(267) Pole to Pole by Palin

If you are an Agatha Christie fan, do you know that she actually wrote Murder on the Orient Express in Room 411 of Pera Palas Hotel in Istanbul?

Apparently Warner Brothers wanted to make a film of the missing 11 days in her life, you know it was when she disappeared but was found in a resort under her husband's lover's name. From consulting a medium, the room was searched on 7 March 1979 and a rusty key was found under the floor boards. Sad to say, the hotel President demanded an exorbitant sum and Warner Brothers refused to comply. Therefore, her diary for that period is still locked somewhere and the key to access that was in turn locked in a safe to safeguard the Hotel's interest.

I was fascinated reading this account on pages 98 and 99.

(265) Chaos in Death by J.D.Robb

This series is written by Nora Roberts under another pen name.

I must say that I prefer to read her in her romantic genre. In Chaos in Death, I detected a modern version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The writing is of course Nora Robert smooth, yet somehow it does not sound original. A commercial success, no doubt! I probably would not purchase and keep any one of  the 39 books listed.

Yet to be fair, if you choose to pay 35.90 of my local currency you do get an entertaining read.

(254) Himalaya by Michael Palin

I happen to have an elder brother who continually buys and reads travel books and then generously passes them to me.

This is one book which describes places that I wish I could go. But of course I have not the financial means to travel to such far off the beaten track countries. Even if I have a sudden windfall that solves the money angle, I do not have the necessary mobility to tackle mountain paths.

It was a happy few days that I spent living my armchair traveling through Palin's eyes. I particularly want to visit Bhutan, the country with clear, clean air that is still made up of many acres of virgin temperate forest.

One day I might just go and visit a few friends who live in Kunming and add on a side trip to Lijiang. With really cheap fare offered by Air Asia, dreams do come true!

(236) Broken Children, Grown-up Pain by Paul Hegstrom

For my readers who have followed my blog, you would know that I have the privilege to listen to 4 women in pain for the past 19 years.

I primarily saw them as former sufferers of learning disabilities. Which probably was not too far off the mark! Well! In the above book the author proposes the theory that when children went through trauma before the age of 13, they might have what was called arrested development and then they remained as children in certain areas of their lives until their minds are renewed by God.

The first lady I spent a fair amount of time listening to did not want to change her paradigm, she merely wanted to keep looking for new people to pay her sympathetic attention. The second one came to accept her troubling marriage as something she would rather keep than dissolve, she also increasingly prayed about things and issues that bothered her. About that time I moved away from Silver City.

The third one was Zelda. It was marvelous how God was gracious to her. He was restoring to her the locust eaten years of girlhood. I guess she would have to delve deeper why she has an anger problem that seems somewhat disproportionate to the incident that trigger the emotion.

The fourth one was the one whom God miraculously reconciled with  her ex-husband. Well! I suppose they would still have issues and hurts to settle for a while more. But there is nothing God could not accomplish if they only allow Him to.

This is a book that every people worker should read. I think in our imperfect world there are many people who are walking around with crippling hurts that dated back from their childhood days.

(198) Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

From history, I know of Spain warring with England for colonies. But it is with this book I learn of the difference between pirating and privateering.

Crichton writes interesting books based on scientific theories. I well remember how impressed I was with The Andromeda Strain. This is the first of his that I read that is historical. A lot of research and imagination must have been through to result in such a piece of work. Somehow I felt a little disappointed with Pirate Latitudes.

(195) Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper

I enjoyed reading this book as I did Da Vinci Code, knowing that it is a work of fiction. My son Kenneth said that he would not pay for this book. In any case we borrowed it from his cousin, therefore it did not cost us a cent to obtain it.

From my fairy tales days as a mum borrowing books for my young children, I have come across the superstition of a seventh son of a seventh son being a wizard. Well! I haven't some across one, have you? With very small families in our cities, it is difficult to find a seventh child, let alone a seventh son! The idea of the monastery management forcing young girls under their care to be impregnated so that they can gather more scribes to document the birth and death data of the world is frightening!

