Book Notes: Lunatic Express

The Lunatic Express by Carl Hoffman

- Now I needed to do something huge, to jar myself out of life - and that was what long journeys did best. There remained so much I still wanted to know and see in the world, and I hoped that I might come home with fresh eyes.

- Books sweep you up, take you away, transport you. 

- I wanted to look into every boat, every house. I wanted to touch each person, to taste every meal, to open up and slip into each like a suit of clothes. But I couldn't. The world was too big. Too diverse. There were too many languages and not enough time; it was easy connecting with people like families in first class. We had a shared language, technology, worldview. We all loved prosciutto and Picasso and lying on the beach in the sun and sitting with friends in a cafe. But to pass the days with poor was something else. I sat up, gazed into the darkness. We slid past a boat with no lights at all, just a black shadow, it's gunwales underwater, the dim outlines of figures standing at the stern. The deeper I pushed, the harder it became to know them, the more ignorant, curious and powerless I was. Each was a world unto its own that I could glimpse but never know. 

- But it wasn't hopeless. It wasn't the end. Every moment we had the choice to forgive ourselves and try again. And suddenly I didn't to run anymore; I wanted to be those people  on trains and ferries on Buru, lying in tangled piles, holding hands  instead of running. Travel - my journey - was showing me what I wanted, craved, giving me perspective for the first time in seven years. 

- But how can you not live that life, taste that taste, after you've had it? 

- It was time to go home. Time to complete the circle. Travel was only worthwhile when your eyes are fresh, when it surprised you and amazed you and made you think about yourself in a new way. You couldn't travel forever. When you stopped seeing, when you lost your curiosity and openness to the world, it was time to return to your starting point and see where you stood. In everyone, I suspect, lay a tension between the need for otherness and home. We all want security, we all want adventure, the familiar and the new always jockeying for control. 

- To be known, to let your guard down, was scary; how ironic that so many of us fled instead, that we didn't allow ourselves the very thing we wanted in our deepest souls. The lure of foreign countries and cultures has always been escape, but also transformation, redemption, discovery. 

Eat, Pray, Love - The Movie

Reading this novel in 2008 was a gentle push to tick a what if box off. I'm looking forward to the movie adaptation, Aug 13th.

To Read Or To E-Read?

I see A TON of people reading as a way to shut the world out in my daily commute. More and more e-book readers are in their hands. The most popular model I see is the Kindle by Amazon versus the Sony Reader.

Now, category killer Barnes & Noble released nook.

Sleek. I want one.

But, I'm lukewarm about the idea of not having a tangible book in my hands when I go on I'm a bookworm mode. I like the feel and smell of the pages. I like turning them. I'm guilty of dog ears. I want my wall of books!! With a ladder and all.

To read or to e-read? BOTH!

Book Notes: Influence

From Influence by Ashley / Mary Kate Olsen

- " I think that creativity is not something you calculate. It sounds very pretentious to talk about it like that, but I ultimately think that if you're creative, you can apply it to millions of different things; it doesn't really matter what you ultimately do with it. And today's creativity, because of the pace people create for the ones who do anything, has to be multitalented and multitasked. "
-----Alexander de Betak, fashion producer

- " Andy (Warhol) really believed in work, and I think work will save everybody. I think the sooner you can figure out something you like to do and get into it the better
-----Bob Colacello, fashion journalist

- " You can't question those things. I would never question anything - like, who cares? There's always tomorrow. One door closes, two doors open. "
-----Franciso Costa, Calvin Klein creative director

- "It's always a little bit of the same in the sense that I am inspired by women and I design to inspire them. I love women. I mean, I love men too, but I respect women so much. I think women are so strong, so interesting, so resilient, all of that. I was lucky because I became the woman I wanted to be, through fashion. And therefore while I was becoming that woman I was giving other women the tools to be the women they wanted to be. That's what turns me on. "
-----Diane Von Furstenberg, fashion designer

- "Knowledge. It's the most important thing we can do. More important than personal love, more important than children, more important than money. It's the most important thing we can share. I want to be a wise woman. I didn't want to be a rich woman or a married woman or this woman or that woman. I wanted to be a wise woman. And everybody laughed at me when they saw it in the paper. They thought I was being pretentious. But I was real. I still want to be one. I guess they thought our wise women were little crones who lived in the woods... They were wrong. Wise women are beautiful women who've experienced a lot and have a lot to give back just with words.
-----Lauren Hutton, model

