Return to a Sexy Island

I first met Neil Humphreys in person at my junior college quite a few years ago. Sadly, I can't remember what he was there for because I don't think it was purely a book signing session. As I had lessons, I asked my friend to help me get his signature in my book. He wrote, "Dear (my name), you have a great friend!" Typically him.

I have read every single book of his relating to Singapore and it was purely by chance that I bought his newest book when I was browsing in Kinokuniya. I was actually pretty sad when he left Singapore for Australia 5 years ago because I enjoyed reading his columns in ST. (Now, John Lui is my favourite columnist in ST because his articles are hilarious.)

If you cannot entertain the thought of profanities staring at you or suggestive material peppered throughout the book, Return to a Sexy Island is not the book for you. But if you have the ability to look past that, I think it's a great book for Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans alike. He does a pretty good tour of places in Singapore you wouldn't have seen on the map five years ago and the funny incidents that happen because he is an angmoh. Admittedly, I think his previous books were slightly more entertaining but this does not remove the shine of this book in any significant way.

On a more serious note, I think his stories over the years, starting from his shift to Singapore to his shift to Australia and back to Singapore again, are really fascinating. They speak volumes about a foreigner who manages to assimilate himself well into the society, someone who appreciates a country which prides itself on her people and lastly, someone who doesn't complain "Eh Singapore got nothing to do lah. Only watch movie and shop."

For fear of sounding like National Education, I'm going to quote his book anyway because I think many of us can identify with it. (Disclaimer: This is not representative of the style of his book which has lots of humourous anecdotes.) But here's it:

Australia is known affectionately as the "lucky country", but there is nothing lucky about Singapore, nothing at all. Its success derives wholly from human endeavour, resoucefulness, productivity and knowledge with an overwhelming, almost disturbing, emphasis on education and filial piety." 

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The Glass Castle

Just from the title of the book, The Glass Castle, you probably couldn't guess why it is titled so. This is the memoir of Jeannette Walls' which is so incredulous, sometimes you wonder how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. The thing about memoirs is that memories may get a little hazy due to the passage of time, or simply that, some things can look very different from different perspectives. 

(photo credit: The Turning Page) 

To many, Walls seems to have grown up in a highly dysfunctional family- an alcoholic father who is somewhat treated like an idol by Jeannette, a mother who only bothers about her lofty artistic dreams, two other sisters and a brother. The way the kids grew up was a little unimaginable- so unimaginable that it's actually surprising that the children are thriving today. Having to rummage through the dustbin during their breaks, having their mum steal the food when they already have that little, having over flowing trash in their yard because they couldn't afford garbage removal services, having their money saved up to go New York stolen by their father etc. 

And here's why it is titled Glass Castle. Jeannette's father always promised to build a glass castle for the children and he was a very powerful storyteller. Telling Jeannette and her brother that they had to dig a hole so that they could lay the foundation for the glass castle, only to have the hole later filled by trash, could be telling of why it is called a Glass Castle. Filling up dreams with lies and impracticality is probably what her Dad does best. 

A good read although being skeptical, I wonder how much of it is real because too many episodes happened when she really young. Despite this, overall I think it's a well-written book that will capture the heart of the reader. 

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Cannery Row

Actually, I didn't intend to read this book. But fate had it such that when I was combing the shelves of the library for another book, I saw the words staring at me: Cannery Row. Wasn't that the book that the tour guide repeatedly mentioned on the tour in San Francisco?

This book is thin. That's nice to know. Exceedingly thick books give me a headache. 

Before I continue, the following quote is the one I like most in the book. I actually memorised the page number so that I could retrieve the quote (instead of folding dog ears or writing in the book in pencil- this is library property).

“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”

This book has a mish mash of characters: Lee Chong (a Chinese grocer), Doc (a marine biologist), Mack and friends (a bunch of guys of laze around), Dora (who owns a brothel) and other random characters. Unlike other books which resolve unknown questions along the way, this book doesn't. It leaves your imagination open by intentionally leaving the plot loose.

Elements of fact and fiction are aplenty. Many of the places described in the book are actually real places in Cannery Row, such as Lee Chong's Grocery which is Wing Chong Market and Doc's laboratory which was Steinbeck's good friend's (Ricketts) laboratory.

I won't elaborate further because the internet has tonnes of sites analysing this book, the characters in it, and how the circumstances in that period of time led him to write this book. But if you are feeling like you need a book that will allow you to question without necessarily giving you an answer, this is it. 

