The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

(272 pages)



Leo Gursky is a man who fell in love at the age of ten and has been in love ever since. These days he is just about surviving life in America, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago in the Polish village where he was born Leo fell in love with a young girl called Alma and wrote a book in honour of his love. These days he assumes that the book, and his dreams, are irretrievably lost, until one day they return to him in the form of a brown envelope.
Meanwhile, a young girl, hoping to find a cure for her mother's loneliness, stumbles across a book that changed her mother's life and she goes in search of the author. Soon these and other worlds collide in The History of Love, a captivating story of the power of love, of loneliness and of survival.

This was an unusual and touching book, which once I got into i really enjoyed. Leo was a fantastic character, and I also loved Bruno... but who was he??? !!! It is the type of book that you want to read over and over just to see if you missed something the first time :)

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Chorderlos de Laclos

(400 pages)



The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make this text one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win. This translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able a judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about the kind of world we ourselves live in. David Coward's introduction explodes myths about Laclos's own life and puts the book in its literary and cultural context.

Being such a massive fan of "Dangerous Liasons" and the modern "Cruel Intentions", I felt that I ought to read the book they were based on. Unfortunately I found it very hard going and extremely difficult to get into. Because I knew the basic outline of the story, I was able to persevere, and did eventually quite enjoy it, and I am glad that I read it, but it isn't a book that I would want to read again.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

(436 pages)



Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher. Because he was only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York. Telling the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault? Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing these horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.

i found this quite difficult to read, but once I had got into it I did find it quite gripping. I am very glad that I have read it.

The Feline Mystique by Clea Simon

(256 pages)



Part history of a species, part personal memoir, and featuring a healthy dose of wry humor, Clea Simon's The Feline Mystique shares the tale of her particular cat (Cyrus) set against a backdrop of interviews and statistics on cats throughout the world. Smoothly blending mythology with modern stories of dedicated feral cat rescuers, feline fanciers might bond with this book as tightly as they've bonded with their own wee beastie.
The focus is relentlessly female and a happy counterpoint to urban myths and ancient folk tales about lonely women and their up-to-no-good pets. Simon walks us through her initial bond with a young kitten, through the warm years of record-clawing, arm-kneading, keyboard-walking, veterinarian-terrorizing cat companionship, and leads us gently through the sadness of parting with a beloved animal. You won't find practical tips on health care or soapboxes about the problem of strays in the city--just page after page of individualized love and fascination. From Norse goddess Freya and her flying cats to references of a study done on the annual kill of an outdoors-living housecat to an interview with Barnum and Bailey's female tiger tamer, each detail helps construct a solid picture of the multifaceted relationship possible between a woman and her cat.

Whilst being the doting owner of a lovely moggie, I am admittedly more of a dog person. This book however has managed to turn me to why my little one acts the way she does and why I lover her as I do, and finally convinced me that i am not insane by thinking she is talking tome.... SHE IS!!!! A very hard book to describe, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

(256 pages)



Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone in feeling discontent. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, and a perverse distaste for the pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress - Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.

i had a really hard time with this book. I just managed to finish it, but I can't say I enjoyed it. I found it really disturbing and very scary that someone so long a go could've come up with ideas like Huxley did, that are now part of our reality. Very Scary!!
I am glad that I read it though.