- " What makes a woman chic? When she doesn't represent anybody else. When she is just herself. Chic is when a woman is in harmony with herself. I hate everything that is artificial bullshit, in a direction that is not you, that you're pushing to be someone else. "

" I love timeless things and I think art i something really timeless. I don't like trendy things. I like to work on style and not on fashion."
-----Giambattista Valli, fashion designer

Book Notes: The Beach House

From The Beach House by Jane Green

- That nothing in this world happens without a reason. That we are all exactly where we are supposed to be, and that the pieces of the puzzle have a tendency to come together when you least expect it.

- Isn't it ironic, she thinks, just when you think your life is smooth and everything is exactly as you want it, a wrench is thrown in the works and everything changes again.

- This feels utterly new and utterly familiar at the same time. It feels right... like coming home.

- Everything does, indeed, happen for a reason. Sometimes it's just hard to figure out what the reason is.

- For heaven's sake, find out what the matter is. You know as well as I do, my dear, that the key to a good relationship is knowing how to communicate. Everybody argues, everyone has misunderstandings, but you have to know how to get through them, not to let resentment build up until you can't find your way back to one another.

The Sartorialist Book

Out August 12th.

Now I know what I want for my birthday.
(photo credit: thesartorialist.com)

Book Notes: Buyology

From Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom

- As we have seen again and again, most of our buying decisions aren't remotely conscious. Our brain makes the decision and most of the time we aren't even aware of it.

- But despite what we are now starting to learn about how our brain influences our buying behavior, there is still much more yet for scientists to discover. I believe that our national obsession with buying and consuming is just going to escalate, as marketers become better and better at targeting subconscious wishes and desires.

- Remember the more stress we're under in our world, and the more fearful we are, the more we seek solid foundations. The more we seek solid foundations, the more we become dependent on dopamine. And the more dopamine surges through our brains, the more we want, well, stuff. It's as though we've climbed aboard a fast-moving escalator and can't get off to save our lives. Perhaps George W. Bush knew a little something about the brain - when asked what Americans could do to contribute in the fearful, unsettled days and weeks after 9/11, he replied with a simple monosyllabic: "Shop."

- The alternative? A world in which you face the onslaught of advertising with a better understanding of what drives and motivates you, what attracts and repels you, what gets under your skin. A world in which you are not a slave to the mysterious workings of your subconscious, nor a puppet of the marketers and companies that seek to control it.

- So be mindful.

Book Notes: The Tipping Point

From The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell

- When people are in a group, responsibility for acting is diffused. They assume that someone else will make the call, or they assume that since no one else is acting, the apparent problem isn't really a problem.

- Your friends after all occupy the same world to know that you do. They might work with you, live near you, and go to the same churches, schools or parties. How much, then, would they know that you wouldn't know? Your acquaintances on the other hand, by definition occupy a different world than you. They are much more likely to know something that you don't. To capture this apparent paradox, Granovetter coined a marvelous phrase: the strength of weak ties. Acquaintances, in short, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances that you have, the more powerful you are. We rely on them to give us access to opportunities and worlds to which we don't belong.

- The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost. We have, of course, an instinctive disdain for this kind of solution because there is something in all of us that feels that true answers to problems have to be comprehensive, that there is a virtue in the dogged and indiscriminate application of effort, that slow and steady should win the race. The problem, of course, is that the indiscriminate application of effort is something that is not always possible. There are times when we need a convenient shortcut, a way to make a lot out of a little, and that is what Tipping Points, in the end, are all about.

I Missed Reading + SUMMER!!

I've read nothing but textbooks since January. I'm not complaining though as I find the subject matter really appealing. Studying fashion topics doesn't feel like studying at all. It's different though when you read at your own pace. The bus ride to and from DC gave me time. It's detox week for me too, I've been at it with the drinks everyday since my last final Monday. I can't wait to start my internship next week. It will be short but hopefully be very sweet. Regardless of what they do with me, I will make the most of it even if it would mean reading what I'm photocopying.