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Fast Food Nation

I haven't watched the movie based on the book Fast Food Nation. But if you are interested in watching the trailer, click here. I'm not embedding it within the post because its movie rating is R (Restricted). But to balance the views in the movie, here's a video titled "A Tour of McDonald's Meat Factories". I will then leave you to your discerning mind where to place your trust.

 

I always wanted to read this book and finally got my hands on it. It's no surprise that we are surrounded by fast food, but one thing I realised is that Singapore actually has a very heavy concentration of McDonald's, as opposed to US. When I was in the US, I was surprised to find that Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks were a lot more prevalent than McDonald's. Instead, McDonald's was more often seen along some random highway or next to a gas station. 

More about this book. Ever since I read Eating Animals, I have taken an interest to the source of our food and the processes involved before your food reaches the table. There are similarities and differences between this book and Eating Animals. While they both discuss the ill treatment to animals (in different depths), they have different focuses, as you can gather from the titles. 

A favourite quote I enjoyed was this: "If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years," Fujita once promised his countrymen, "we will become taller, our skin will become white, and our hair will be blonde." 

This book explores various aspects of fast food, from the history of McDonald's and Carl's Jr, to the way advertisements target children as their audience, to the way the fries are made, the cattle is raised, low wages, extremely dangerous working conditions, a total lack of concern for the diseases that spread through unhygienic working conditions and how politics has a hand in everything. Basically, Schlosser paints a very grim picture of the fast food industry.

This book didn't really affect my eating pattern. As the years passed by, my intake of fast food has decreased. Except for the occasional pancakes from Macs, I haven't eaten my favourite childhood food- McNuggets for quite some time. And I don't have any humanitarian reasons for this. It's just that the more information I have about the food, the more I want to shun it.

(photo credit: cupofzup)

As for Schlosser's writing style, it gets a little boring after a while. For example, to emphasise the age at which people are tormented by fast food in some way, his standard sentence goes like this, "(something happened to the guy.) He was (insert number) years old." I know this is a very minor point but it got on my nerves a little. Other than that, it seems well researched. I base this on the humongous amount of references at the back of the book but I know sometimes, it isn't representative.

The ideas behind the book are interesting although different people may have different preferences for his method of delivery. The first part of the book bore me because it was about some history and I'm totally not a history person. But other than that portion which you can speed through, the rest of the book should offer a good glimpse into the world of fast food. 

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Cutting for Stone

This is the period of time where I do nothing, but sleep, eat, read, eat and sleep. Life's fulfilling in a way, but it won't be for long, whether fortunately or unfortunately.

I bought Cutting for Stone more than a year ago and finally sat down to read it. The thing about thick books is that they don't really appeal to me. My writing style is, if you could put it in one sentence, don't bother putting it in ten. Then again, when it comes to fiction, the additional adjectives could paint a much better picture.

Warning: The first 1/5 of the book is incredibly descriptive, incredibly boring. Now that I've stated that outright, I'll say: The remainder 4/5 of the book was simply captivating. Before delving further, I'm sure this book would appeal to doctors. I totally know how people of different professions love books that describes their profession- because they can identify! Now, if you are a doctor or medical student, I'm sure the medical jargon would not escape you.

I'm sure those who are not doctors and happen to be reading this blog will be wondering, why is it titled Cutting for Stone?

Buried somewhere in the book, it states that in the Hippocratic Oath, one of the lines are "I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art." It is by no coincidence that the surnames of the main characters are Stone, and the fact that this story is very medical-based.

Summary
This book is about two twins who came to this world by the union of an Indian nun and a British doctor. The nun dies during labour and the doctor, unable to accept the fact, disappears. The twins are brought up by two other doctors in the hospital and the twins eventually become doctors. The events in Ethiopia caused the twin's "adoptive father" to land in jail for a brief period of time, and later results in Marion Stone (one of the twin brothers) to escape to US. Shiva (the other twin brother) and Marion are inextricably linked and yet have very different characters. Towards the end of the book, many things start falling in place (not providing the spoilers here!)

Thoughts 
The first thing I thought after reading this book was, please don't make it into a movie. Upon googling, it seems that there are plans to make it into a movie. The thing about making books into movies is that you destroy imagination. But ever since it became a New York Times bestseller for so many weeks, you know its fate has been carved in stone.

