The Nine Tailors

A mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, starring her main protagonist, Lord Peter Wimsey. A gentleman with an eye to solving the most improbable mysteries, he draws inspiration from Sherlock Holmes and is assisted by his butler and right-hand man, Bunter.

Stories about Wimsey typically involve a typical old-English setting and a crime occurring in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood. The crimes themselves appear to be simple at the outset (in this case, a fresh body discovered in an old grave) but quickly present many difficulties. With proper British bulldoggedness, and more than an ounce of British humour a la P.G. Wodehouse, he solves the improbable, with twists all the way up to the final pages.


What makes this book interesting is its vivid and technical description of change ringing. The story is set around the Rectory of a small English village and much of the action revolves around the bell-tower, magnificently described. A lot of effort is put into describing the different methods of ringing, as well as the different types of bells and their pitches.

A delightful English mystery infused with a good dose of an obscure topic - good reading with a bedside light on a rainy night.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

I think my sister bought this to read, around the time she bought Mitch Albom's books. They're along the same lines, but a touch more bittersweet. Kim Edward's first novel, by the way, and I'm going to keep an eye out for forthcoming works if this is anything to go by.

A doctor, forced to participate in delivering his wife's babies, delivers twins. However, the girl manifests with Down's Syndrome. Foreseeing a poor prognosis and anticipating his wife's grief, he sends the baby away with his nurse with instructions to leave it at a nearby hospital to be cared for.

Thats the premise. What held me till the last page was the depiction of a family dealing with an unspoken secret. Parallel descriptions of both twins bring up the question: will they meet? Ultimately the emotions surrounding loss come to the fore. Loss of opportunity, loss of loved ones, loss of purpose. Kim has managed to tie everything together, making this a very readable book, and not the emo-fest cum Dallas drama it could have been.

Or maybe I just wanted to see how the story would end.

My Family and Other Animals

This is a delightful book best read in the summer while sipping a cool drink (or, in my case, a tiramisu-flavored bubble tea). While some may recognise the name Durrell from the Alexandria Quartet, this is by no means a complex account of that magnitude.

Written by Gerald Durrell, a renowned naturalist, this book tells of his family exchanging the dust and dreariness of 1930s England for the sea, sands and sun of Corfu. I expected a boring read, punctuated by needlessly detailed accounts of flora and fauna at every turn and was pleasantly disappointed.

From the start, Gerald, or 'Gerry' as his family called him then, engages with the reader effortlessly. Introducing us to his family is done with great description and humour, via instances such as what each family member packed on their move to Corfu. This is carried on throughout the book, resulting in readers commiserations with his long-suffering mother and laughing with him at his elder sister and her frequent train of suitors.

In between the colourful descriptions of family doings, Gerry finds time to describe some of the insect, plant and animal life he observes. He takes us on trips together with his dog, Roger, and together, we explore the marshes for snakes, the walls around his villa for scorpions and the islands around the coast of Corfu for porpoises. We laugh together at the antics of the many pets he brings home; from Achilles the tortoise who 'waddled down the garden path with a bemused look of goodwill' to Geronimo the gecko who fought a ferocious battle with a praying mantis.

Light reading at its best, and a must for plant and animal lovers. Myself being not much of either, it managed to draw me in with the many cheery descriptions of friends and family, a healthy dose of humour, and some of the most engaging depictions of nature I have read in a long while. A book with much in common with Three Men In A Boat.

As a side note, if anyone is interested in getting a copy, try for one with illustrations by Paul Cox, which really bring life to the words.

For One More Day

I feel really soppy now.

I've heard this guy before. Mitch Albom has been praised from more than one quarter among the various ppl I've mixed with. Finding this book in my house when I popped home this summer, I decided to see what the fuss was about. Pretty dangerous, considering this is how I got interested in Harry Potter.

It was well worth it.

The premise is simple. A man on the verge of committing suicide after a wreck of a life, wakes up to see his mother. The only problem: his mother's been dead 20 years, marking the downward spiral of his life.

What would you say to someone if you could have them back all over again?