As such, information like that belong to God. Would the forces of darkness be able to access such data? I choose to think that only God the Father alone knows when the end of the world is. It cannot be 2027 as recorded in any novel.

(189) Book of Secrets by Chris Robertson

Out of this book, I enjoyed the different portions of the Black Hand. Either the author managed to find different stories of the same theme from different centuries, or he creatively wrote them in different styles.

As to the three individuals who could travel through time, they sounded like angels. But they seemed eminently modern in the way they talk. I rest in the premise that people read to relax and to escape from a mundane life, hence fantasy and science fiction are popular. Just like fairy tales, there is not much point for anyone to apply logic to analyse them. The ending seemed dangling, he managed to obtain the book of secrets, but did he manage to write the article he set out to research? After that, what is he going to do with the book? If I could provide my choice of the ending, he would auction off the book, then he need not work for an extra day in his life. If he enjoys writing, perhaps he would write as a hobby.

(188) Guardians of the Key by Clio Gray

In a wave of books that seemed to be related to relic and icon, this is interesting as it involved Italy and England. Yet somehow it was rather difficult to follow, I have some difficulties in determining between the ancient past and the immediate past. It was much easier, for instance, reading 187, 186 and 184.

Europe is one continent that I did not have a chance to study its geography and regional industry in detail. I have always thought of China as the center for silk production. Though we learned in history that silk worm and mulberry cuttings were taken out of China and brought to Italy, I did not envisage an Italian town involved in silk production as well as a portion of London dedicated to embroidery and sewing.

It is unthinkable that two households could be tortured and killed for a shawl which contained some information embroidered on the edges. Yet people have been killed for something much less! My sons have been talking about the young lady who was raped and assaulted in New Delhi who passed away in Singapore. Mabel, though a fictional character, was lucky that she had Stroop to look out for her.

(187) Shattered Icon by Bill Napier

Here is another book that touches on ancient religious icon. Prior to reading Da Vinci Code after hearing all kinds of attacks by all types of well meaning Christians, I did not even know the meaning of icon. I did read of the Holy Grail in Robin Hood as a teenager but did not know what it was until I accepted Jesus as my savior and hung out in church circles.

Before this book, I have read another book written as a boy conscripted to work on a boat in the 1500s. I worked tediously through another that talked about the Roanoke settlement that was abandoned. This book supplied a good explanation to the Roanoke mystery. I have read about the Spanish Inquisition. But I did not link the animosity of British versus Spanish in the high seas until I read the word "auto-da-fe". I cannot imagine such barbaric acts like flogging until a person dies nor could I associate hanging, cutting one's male organ off and opening the bowels before the prisoner dies. It sounds as barbaric as the ancient Mongols.

If you are not already frightened by my statements, perhaps it would be interesting to read this book. Life was certainly harsher and harder in those days of sailing compared to our modern comforts.

(186) Pyramid by Tom Martin

This is one book that convincingly threaded together quite a number of ruins flung over the entire globe and gave a good reason how the ancients could perform superhuman feats in building huge structures with no modern technology.

Here in the book, the conspirators are known as the Corporation. One hero and one heroine somehow managed to save the day by globe trotting. They happened to be both young and good looking. Of course there was romance brewing! How else an author could con women into buying expensive paperbacks all over the world. Just like Dan Brown's best sellers, the main characters are academics from famous universities.

Nonetheless, I still think it is a good read, well worth my time and losing some sleep over finishing it fast.

(184) The Codex by Douglas Preston

An entire batch of books came from my brother. These were meant for my children. But as things turned out, I would be reading them first.

Whether Preston meant to or not, his book could be bought and given to people who are either enemies or strangers to their siblings. Perhaps if such recipients were to read this book, some of them may contemplate that blood is indeed thicker than water.