That aside, Verghese makes it clear through his writing that he has very sound medical knowledge and can also write well. He makes you keep all the questions you have as you keep reading and answers all of them at one swoop towards the end. This book is for those with patience as things may get a little dry when he tries too hard to paint his characters. Sometimes, he also gives very vivid description of the surgeries or diagnosis so that if you were a medical school student, you would probably put your Sherlock Holmes hat on and feel pleased about getting it correct (assuming you identified it correctly!).

(photo credit: Joanne Chan, NY Times)

This is a good book, as long as you can get pass all the verbose. Beautiful writing nonetheless and a well-developed plot.

“The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.”

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Same Kind of Different as Me

I purchased Same Kind of Different as Me, a New York Times Bestseller more than a year ago, as a Christmas present to myself. After all, it had received good reviews from Amazon, B&N and Good Reads. So, being the lazy and superficial reader I was, I ordered the book after viewing the top few good reviews plus a description of the book.

Summary: It's a true life account of Ron Hall, an international art dealer, and Denver Moore, a "modern-day slave", and how they got to know each other through a mission home. Ron's wife, Deborah, always felt that Ron had to know more about Denver and they formed an unlikely friendship. Denver, through the Halls' support, started his spiritual journey. (that's Denver in the middle and the Halls on the right)

(photo credit: Book's official site)

Good stuff: Unlike The Help by Kathryn Stockett that made me a little confused on who exactly was talking after a while, there were only two characters narrating their story and it's pretty to easy to differentiate based on the writing. It's also an honest account, as seen from how Ron Hall was willing to talk about his fling with a girl during his marriage or his suspicions of Denver on many occasions. It's also a touching account which talked about Deborah's struggle with cancer, where quoting Hall, "she ran out of strong".

Some good writing and worthy quotes. This one is where Ron asks Denver if they can be friends.

“I heard that when white folks go fishin they do somethin called 'catch and release." 

Catch and release? I nodded solemnly, suddenly nervous and curious at the same time. 

"That really bothers me", Denver went on. "I just can't figure it out. 'Cause when colored folks go fishin, we really proud of what we catch, and we take it and show it off to everybody that'll look. Then we eat what we catch...in other words, we use it to sustain us. So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all the trouble to catch a fish, when when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water."

Not-so-good stuff: The description on the book cover states that this story is about "a modern-day slave, an international art dealer and the unlikely woman who bound them together". And it goes on to say that this book is "gritty with pain and betrayal and brutality". I find this description slightly inaccurate because Denver was not a modern-day slave, but rather a homeless man. Brutality? Maybe, depending on how one would want to see it. Just a small note, there have been extreme views on this book, especially because religion is a very strong theme in this book. Read some of the reviews if you want to have a better idea on what you will be looking at.

Interview: An interview with the authors, if you are interested. And apparently, this is going to become a movie. What's up with NY Times bestsellers becoming movies all the time now?

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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

If you have a tiger mother and you have no idea what to buy for her this christmas, get your hands on Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, wrap it up nicely and give it to your mother. But this is only on the precondition that you are sure that she wouldn't treat it as a guidebook and starts dishing out the antics of Amy Chua one by one on you. If what she does surpasses Amy Chua, then get her this book to subtly tell her  to go easy on you. 

This is a very relaxing and easy read. It talks about different characters in her life, including her husband, her in-laws, her two daughters, her parents and sisters and her dog. And of course, the spotlight is put on her two children, Sophia and Louisa (Lulu), who are portrayed as they are under some dictatorship of sorts. So, they are not allowed to be in a school play, choose their own curricular activities, not play the piano or violin (or rather, to excel in it) etc. 

The publication of this book brought to the front issues of parenting between Asians (using this term very loosely) and Westerners. An excerpt of this could be seen on the Wall Street Journal Article, Why Chinese Mothers are Superior. Well, for all the disparaging comments that this book has gathered (mainly attacking her, not her writing), it needs to be emphasised that this is not a parenting book. It divided parents into two camps- the Amy Chua and the anti-Amy Chua camp. 

At the end of day, whichever camp you belong to, just treat this with a pinch of salt. It's afterall just meant to be an entertaining read! 

p.s. Came across the youtube link below and it was pretty amusing. I added this here, perhaps as a justification for Amy Chua's methods. For a person who threw a birthday card back to her daughter as it was poorly drawn, I'm quite sure she would not have allowed any of these reactions to happen. 