On hindsight, I suppose a lot of what was written could be called corny and a rehash of some movie or other. But the fact of the matter is, I liked what I read. Simple sentences, nothing complicated. Not pretentious, no cringe-worthy moments, you never get the sense Albom's trying too hard to get his point across. Plus a twist at the end.

A short book that left me feeling good at the end. Not good as in feel-good, but good knowing that authors like this still existed and books like this were still being written.

And I want to read his other books.

HarryPotter (the end of...)

The last Harry Potter in the series. This one had me all excited way before it appeared, to the extent of preordering it (!) and going up all the way to town to collect it the night it was released.

An overnight reading later, and I can say that I'm somewhat disappointed. Possibly being slightly harsh here. I mean, this is the fastest selling book of all time, plus bringing fame and fortune to 3 kids and a 40-something year old lady (hats off to Joanne).

Its different from the other books (and here's hoping you've read them) in that Harry Potter is now on the run. Yup, no Hogwarts, Quidditch, lessons or dodgy toilets to worry about. Instead, we are presented with a older Harry, a couple in the form of Ron and Hermione and a more- actively-evil Voldemort. Chase scenes, spell duels and flashbacks are the theme of this book.

Speaking of which, people DO die here. A lot. Which is somewhat fitting given the grim nature of the book. However many of the death scenes were somewhat perfunctory I felt. Plop, ooh he's dead. That kind of stuff. And a couple of people did die that I wasn't expecting, too.

If you're wondering whether reading the last book is enough, you'd be in trouble. References to the earlier books in the series abound, and the end-story is only going to make sense if you've read (and understood) book 6. Maybe its cos I'm slow, but I only really understood things after reading through the ending twice.

I expected a longer, more fleshed-out story to end the series. In the end, I got a different sort of tale. One that starts off with a bang, which dampens slightly in the middle, and picks up near the end. All the characters from previous books make an appearance, btw. And its good to see the what-happened-to-so-and-so chapter at the end.

Now all we have to do is to wait for the movies, which seem to be getting better and better.

I miss the black and white

Never thought I'd say this, but I miss playing. And this from a guy who loathed lessons and the sight of sheets of classical music from a young age. Not that I'm any good, in fact, I'm probably even more inept from a technical point of view. It's been a while since I've toyed around with scales, arpeggios, 7th and 9th chords and exercising my 4th and 5th fingers, which were always my weakest ones. It's been even longer since I've played any classical music. The latter years were filled somewhat with playing for church, which I also miss.

One of the things I've been semi passionate about

Over the last few years or so: Taking photographs.

I know, I know. It seems a slightly weird statement to make. In the light of today's society, possibly a slightly creepy one too. I mean, a slightly geeky looking guy wandering around with a camera surreptitiously taking the odd shot when no one else is noticing reeks somewhat of.....nevermind.

I guess I do this simply because I personally get a rush of emotions (wow..strong eh?) upon looking at snapshots taken in the past. Even now, looking back at family photos taken when I was in secondary school and when we went out as a family in those days, I still feel warm and tingly all over. The phrase 'brings back memories' really does mean something then.

aND i think its pretty cool to have a way of keeping in some form, a trackback of the times that have gone past. Tell me if I'm wrong, but don't people generally get a kick out of looking back and remembering all the goofy things that used to happen around them in the past?

See? And all perfectly innocent as well..

Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, now he's got an interesting story to tell. Born in 1892 in South Africa to an English family originally from Germany, he would grow up to write The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, the books behind the multiple award-winning movies of recent years.

The man behind the books, has a life mirroring his writings, I discovered recently on wikipedia. As a child, he was bitten by a spider, the effects of which would be written into his stories. And as a sick child, he was treated by a family doctor, who was later thought to have influenced his idea of Gandalf the Grey. And much of the life of Middle-Earth, the universe in which Lord of The Rings was set, was drawn from his interest in English history. Interestingly, this love was also shared by his close friend, C.S. Lewis, who at the time, was an atheist. Tolkien's devout Roman Catholic faith, it seems, was instrumental in the conversion of C.S. Lewis to Christianity, birthing one of the most prolific writers and thinkers of the Christian faith.