I learned quite a few new obscure facts from this book that was set in the US and then Honduras. The book was written to entertain and inform the readers about the Amazon basin and the foothills of the Andes. I have enjoyed a good description of the Cloud forest, hills that experience cool weather and yet receive lots of rainfall which translate into passing clouds that obscure visibility.

Not that I have ever bought any novels as Christmas presents, if my readers are in the habit of choosing books as Christmas or birthday gifts, this would be a good one (especially for those who like adventure, geography, family dynamics, happy endings ...).

(180) Executive Orders by Tom Clancy

This is a very thick (1273 pages) book. The main idea is to have the newly appointed Vice President who did not get elected by the electorate promoted to be the President of the United States after a disaster that killed 80% of the elected government.

The trait that the new president has which distinguished him from all the others is that he hates politics. Since he was not elected, he never accepted a single dollar campaign fund. For once, America has a decent chance of having  a bunch of efficient and non-corrupted officials.

I find the first part very interesting with a working First Lady and a toddler in the White House. However, when I moved to the part of warfare with Iran-Iraq, things became heavy. I could no longer keep track of names of combatants, advisers, countries, intelligent officers ... Well, if I am studying it for history, I would have created a table of notes to keep track. For leisure reading, I chose to skip certain parts that hold no interest for me. Kind of a waste not to read from beginning to end! Clancy is certainly a big picture author.

(165) Shall We Tell the President by Jeffrey Archer

This is the third book in the series: Kane and Abel, The Prodigal Daughter and Shall We Tell the President.

Florentyna Abel Kane was a most unusual woman. She was the only offspring of a pair of Polish immigrants. Her dad became the proud owner of the Baron Hotels chain worldwide, one rags to riches story. She met the son of a banking millionaire and married him despite both fathers objecting. Eloping to the West Coast, she became a success selling women apparel on her own merit.

Archer seemed to have a record of twisting the tale. He allowed the younger Kane to die in a car accident. By the time Florentyna was the Vice President, she was in a comfortable relationship with her long time admirer Edward Winchester. She seemed to have married her old friend before she moved into The White House as the Chief of the nation.

The chapters of this rather thin book were action packed and believable. I agree that it is better written than The Day of the Jackal. Apart from Jackie Kennedy, I can't seem to think of any other beautiful and influential woman with ability, wit and brain enough like the first fictional Polish descent American President.

(127) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It is rare to hear death talk about his job of gathering souls. Death was very busy in Germany during the Second World War. Since I was not enthusiastic about history and I have not seek out books to tell me more about Germany around that period, this book is an eye-opener.

I suppose it is futile to wonder why some people die during the war and others don't. The book thief's father, mother, brother, foster mother, foster father and best friend died earlier or in the bombing. Miraculously, she survived. Obviously the higher power dictated that she lived on to get married and have children.

Looking at statistics, one in seven adults in my country has diabetes. Similarly, one in seventeen adults here has cancer. Even for those who escaped these two diseases, they would die at some time due to some fatal ailment. One would sooner or later die, how would that came about seems immaterial. It is how we live, how we make use of the resources available to us that matters.

(120) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

An abridged version of Jane Eyre was used as my literature text in Grade 8. Now that Elizabeth is collecting the classics using her pocket money, I read the original book for the first time.

I agree with Joyce Carol Oates, who wrote the introduction, that in having Jane marry Rochester is a triumph for the service class. Most novels written before that time championed marriage between people of the same class or with money. To be valued for brains, character, personality traits and not fortune ushered in a new era.

It is interesting that even in those days, orphans were brought up with education and not trade training. Yet for someone like Jane, without a teaching post or a governess placement, she was worse off than a lady's maid.

(94) Best of Me by Nicholas Spark

Spark wrote well. But I was a little taken aback with his plot. Suppose if Cole did not die, his beloved would leave her husband of twenty over years and break the family up. I know things like that happen everyday in every part of the world where women have the legal right to sue for divorces. Yet somehow it would not fit in with my view of Spark's style of writing romantic novels.