I feel that the summer holidays this year will mean more to the American population. The mood the past couple of months has definitely not been the cheeriest because of the recession. I do sense it's lifting though. Cheers to the memorial weekend and the start of a new season!!

All You Need To Be Impossibly French

Saw this on Amazon while looking for Paris travel books. I was intrigued, katuwaan lang. Anyway,my ten point summary of the book would be:

1. Be effortlessly stylish (magdadamit ka na lang din, ayusin mo na)
2. Move as much as you can, whenever you can (no need for formal exercise)
3. Wear good, matching lingerie (oh diba?)
4. Embrace aging (di na daw kailangan ng surgery/botox)
5. Do put your best face forward (be willing to try some make up and anti-aging creams)
6. Be careful of girlfriends (parang paranoid sila)
7. Eat well (para daw to also stay slim)
8. Feed your brain, be smart (have a valid role model, read)
9. Don't be accessible. ("Elegance is refusal" - Coco Chanel)
10. Be an all around woman, but delegate if you must (career, family)

Be like the French or not?

The End of Fashion by Teri Agins

I really get a kick out of reading books on the fashion industry. This one gives you an idea how much fashion has since changed when it was mass marketed. I found the section on the Ralph Lauren vs. Tommy Hilfiger war particularly entertaining. They had the same trusty hair stylist who leased one of RL's spaces so TH inevitably had to suck it up and go there. Apparently he got "lost" when he was found wandering around their offices/store.

Book Notes: The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch w/ Jeffrey Zaslow

- "All right," I said. " That is what it is. We can't change it. We just have to decide how we'll respond. We cannot change the cards that are dealt, just how we play the hand."

- When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and ant to make you better.

- The second kind of head fake is the really important one - the one that teaches people things they don't realize they're learning until well into the process.

- Don't complain, just work harder --- Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.

- Watch what they do, not what they say. --- My colleague told me: "It took a long time, but I've finally figured it out. When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do."

- If other people owe you an apology, and your words of apology to them are proper and heartfelt, you still may not hear from them for a while. After all, what are the odds that they get to the right emotional place to apologize at the exact moment you do? So just be patient.

-...emphasize how sensitive you need to be when crossing from one culture to another--- If you can find your footing between two cultures, sometimes you can have the best of both worlds.

Gone

The Last Lecture professor Randy Pausch gone...

I read about him somewhere and was really curious. My coworker lent me her copy at the beginning of this week. I couldn't put it down. Today, we find out he's passed on. We couldn't get over at the timing. Now his book will speak to it's readers even more.

Eat, Pray, Love

A coworker lent me her copy. I devoured this book in three nights. I have found another favorite author. I'm going to get my own copy one of these days. There's sooo much you can take away from it.

I've classified it under Travel because that's how I felt reading her work. Like I was traveling with her to Italy, India and Indonesia.

Book FAQs:
http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/faq.htm#FAQ10

"attraversiamo"

Book Notes: The Witch of Portobello

From The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho

- Life, however, had other plans - when fate is very generous with us, there is always a wel linto which all our dreams can tumble.

- Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

- Suddenly for a fraction of a second, we feel that our whole life is justified, our sins forgiven, and that love is still the strongest force, one that can transfrom us forever.

- But at the same time we feel afraid. Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. It means loving the deepest sense of the word. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.

- It isn't like that with love--- it arrives, moves in, and starts directing everything. Only very strong souls allow themselves to be swept along.

- Music isn't just something that comforts or distracts us, it goes beyond that --- it's an idealogy.

- When the pain abated--- and time is the only cure for that --- I saw that life had allowed me to meet the one woman I would ever be capable of loving.

- But time, as well as healing all wounds, taught me something strange too; that it's possible to love more than one person in a lifetime.

- So I'd prefer to accep my loneliness. If I try to run away from it now, I'll never find a partner again. If I accept it, rather than fight against it, things might change. I've noticed that loneliness gets stronger when we try to face it down but gets weaker when we simply ignore it.