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We Need to Talk About Kevin

After reading this book in a few days, all it gave me was a headache. Don't get me wrong, the prose was beautifully written. But sometimes too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and this happens to be one of them. The book is thick, probably because Lionel Shriver tries very hard to drive home the point that Kevin is nothing but a disaster. At the same time, she tries to paint his mother (or Mumsey), Eva, as a person who sees nothing good in him, and his father, Franklin, who appears to be very much deluded. She also later has a daughter, Celia, who is someone Eva treasures a lot, partly due to her need to communicate with someone.

Well, if I say anymore, there may potentially be spoilers, which will definitely ruin the read, especially since the surprising bits only appear towards the end of the story. To put it in a nutshell, Kevin is some teenager who went on a high school massacre. He has displayed traits of a sociopath since young, where Eva is adamant that he is just evil and Franklin denies Eva's suspicions, leading to a subsequent crack in their marriage. This book is a series of letters written by Eva to her husband.

To quote Eva, "You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good."

Plenty of quote-worthy material in Lionel Shriver's writings- beautiful. But unfortunately, as though she was drawing in circles, she could have skipped a few parts here and there and it would not have made a difference. I speed read through the middle because it got a little dry and dreary. Content wise, I'm not sure if this reflects the personality profile of a high school shooter in reality. But, in all, I think one of the prevailing themes is, of all the concerns that parents have about having kids, who ever thinks that one day their kid might be a murderer? 

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Three Cups of Tea; Three Cups of Deceit

I wrote this blog post about Three Cups of Tea a pretty long time ago, more than 2 years ago. Below is an almost exact review done for Three Cups of Tea (with slight grammatical changes) because sometimes it just doesn't do justice when you try to refresh your memory and risk distorting some facts. I'll then compare this against Three Cups of Deceit.

Three Cups of Tea (3 August 2009)

I read this book almost two months ago, but the message that this book brings across is still strong and fresh. In fact, it opens your eyes to many things that we neglect, in the war against terrorism- not everybody is a radical, that many of them crave for a chance to get an education, that many of us get without any effort. It's education that will transform the minds of the students.

The author is a true hero, who braved extremely dangerous places, during dangerous times. Despite this, he trudges on, with the meagre amount of money that he had raised, selling all his belongings, to fulfil his promise of building schools. The hospitality that the locals showed to him as an appreciation of his tremendous efforts was also a display of fierce loyalty to him.

From a mountaineer who failed in an expedition, to someone who is actively involved in raising money to build schools in these impoverished areas, he is truly one capable of overcoming the highest peaks in his own conquer of life's challenges. An inspiring read.

Three Cups of Deceit (1 December 2011)

I bought this book for three reasons. 1) It was sold at $6 at Border's closing down sale. 2) I enjoyed Jon Krakauer's Banner of Heaven. 3) I thought it will be quite interesting how somebody I thought was inspiring turned out to be a cheat.

Of course, I think it's important to have an open mind and not conclusively decide whether before or after reading the book whether Mortenson was or was not a cheat. There are many things that we are not privy to and coming to a conclusion without the necessary clarifications probably isn't the best way to go.

Anyway, more about this book. I found Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven to be a wonderful read, not because it was thrilling or anything. But because I had a very strong sense when reading it that he puts a lot of effort into research. Of course I can't vouch for the authenticity of his research, but at least it seems that he knows his stuff (Note: His non-fiction works have been criticised to some degree). And it provided a great insight into Mormon history, but that's a story best left to another day.

By the way, just a tip, you can probably avoid paying so much money for such a thin book by clicking on this link, which gives even more updates since the book got published. But it might be a great cause to buy the book because the proceeds go to the "Stop Girl Trafficking" project.

Basically, Krakauer tore Mortenson's story apart and found flaws with his stories. And it is how, using Krakauer's words, "Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way". In the book, he  painted Mortenson as a person who was unwilling to account to the Board of Directors for the money donated to the Central Asia Institute, who increasingly did not care about the real goals of what he set out to do, and only cared about his public talks and the money that was rolling in. He spun his own stories in order to lead people to believe that he was a person who was willing to take risks for the greater good of human kind.

I have to admit that I can't take a neutral position because I tend to find Krakauer's case more convincing. I'm reluctant to deviate because I had hoped so hard that Mortenson was someone special in our midst. In any case, I think we are used to seeing initial humaniatarians or people with good intention turn to the dark side because of the lure of money- Is there such a thing as pure goodness? 

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The White Tiger

"The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor- they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor. "

Aravind Adiga's brand of wit shines through the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner, The White Tiger.


