in a situation where I did not FINISH the books. First time was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Island of Dr. Moreau by  H.G. Wells. I just could not bring myself to finish the books, for the sole reason of being bored. I think I stopped reading The Railway Man 30 pages before the end. I just skipped to the last 2 pages, and the ending was not surprising.

  However, I recognise the fact that Eric Lomax is not a writer, his book was based on his personal experience and horrors during the WW2, so sitting here and judging his writing style would not be appropriate knowing that the reason behind the book is the sole desire to LET those horrors out on a piece of paper. 

   All in all, the story was good, but as a reader I was not grabbed by the writing as much as I would have wanted.

   I hope watching the film would change my mind. :)

A Hunt for the Real Vampires

   I have decided to re-read all the Harry Potter books recently, but to make the experience last longer I also read a different book between each Harry Potter book. When I finished the Goblet of Fire I decided to read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. My biggest motivator to read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles was the need to find what a real vampire is! I was getting sick and tired of the new wave vampires that has got the whole world crazy. Yes, I am talking about Twilight and The Vampire Diaries.

Before all that crap came out I knew so so what a vampire was. I cannot believe how people fell for those new wave vampires, with their teenage problems. It is ridiculous. People easily forget that vampires might look 17 but they will always be 100 or even more years old on the inside! Just because they look young does not make it OK to have relationships with mortal girls that are 17 years old. We have all read real life stories of 80 years old millionaires getting married to 20 years old girls and I never heard anyone think it is right and anyone agreeing it is real love. But if the 80 year old guy looked 17 all of a sudden everyone is OK with it?! I don't get it.
  There are so many little things that are just not right, logically, in those new wave vampire books. I have read few books that have logical explanation of what a vampire is. Dracula by Bram Stoker is one of the best ones. I can say that Salem's Lot by Stephen King is also a good one. Definitely my favourite is Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. I have found so many reasonable explanations about the vampire rice and written in a really good way that it makes you believe that vampires can be real. I definitely recommend this book if you are tired of all this teenage love stories between 100 years old vampires and 17 years old mortal girls, if you are disgusted by the wrongness and inaccuracy of those stories. Read the Vampire Chronicles or watch the amazing film with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. I personally think that Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst deserved an Oscar for their acting in the film. Kirsten Dunst role was really hard because she had to portrait 50 years old woman in the body of a 8 years old girl and she did it brilliantly.

  The book explains a lot of things like why are there no ancient vampires and their life span goes often for no longer than 200-300 years. And there are no crap human love stories!
  I am about the start the second book from the Vampire Chronicles- The Vampire Lestat. Cannot wait to find out his story, because the character is so charismatic and different from the rest of the vampires. I cannot help but imagine the characters in the book the way they presented them in the film, because I honestly think that they couldn't have casted better actors.

P.S.
How to Spot a Real Vampire

1. They won't be hanging out in high schools.
2. They are pale.
3. They have sharp teeth all the time.
4. They won't be out during the day.
5. They sleep! In coffins!
6. They do not sparkle!
 

Zombies Zombies Zombies

World War Z by Max Brooks. I don't think anything I write will give the book any justice but I will try to briefly explain what I felt while reading. It is an oral history of the War against the Living Dead, Zacks, Ghouls or simply- ZOMBIES. The book consists of interviews with survivors of a world wide war that happened 12 years ago, war won by the humans. It is a historical record of the events, from the first encounter with patient zero to the announcement of the Victory day. It is written in a such good way that after page 5 you feel like you are actually learning real history, more real than every show in History Chanel.
 The main character, the interviewer collects first person stories from survivors. His mission is to write a post-war report for the United Nations.

 'We need clear facts and figures, unclouded by the human factor'. Of course, she was right. The official report was a collection of cold, hard data, an objective 'after-action report' that would allow future generations to study the events of that apocalyptic decade without being influenced by 'the human factor'.But isn't the human factor what connects us so deeply to our past? Will future generations care as much for chronologies and casualty statistics as they would for the personal accounts of individuals not so different from themselves?
                                                                             Introduction, p.2
 
  His initial report is made by facts and no personal stories; he decides that they are as important, even more, and puts them in a book. Each story is so personal that you, the reader, start to believe that the events actually happened.
  By the end of the book you start to wonder whether we could actually survive zombie war. I have always loved apocalyptic books. The best so far was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. What I love the most about apocalyptic scenarios in books is that they teach is to pull ourselves and start caring for each other, because that is the only way we could survive any type of apocalypse and extinction.
 

 PS Max Brooks wrote also Zombie Survivor Guide which I think one day might come in handy. You never know haha

A Little Bit Of Disappointment

  I just finished reading Stephen King's the CELL. I enjoyed the book right till the end; if you do not count the actual end. That is definitely a first for me; Stephen King has never disappointed me with any of his books, stories even films that he directed. Firstly the book was amazing, it got me involved right from the beginning. I wanted to know what was happening, what was that thing called The Pulse and how would things turn out. Secondly King managed to create characters that are intriguing and that you can find little bits of yourself in them. Thirdly I was nicely surprised by something I haven't experienced in a book by him- the death of one of the main characters. I can't say I have read all of his books but from the ones I have there was never a main character that he killed off. (Jack from The Shining and the little kid from The Mist do not count because I never considered them leading characters.). However, they way the character was killed off by the author was really shocking, right till the end when the chapter ends with 'That was the last breath'  I hoped that things will somehow turn out OK. I honestly thought it was quite risky to do that, because the story was not the same after that character was gone. Maybe it was because I found more similar things in that character than the others. It was sad, but also really really good. Stephen King took the risk with that decision and definitely made a right move.
   So let's get to the part where the book disappointed me. Right until the last page I was biting my nails in suspense and could not wait to see how he is going to explain all that has been happening. But there it was, the last sentense that just left me saying- WHAT? Really? Why???. He just left it there, you never know what happens to the characters and you never know what caused the apocalypse in the book. Quite frustrating, because if you know Stephen King then you know that he will leave you wondering what the hell is happening and then he will have the most amazing explanation that you would have never thought of.
  I don't know, maybe it's just me. I don't like being left to imagine things for myself when I am reading someone else's story. Even in the The Road by Cormac McCarthy you didn't know what caused the apocalypse, but you could have guessed what kind of natural disaster could have been; or a man-caused one, without him even telling you. Also, he vaguely tells you with one sentence that things have changed in time and that there might be hope. Stephen King's the CELL just stops.
  In conclusion, I liked every bit of the book except for the end.
 This is my favourite quote from the CELL.