- Try to feel good about yourself even when you feel like the least worthy of creatures. Reject all those negative thoughts and let the Mother take possession of your body and soul; surrender yourself to dance or to silence or to ordinary, everyday activities- like taking your son to school, preparing supper, making sure the house is tidy. Everything is worship if your mind is focused on the present moment.

- Don't try to convince anyone of anything. When you don't know something, ask or go away and find out. But when you do act, be like the silent, flowing river and open yourself to greater energy, Believe --- Simply believe that you can.

- Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh, Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

This book reminded me of a CNN special on the plight of Afghani women called Beneath the Veil. I can not fathom what these women go through. Putting on make up is an act of defiance.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/index.veil.html

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
http://www.khaledhosseini.com/

Yay For Fforde

I met Jasper Fforde!!! After months of waiting, I finally met him. I'm a huge fan of his work. Ever since somebody recommended his Thursday Next book series, I've been hooked. By the time we arrived at Partners & Crime ( a cozy little bookstore on Greenwich Ave.) for his book signing he was already in the middle of his speech. His new Nursery Crime Series was recently launched so he was discussing and reading out parts of that book. He was super funny. I find his humor very, very entertaining. He was cracking jokes, poking fun at his work and The Da Vinci Code. Haha! =) He said that the best advice that he could give any aspiring author was to include "Da Vinci" in it's title. It took him years and years before his work got published. It was being rejected by so many publishers. Luckily, his agent found somebody. The main plot is quite difficult to explain so his agent basically just wrote a note "Don't ask! Just read!" to the publisher and sent a manuscript. How else would you describe that the lead is named Thursday Next, has a pet dodo named Pickwick, had a time travelling father, can jump in and out of literature meanwhile investigating the kidnapping of Jane Eyre in his first book The Eyre Affair. That sort of became their marketing strategy. Just read it!

In the Q&A portion, somebody asked why there weren't any Chapter 13s in his books. He said that it wasn't out of superstition, he just thought it would be fun and he could use it as literary alley ways for him to exploit when he pleases. He also explained his interest in Nursery Crimes. What wit!?! I can't help but agree that most Nursery stories are indeed Nursery crimes so he decided to write books about them. Just how did Humpty Dumpty fall? Nobody ever bothers to ask why... (The Big Over Easy) Why did Daddy and Mommy bear sleep in separate beds? There must have been a fourth bear involved. (The Fourth Bear). What on earth is going through his mind??? haha!

Some of my hardback books already had his signature on them and when I requested him to dedicate it to me. He was amazed that I had those!!! So he signed them again with dates so my books now have two signatures from him. There was even one where his signature was in all caps which he says he never does anymore so that copy should be really rare. He stamped the books with this quirky "Eat more toast", "Nursery Crime Division Evidence" etc... and gave me limited edition post cards.

I'm glad I went! I would have missed SO much if I hadn't!!! That was my very first time to go to a book signing!!! If what I posted all sound so foreign/alien, read the series!!! Be prepared to be taken away... I'm starting The Big Over Easy tonight!!!

Book Notes: Man and Wife

From Man and Wife by Tony Parsons:

- " But how did you and Dad do it, Mum? How do you love someone for a lifetime? How do you make a marriage work for all that time?"

My mum didn't even have to think about it.

" You have to keep falling in love," she said. " You just have to keep falling in love with the same person."

- " Does it change? As the years go by, I mean. Should I expect my marriage to be something different to what it was at the start?"

My mother smiled.

" It changes all the time, it never stops changing. When you're young you say - I love you because I need you. When you're old it's - I need you because I love you. Big difference. and I'm not saying that one is better than the other, although the second one tends to last a bit longer. But you never stop loving each other, Harry. Not if it's real. " She took my hands. " Look, Harry. Talk to her if you want to. Talk to Cyd. Tell her what's been happening. Talk to your wife if you think it will help. "

"But I don't know if I can. See, I want her to be proud of me, Mum. The way you were proud of Dad." I squeezed her hands. "And i want you to be proud of me too."

" I'm proud of you already," said my mum.