Receiving rave reviews, this book is a clear winner right from the start. It had left me captivated the minute i read the first page, igniting contained laughter, for fear of being mistaken as a lunatic. The sypnosis of the books describes the "writer" as a complicated man, who's a servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer.

It was peppered with wit throughout the book, and at times, dark humour. You could probably pity Balram's master, who treated Balram with much kindness, but suffered a fate that one didn't think that he was deserving of. But, the point is, at some point in time, the sympathy somewhat fades away when you realise that this is a true reflection of what is really happening in India. The caste system, the corruption, the poverty levels, the education levels. While it is a rising country with an incredible economic development the last decade, some problems just remain rooted. Looking at how the Slumdog Millionaire's child actors got evicted from their slum homes, it's just mere proof of the economic condition.

In view of such an economic condition and wide divide between the rich and the poor, one can't help but to empathise with Balram, who basically fixates himself on the mindset on to each his own. He can feign his piousness for his religion just to get into his master's good books, pinch a few pennies here and there, and the ultimate was his Master's ending, which he did not deserve, till we realise that Balram was once betrayed as well.

This book is written with incredible wit and beneath the layers of dark humour, lies a reflection of a true society, one that is divided by castes, by corruption. Beyond the rapid development of the country, this exposes a story of rich people who become richer and poor people becoming poorer. And to break out of this vicious cycle, the only option might just to be ammoral. Ironic really, how after he breaks out of his poverty, he starts thinking like one from the other league. And it goes on and on. A vicious cycle.

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Is there No Place on Earth for Me?

I bought this book as part of a necessary read for one of my courses. It was to understand what it was like to have schizophrenia. It's a pretty old book, but the relevance of it does not fade with time.

Sylvia Frumkin was a highly intelligent girl whose mental condition began when she was a teen as a result of her parents’ high expectations and denial, and possibly misdiagnosis and mistreatment at several junctures.

A keen admirer of actors who was acutely aware of her surroundings when she was feeling well, Frumkin's thoughts were lucid, which make people sigh at how mental illness can torment a person to such an extent. As visitors of other patients in the book noted, they had forgotten for a while that they were in a mental institution and “had wondered where [Sylvia’s] brilliance might have led her if her illness had not led her there.” She constantly heard voices and responded by changing religion fervently, as fervently as changing her mental institutions and running away from the institutions.

Sylvia tried hard to find a place in society but her mental condition prevented her from doing so. To quote her, “mental illness is worse than cancer, the suffering doesn’t have an endpoint.” It wasn’t as if she did not want a normal life. She wanted it so badly and remarked to a friend that, “when you know all those things exist for other people but not for you, sometimes it’s very hard to endure the not having”.

The author, a journalist, chronicled the life of Sylvia Frumkin, by following her and observing and talking to her, to note down her monologue. Normally gibberish, one could not follow Sylvia’s train of thought when she was engaged in a monologue.

Susan Sheehan also spent a period of time with Sylvia in the mental institution, in the bed next to her, so that she could write about Sylvia’s life. Her dedication and extraordinary level of journalism had led to the book winning the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction. Her writing style is direct and clear, although towards the end it became almost too predictable what Sylvia was going to do that it was almost repetitive. Nonetheless, the author wrote with great precision and has given the reader a clear insight to the life of a schizophrenic and the emotional upheavals that her family and those around her experience.

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Eating Animals

After reading this book, I stopped eating meat for three days but that was about it.

Not to be mistaken for a bad book, this book was in fact very well researched and backed up by credible research. It does not preach about vegetarianism, but it lets you make your own informed choice after learning the truth about the industry. Foer manages to present facts in an objective manner, coupled with his own experience in trying to sneak into animal farms to see for himself the level of cruelty engaged in farming animals. That's honestly quite some courage, because who knows what the farmers might do to him if he gets caught. If farmers can kill a cow that way... you draw your own inferences.

The book left me uneasy at times, and sometimes I just had to stop reading because the images conjured in my mind, based on his descriptions was gruesome beyond words. The process of slaughtering animals, the manner of rearing them, the processing of the animals all prove that they are bad- whether for you or the animals. Foer also discusses about the mutation of animals because of human's indulgence, which invariably caused diseases such as H1N1 to reach the human population. It also changed my idea of how all along, I thought it was just land animals that were being harmed. I didn't know that fishes could be the subject of all these harm too.

It's a great book for those who need the tipping point to push them over to vegetarianism and for those who have no idea what's happening in the animal farming industry.

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