《聊斋志异》

原著：［中国・清］蒲松龄
改写：郝英

农历七月读聊斋，原本想吓吓自己，但故事并不可怕。故事多数是短文，只有我们比较熟悉的如《画皮》，《聂小倩》，《罗刹国》和《陆判》。故事也不尽是在描述有关魑魅魍魉，鬼怪狐仙或魔法道术。我就喜欢有如《细柳》关于教育子女，教人处事的故事。

我并不喜欢这个版本的改写。我知道要从文言文翻译成白话文很难，但这个版本读起来很不顺。若有机会，我会到图书馆找找看还有没有其他的版本，文言文的也可以尝试看一遍。

Relics

Author: Pip Vaughan-Hughes

I used to make it a point to read at least one book a year. This year, a lot of distractions had made it difficult for me to lie down with one. With only December left, I embarked on one chapter a day regiment of this novel that had been on my table for a long while...

I had yet to come across a story set in the Middle Ages, until now. 1235 was a time in Europe which not many people know or care about except for its churches, knights and crusaders. Hence it's a huge credit to the author for bringing 13th Century to life.

Pip Vaughan-Hughes had painted such vivid pictures of medieval cities and towns that one could smell and hear them. And happening among these cities and towns was a conspiracy that caused a monk to be framed for a murder and ran for his life. Chased by a murderous Templar knight, he was offered an alternative life by Fate.

The young monk, Brother Petroc, had only known the clergy way of life: simple and uneventful. Then a Templar decided to change that, and all in the name of relics. Who would have known that relics could be so valuable in Christendom and their worth was justified only by the corruptness of the churches.

Petroc was wanted by the very people he believed to be holy and rescued by those he had known to be evil. He lost his faith in an instant and slowly found reality. This was pretty much the theme at that time and served as a prelude to the Renaissance.

All in all, this was a captivating read with vivid descriptions and realistic characters. I like the ending as it had a great twist that stopped at just the right point. 3.5 out of 5 stars; could be a 4 if it was a bit more sophisticated but it was exactly this quality that made it an easy read.

Google Books - My Library - English

Finally finished tagging my collection of English books. I do notice some missing books; must have lent them out but cannot recall to whom :(

http://books.google.com.sg/books?uid=106296633345556443594&as_coll=1003

Google Books - My Library - Chinese

My library of Chinese books... not many though. You can borrow them.

http://books.google.com.sg/books?uid=106296633345556443594&as_coll=1002

Google Books - My Library - Computing

I have entered my collection of computing books into My Library in Google Books. I guess most are outdated but should be still good for referencing certain concepts. Some I don't mind selling cheaply to collectors.

http://books.google.com.sg/books?uid=106296633345556443594&as_coll=1001

The Alexandria Link

Author: Steve Berry

What if I tell you that parts of the Library of Alexandria has survived throughout the ages? What if I tell you that some of the ancient texts have been saved from the library's destruction in the 4th century? What if the texts contained in the library will change our understanding of history and religion? Will you continue to keep the library a secret or open it to the world?

The idea that ancient texts found in the Library of Alexandria can correct the mistranslation/misinterpretation of the Old Testaments is the premise of this book's plot. Unfortunately, the author has written a spy thriller involving a conspiracy without expanding more on the pseudo-archaeology aspect of the research done. In my opinion, he's trying to write it like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code but falling a bit short.

However, a great credit to the author for including a Writer's Note on the research he has done, which many authors failed to do. He gives clear references to the materials he collected and the places he visited. He indicates the specific chapters where a particular description is either researched or invented.

The theory that the Bible has been mistranslated and that archaeologists have been digging at the wrong sites is not new. I have vaguely heard of it before and it's good to know from the author that Kamal Salibi theorised and even mapped out towns in Saudi Arabia to biblical ones. Sadly the author said "the Saudi government did in fact bulldoze entire villages... ...(and) refuse to allow any scientific digging in Asir."

I am intrigued by the author's suggestion that the mistranslation is politically-motivated. It's definitely a new angle of interpreting the history of the most-contested piece of land.

[Review] The Sky Is Crazy: Tales From A Trolley Dolly

Author: Yvonne Lee

I am rather preoccupied lately so I just picked up this simple read while passing by a book sale outside Plaza Singapura. This book is written by a former stewardess with an international airline (the book cover showed a well-known uniform). She wrote about how she started from Malaysia to flying around the world, stopping at major cities of Asia, Europe and United States. More importantly, she recollected her interesting encounters and captured special tales by her colleagues which we may never know of, flying at 35,000 feet.