- That's how fragile all this is, as gossamer thin as a spider's web, as intricate and fragile as that, meticulously built but easily torn apart by a few cruel, casual blows. My parents' marriage looked like it was made of sterner stuff. My mum and dad genuinely believed that they couldn't be happy with someone else. And I knew that wasn't true for me. I could have been happy with Kazumi. Just as Kazumi could find the human bond we all seek with some other man. And just as Cyd could have found someone else to love her. That didn't make what I had with my wife feel like nothing. In some ways the knowledge that either of us could survive without the other made what we had seem even more precious. We stayed together because we chose to stay together.

In a world full of choices, we chose each other.

Read, Invent & Bite

I've seen The Series of Unfortunate Events movie adaptation thrice. The first time with my bf and the last two with my family on DVD about two weeks ago. It reminded that I should really get around to finish reading the series. I only borrowed the books from my bf's cousin then. I should be on Book 4 now if my memory's right or maybe I should just start all over again. I know, the books aren't for my age but they're too quirky to pass up! They're sooo easy to read too! You can finish a book in less than 2-3 hours! HA! I love how the book is hardback and tiny with uneven pages! =)

YAY!!! July 16th is coming! We're closing in on the uber long wait for HP6. I wish Ms. JK Rowling would write faster! I'm too impatient to wait for years!!! They sure do know how to make a cult following out of it. Anyway, my sister-in-law just sent me a website for Potter Parties . We're hoping to go!!! It should be interesting with all the activities they have scheduled and to see people in Potter costumes. I'm hoping my work schedule on the 16th is after lunch so I can sleep in. I'm too much of a sleepy head to function properly when I don't complete at least 8-10 hours of sleep.

Speaking of all these Book Series. I'm also into Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next Series. It's super fun to be lost in the world of this unconventional literary detective. It's where you'll encounter actual characters book within a book. - did that make sense?- He has a book signing scheduled in New York this August for the launch of his new book The Big Over Easy. It's a whole other series again. Again, I hope that my work schedule will let me go!

Another series that I'm interested in starting is that of Charlaine Harris' . My sister-in-law recommended it to me and I'm curious. With all the series and non-series books I want to read, I really need another, make that two extra pairs of eyes. My vision is spiraling because of my crazy reading bouts. Sometimes, I read two books at the same time because I just can't wait. Is that even productive? Will I fully appreciate both books that way? Ewan... Last night, I couldn't sleep; not because I couldn't, but I was sooo engrossed with Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. I must have slept at 4AM!!! Now, I'm light-headed. Anyway, I just have to continue with the book right this minute so PERIOD

Book Notes: Norwegian Wood

From Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami:

- I was impressed anew by the variety of dreams and goals that life could offer. This was one of the very first new impressions I received when I came to Tokyo for the first time. The thought struck me that society needed a few people - just a few - who were interested in and even passionate about map making.

- Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.

- "That's why I read them, If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking..."

- "I don't know, it's stupid being twenty," she said. "I'm just not ready. It feels weird. Like somebody's pushing me from behind."

- How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts to a person like this is truly marvelous. Of course, once I do put them into words, I find I can only express a fraction of what I want to say, but that's all right. I'm happy just to be able to feel I want to write to someone. And so I am writing to you.

- I know this will sound strange, but when I look at the people around me during a game, they all look equally deformed.

I said this one day to the doctor in charge of my case, and he told me that, in a sense, what I was feeling was right, that we are in here not to correct the deformation but to accustom ourselves to it: that one of our problems was our inability to recognize and accept our own deformities. Just as each person has certain idiosyncrasies in the way they think and feel and see things, and though you might want to correct them, it doesn't happen overnight, and if you try to force the issue in our case, something else might go funny.

- " The most important thing is not to let yourself get impatient," Reiko said. " This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to figure it's going to be a long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time.."

- Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself alive. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to get hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. Life is like that. .... I'm just a powerless and imperfect woman, but still htere are times when I think to myself how wonderful life can be! Believe me, it's true! So stop what you're doing this minute and get happy. Work at making yourself happy!

Needless to say, I do feel sorry that you and Naoko could not see things through a happy ending. But who can say is best? That's why you need to grabe whatever chance you have for happiness where you find it, and not worry too much about other people.

- "I'm scared," she said. "So scared, I could go crazy just like that. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, flung out here all by myself." She Paused. "But 'Go crazy just like.' Kind of a cool expression, don't you think?"