  'At bottom, you see, we are not Homo sapiens at all. Our core is madness. The prime directive is murder. What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous mother-fuckers in the jungle. And that is what the Pulse exoposed five days ago'
                                                                                               CELL; p.217 

P.S. I just love Stephen King's faith in humanity! His books are like beginners' guides for sarcasm; or How to stay realistic no matter what.

Tales from Afghanistan

  The tales from Afghanistan are not actually written from Afghanistan, but from an Afghan author who lives in America. Unfortunately if he was still living in Afghanistan I don't think he would have been able to publish them. I am talking about the world-wide author phenomenon Khaled Hosseini. His two books The Kite Runner and Thousand Splendid Suns have sold millions of copies and are translated in more than 50 languages. Inspiration for this post is his upcoming book And The Mountains Echoed coming out the end of May. I read his first two book several years ago; I was ashamed of the fact how little I knew about the country and culture of the Afghan people. Most of us know roughly where Afghanistan is and probably their view about the culture is quite negative due to the wars in the past century.  However Khaled Hosseini showed me how beautiful the country was and how peaceful and loving the people were until recent times.
   His first book was published in 2003; a story about two boys Amir and Hassan; a story that brought me to tears more than once. If you haven't read it I definitely recommend it! It is an adventure that you take with the main character Amir and you spend almost 30 years with him. I don't really like saying what the book is all about, I am just going to say that it is worth reading.
 
  His second book was published in 2007 and it is a story evolving around two women. It is about Mariam and Laila's live; living under the same roof and having the same cruel husband they share everything. The difference between this one and The Kite Runner is that Amir manages to leave Afghanistan before the Taliban take over, whereas Mariam and Laila live there during that period. Again, Thousand Splendid Suns is an amazing story that will make your heart care about the people of Afghanistan.

 Khaled Hosseini's new book And The Mountains Echoed is due to come out on the 21st of May.It is going to be a story about a brother and sister.

                                                       I am sure it is going to be beautiful.

 Khaled Hosseini Official Website

My second book

    I started reading books for grown-ups when I was little. They were definitely inappropriate for my age. So the second book I read was called Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. It was around 600 pages and that is alto for a 14 year old. I base this on my boyfriend who is 27 and still struggles to read a 100 pages book about Jedis that is mostly filled with pictures! Anyway, I took on that heavy but enjoyable task to read that big book.

  It was about a family from New Zealand and it starts when the main character Meggie Cleary is only four and it finishes with her death when she is around 60. It is hers and her family's life time story. The book was so long and so detailed that by the end I didn't want to let go. You could imagine spending months ( I say months because at that age a 600 pages were hard to read and you took your time) reading about the lifes of people that the end of the book will be emotional. I cried, closed the book and hugged it; I think I even said thank you. That was the first time in my life when I was so invested in a book; I was heart broken when I character died, I was happy when they were happy; I fell in love with Ralph when Meggie, I wished for better days for the Cleary family.

My first book

  What got me into reading with passion and sometimes even obsession was the curiosity. I wanted to know about the different aspects of life. Some religions believe that you live more than once; the belief in reincarnation. Even if it is true and we live more than once on this earth we are definitely not lucky to remember our previous lifes. Sometimes I have those dreams of wanting to be so many different things, to travel with just my back pack or to cover my whole body with tattoos. The possibilities are endless but the problem is- you have only one life. And let's be honest with each other we are not as free as we think we are to do what we really want to do. So this is when I found out about this other places or more like this other device made out of paper that take you anywhere in the world, sometimes out of it. You can be so many people at once, you can even be an animal. Anything- anywhere.

  My curiosity and thirst for something better, something different and interesting, got me into books. I don't particularly like calling them books, they are like little treasures. Each one of my books counts as a treasure; six years ago I started buying my own books and by now I  can definitely say that I am rich.

  The first time I read a 'grown-up' book was 7 years ago. It was called ' Come easy- go easy' by James Hadley Chase. I found it at my grand parents house, it was left on the couch half open and I started reading from that page onwards; it only took me one night to read it and on the next morning I read it from the beginning to the part I first started. Since than I am sure I have read this book more than 10 times. For a 14 year old girl I wasn't that familiar to what is happening around me, I was just a normal little girl. That book first taught me about sex, relationships, friendships, the power of money, betrayal. For me those were distant only 'grown ups' businesses. How foolish I was. Thanks to books I opened my eyes, I saw the world and the people; thanks to books I am who I am today. 

  I can tell you one thing- your friends might leave, your pet will pass away, sometimes family leaves as well; but books- they are always there and always will be. I have always found my hiding place in them and even till now they haven't disappointed me and I doubt they ever will.