She colourfully illustrated the eccentricities of passengers from the economy class all the way to first class, and the additional training and responsibilities behind the smiles. And she put all these in bite-size chapters with individual themes, making it a good book for your trip, be it on the plane or any other transportation. You will appreciate the job of a stewardess that bit more and learn how to be the passenger a stewardess will be more than happy to serve.

She wrote in a lighthearted way, with many funny stories interjected by a couple of sombre ones. Her encounters with the deportation of an illegal immigrant and the pair of children who were sent away for adoption remind us that the person sitting beside you in the plane may have a sad tale to tell and he or she can use your consideration.

Side Note:

I happened to read an article about SIA stewardesses in the Chinese newspapers before I wrote this. It was about a complaint on the English standard of the stewardesses. Apparently, the complainer asked three stewardesses about the availability of empty seats and the replies she got were three "OK"s. She said she manage to get her answer only after asking another steward. Though I give her the benefit of doubt but it seems highly unlikely that three stewardesses could not understand the complainer unless her English is incomprehensible in the first place. I knew of people who tries very hard to use an accent with sophisticated words, being sort of an English snob, where simple English suffice. Nowadays, people juggle different languages and we don't expect them to be masters of English, Chinese, French, Japanese, etc. Anyway, if the complainer's story of the pilot pronouncing "flight" as "fright" is true, kudos to the pilot for making a good joke.

《你的爱情，我在对面》by橘子

我这个人，鲜少读中文小说，更从来没读过爱情小说。前几个星期，我拿起了一直放在书桌上，未曾开封的这本书。它是我两年前在台北的7－11买的。我也不知道我当时为什么会买它，可能觉得书名特别，对故事好奇吧。到今天我才把它看完。

爱情故事，虚构的，既无聊，又离谱。很难相信现实生活中会发生的故事，就是幻想。可是，幻想何尝不是一种渴望。著者会这样写，表示有人还是渴望且需要这种爱情。即使得不到，或觉得不值得有，还是选择相信。我吗？

故事里的女主角，天真兼无知到现在应该找不到这种女生吧。会有人不知道爱谁比较深？不过现代人的确对自己要的是什么都无头绪。看着看着，突然有台湾偶像剧的感觉浮现在脑海里。哈哈，Selina, Ella, 罗志祥，贺军翔。

会看第二本吗？

A poem read off a book...

Magic Word
You may know me
I'm your constant companion
I'm your greatest helper
I'm your heaviest burden
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure
I am at your command
Half the tasks you do can be turned over to me
I'm able to do them quickly, and
I'm able to do them the same every time
I'm easily managed... all you have to do is be firm with me
Show me exactly how you want it done
After a few lessons, I'll do it automatically
I am the servant of all great men and women, and of course
servant of all the failure as well
I've made all the great individuals who have ever been great
And I've made all the losers, too
I work with all the precision of a computer and the
intelligence of a human being
You may run me for profit,
or you may run me to ruin
It makes no difference to me
Take me
Be easy with me and I will destroy you
Be firm with me and I'll put the world at your feet
Who am I?
I am Habit

[Review] Codex

Author: Lev Grossman

Codex is a slow book to begin with (or it may be me that is losing patience lately). It tried to induce suspense but ended up making the story seemed longer than necessary in the first few chapters. However, where it lacked in narrating a good story, it more than made up for with a special story-line and abundance of information on medieval England. The use of an English aristocratic family and the mystery of a long-lost book belonging to this family is fabulous, keeping in line with other novels about ancient artefacts. This book really increases my interest in studying anthropology to learn more about ancient texts.

The story of Codex opened with Edward Wozny, a young hot-shot banker, taking up an assignment to help organise a personal library of rare books belonging to the Wents. The Wents in reality are the Duke and Duchess of Bowmry. However, the organising of the library is only just the beginning of Edward's eventful vacation. In fact, the Duchess was the one responsible for giving him the task in hope that he might find a hidden medieval codex. This codex was written by a Gervase of Langford and the Duchess suspected that it contained a dark secret that she could use to threaten or destroy her husband the Duke. The secret turned out to be scandalous indeed.

Both the discovery of Gervase's writings and the ending of Codex is unexpected. I recommend you this book just for finding these out, along with the secret and why the Duke desperately needs to destroy Gervase's codex. Maybe if I know more about England in the Middle Ages, I could have guess where Gervase's codex was hidden but that would have reduce the element of surprise.