Tolkien even entered the war with the British Army, which provided a first-hand experience for his writings. The love theme between immortal elf and mortal man in his stories was also mirrored in his love for his wife, whom he waited 6 years to declare his love to, after advice from his Catholic priest.

The other stories he produced are not easily found for mainstream readership. Leaf by Niggle, and Farmer Giles of Ham are two of his more well-known works, the first an allegory to the ultimate pursuit of purpose in life (it reads better than it sounds!) and the second, a comic folktale parodying an ancient kingdom under attack from a ferocious dragon.

His first major novel, The Hobbit, was apparently written for his own children, but C.S. Lewis urged his to publish it. And as a sequel was requested, Tolkien began work on the Rings trilogy.


This was the first set of 'real' books that my father got me to read. I still remember the set of grey-bound volumes, dusty from having shared top shelves with the like of The Lost World, The Secret Garden and The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Reading it, I thought it was boring to begin with, having just graduated from the Enid Blyton masses. The fellowship's trek through the Mines of Moria was my favourite bit in those days. Even now, reading the scene where Gandalf reads aloud from the journal detailing the destruction of the dwarf colony by the orcs still sends shivers down my spine.

I would go back again and again to read those books over the next few years, each time rereading bits that previously I'd thought boring. In this way, the world of Middle-Earth took on new form and seemed to grow bigger with every rereading. Even now, I think the world Tolkien created has no comparison with any other fantasy world I've read about. From new languages to a complete history of the lands, complete with family trees and accounts of characters' forefathers, the Lord of The Rings was pure genius, even to a 16 year-old hoping to make it through secondary school unscathed.

I'm glad that the movie was such a hit. Sure, the characters were fleshed out slightly different to my imagining of them, but Peter Jackson and his cast really brought the book to life. However, my love for Tolkien's work is something else altogether, something I know will remain and will manifest itself everytime I go back to read it. Wow, that was deep.

***

I generally don't express strong feelings in my blogs, I've noticed, so this post surprised myself too.

The impossible has happened

We've been waiting for this a long time. By 'we' I mean the gaming community the world over who experienced the visceral combat, tasted the grittiness of post-nuclear survival, laughed at the in-game jokes, scratched our heads while deciding whether to free the slaves or walk away from a potentially dangerous battle with the mutants and grasped at Fallout Tactics as a stopgap measure to fill the void previously left empty.

After Fallout 1 and 2, many were left waiting for more. Now, the waiting has been justified.


I recall joining an online poll asking that a sequel to Fallout 2 be made. Left a comment saying that even if it was a flop, people would still buy it to try it out, so there was no way it would be a futile venture. Or things to that effect.

Now we not only have Fallout 3 to look forward to, but yesterday, another long-awaited sequel reared its head.


Starcraft was a fiendishly difficult game for me. I remember being so frustated upon reaching the final stages that I'd just type in the cheat codes to see how the ending was like. And now they've made a game that looks good, while retaining everything that made the original Starcraft brilliant; the cutscenes, the intricately balanced units which said funny things when clicked, the sci-fi setting and the reliance on resource management.


The first night I got the original Starcraft to run, the first few games, about how a futuristic human civilisation investigated, then struggled to fend off a mysterious alien threat kept me enthralled. Playing chess with a giant scorpion, or listening to a mole-rat's plans to take over the world kept me playing Fallout 2 late into the night during my pre-uni years.

Here's hoping both Fallout 3 and Starcraft 2 can recreate their magic.

Chicken on a can

It looks a bit strange...but I assure you its easy. Chicken on a can, aka beer-roasted chicken is a recipe I borrowed from my cousin's website. When I announced my decision to follow through with this dish, my housemates' main concern was that the beer can wouldn't fit. Thankfully the beer can fitted fine, as you can see. And with a marinade of cinnamon, pepper, chilli and some other stuff, the skin had a pretty interesting flavour. It's a good thing our oven was big enough.

Anyone who's interested in the recipe, feel free to check it out!