Of course it ended well, there is closure. I know Cole died instantly from a head shot. He managed to save the Doctor's adult son from a certain death by Cole's kin. A life for a life! Even if Cole killed the Doctor in a car accident, he had been feeling the guilt all his adult life even after serving a maximum prison sentence. On top of all these, Cole's heart gave a second lease of life to his beloved's first born son. The story could not end any better. Just after the widow told him that there was no longer need to send her any money, he spent the last few minutes of his life saving her only son's life.

For those of us who are not wired like Cole or his mentor to love deeply, passionately only once in life, it is still quite an experience to read about a similar tale to the mute swan, who mates for life and would stay alone always if the partner for some reason died before its time.

(91) Shoeshine Boy by Jeffrey Archer

At the end of reading this story, I think of the British dry sense of humour and the stiff upper lip.

To think, once the British Empire was extensive enough that at any time, the sun would be shining on one or another of the many British colonies. If any politicians were to be offered the honour of becoming a Governor of one of the colonies, people would not normally refuse the appointment.

However, it was one thing to be called Your Excellency, it was quite another to be living in a decaying humongous mansion and driving an old car and have a staff of two. Ted and Hazel must have been one hardy couple who could adjust to adverse conditions in their twilight years like any adventurous colonial officials. While I was reading this tale, I could just picture in my mind the funny scenes of acquiring a full complement of house hold servants, lots of crockery and putting up a charade worthy of entertaining a royal, ex-commander in chief and ex-Admiral all rolled into one.

I suppose things of this kind can only happen in Britain, being able to keep up appearances of having colonies when it no longer make any financial sense: hence there was no budget for keeping the Governor or figure head in style.

(90) The Black Circle by Patrick Carman

-Book Five of the 39 Clues-

Amy and Dan Cahill flew to Russia. There, the plot thickened. Their grandma knew the mother of NRR (the person who sent them a telegram and furnished them with forged travel documents, disguises and a credit card).

At the site where the last Russian Royal family was killed, they found a file where their parents' passports showed that they went to many parts of the world in search of the 39 clues.

This round, they formed a temporary alliance with the Holt family. Working together, they beat the clock and found the fifth clue. It is amazing that four individual Cahills a few centuries ago produced hundreds of thousands descendants who lived in many parts of the world.

(88) Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson

-Book Four of the 39 Books-

This book is set in Egypt. Ten years ago, I heard that middle class Singaporeans rushed like bees to the land of the pyramids. Lately, some of my more well-to-do friends are visiting the Nile valley.

Amy and Dan Cahill flew to Egypt . There they met an old friend of their grandmother, Hillary. Hillary and her nephew helped them in many ways. Interestingly, both of them helpers conspired to steal a priceless statue from the Cahills. Hillary was resentful that her deceased good friend did not remember her in the will. The nephew was aghast that they carried such a priceless item around with them simply because of a sentimental reason.

What their lawyer said is true: trust no one while on the hunt for the 39 clues!

(87) The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis

-Book Three of the 39 Clues-

Here we find Amy and Dan Cahill in Japan. Finally their au pair could not help them in translating. The Cahills hooked up with Alistair Oh, their Korean uncle.

Sabotaged by Ian and Natalie Kabra, Amy and Dan were separated from their au pair temporarily. Hunting around the topic of Japanese swords, they met Yakuzas and were the targets of shuriken (ninja throwing stars).

From Japan, they traveled to Korea to seek for the final battle ground of a Japanese warrior with Cahill blood. In looking at the various old books collected by Alistair Oh, Amy Cahill placed one torn page over a parchment they found. The two fitted together into a map that Alistair could recognize.

As soon as a clue was unearthed, the Kabras double-crossed the rest of the group and left them to rot in the hidden cave. By wit and speed, the Cahills managed to escape once more.