[Review] The Rule Of Four

Authors: Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason

The Rule of Four is a way of hiding a message within a grid formed by another message. It consists of a set of four directions and their distance values. Given a message arranged into a grid and given a starting position on the grid, one can find out the hidden message by following the stated Rule of Four. A point on the grid is a letter and by following the Rule of Four letter by letter, one gets the message.

What is the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili? According to the historical note given in the book The Rule Of Four, it is one of the most treasured and least understood books of early Western printing. Scholars continue to debate the identity and intent of the Hypnerotomachia's mysterious author, Francesco Colonna. Only in December of 1999 did the first complete English translation of the Hypnerotomachia appear in print. Google points me to the Wikipedia site with more information on Hypnerotomachia Poliphili which you can read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili

The Rule of Four is about two Princeton University undergraduates, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, whose lives became entwined because of the Hypnerotomachia. It talked about how their obsession (one as influenced by his father) in deciphering the Renaissance text affected their relationships with each other as well as with the people around them. Their quest to unravel the secret that lies within the ancient book was a long and tedious one that had threatened to stall until the appearance of a long-lost diary. Then what seems to be just an absorbing path to discovery became dangerous when their lives were punctured by a murder of a fellow researcher of the Hypnerotomachia.

The Rule of Four is an intelligent book, with it being based on another extremely intelligent book, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The older book is definitely a work of art in the domain of cryptography. It encompassed techniques such as steganography, ciphers in different languages, and riddles to keys to unlock the hidden messages. The messages were hidden using the method of making the first letters of some words the letters from the plain-text. Understanding this method in fact is how the name of the author is known. The riddles themselves requires in-depth and multi-disciplinary knowledge of Renaissance art, math, and literature. Other suspected methods of encrypting the author's secret messages included using maps or geographical directions though all puzzles ultimately are of the use of words. The encryption is usually two-fold, one for the keys and another the cipher-texts using keys. You have to admire the writers of The Rule of Four for telling one of the best work in crypto-analysis.

The writers also injected many philosophies ranging from Renaissance to their own. It is also one of the themes for the characters of the story relied on their philosophies to decide their paths in life which eventually tore them apart. Friendships are hard to maintain when friends start to drift away from their views on life.

However, to say that The Rule of Four is better than The Da Vinci Code can be an overstatement. Though it excels in the presenting of a fascinating breakthrough and the process involved, it fails in being a thriller. The pace of the story is far too slow. The first 10 chapters are about the background of the two undergraduates and their lives in Princeton. There is also a lot of descriptions of the university that are hard for a non-Princeton student to visualise and leave no impression on a foreign reader like me. The fictional part simply just doesn't add much value to the book.

The book also uses present tense to narrate the story from Tom's point-of-view. I understand that the writers wanted to involve the reader, to make the reader feels like he/she is part of the story. The use of 'I' as the pronoun in the narration makes it as though the reader is either repeating the story or reading someone's diary. However, this doesn't appeal to me but may work for you.

The use of present tense does however serves another purpose. The book contains many flashbacks by Tom and the present tense helps to differentiate the differences in time. But there were still times where I lost track and became confused. IMHO, having a time-stamp on the switch of events will be better for the reader.

So in all, the book is intelligent as well as philosophical. If you have the patience to overcome the initial slow pace of the story, I am sure you will not regret reading The Rule of Four.

[Ultimate Spoiler]
Paul Harris, with the help of Tom and others, managed to decrypt the message hidden by Francesco Colonna and found out that Francesco had hidden a treasure of priceless items in a secret location. The treasure included artwork and literatures by Renaissance artists and scholars of the Italian city Florence. He hid them to prevent the preacher Savonarola from burning them. Savonarola, a fanatic, had burned numerous precious artworks and books in the name of God to purify people's souls. Francesco tried to save as many of Man's beautiful creations as possible from Savonarola. And this is the story within the story of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. As for the Princeton murders of Bill Stein and Vincent Taft, they were committed by Paul's mentor, Richard Curry, to prevent them from stealing Paul's research. Different people in different times but same motive with the same result.
[/Ultimate Spoiler]

I have gotten a new book...

To continue with my "occassional" spending on reading materials, I have bought The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. It has been highly recommended on book review sites and branded as a work better than Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I have read the latter quite a while back but I love it so much that most details in the story are still fresh in my mind. I just hope The Rule of Four lives up to its name. I will give a small review of my own once I am finished with it. Watch this space;

"The Da Vinci Code"

Finished the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown today. It is an amazing read. I am eagerly anticipating the sequel and is positive that it will be just as good.