A Book Review: The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova

"Marriages are like certain books, a story where you turn the last page and you think it's over, and then there's an epilogue, and after that you're inclined to go on wondering about the characters or imagining that their lives continue without you, dear reader.  Until you forget most of the book, you're stuck puzzling over what happened to them after you close it."

~ Elizabeth Kostova

This book is a detective story without the frills and thrills of a typical hollywood mystery or "it" novels.  Each chapter peels a thin layer after another slowly revealing the secrets of the plot and its characters.

My first impression upon reading the prologue is boredom.  But it was nothing of that.  As I continued to read, I became interested in the characters, what made them the way they are.

The first half of this book searches and finds answers on who Robert Oliver is.  The other half explores the mystery of his obsession.

As beautiful as the storyline is how the author wrote it.  She can bring to life the paintings she pictures and the settings she puts her characters in.  She introduces her characters with such skill that readers will understand their insights, feelings, melancholy, and mania.

Overall, this book is timeless.  Might even be a classic.  I would compare the beauty of this book to the quiet morning breeze.  It will take patience to read through it but satisfaction comes in following their stories until the very last page, until the very last word.

I know Kostova's first book, The Historian, is about vampires.  I am repulsed by books that depend on vampires or the paranormal to make it interesting.  But after reading her writing in The Swan Thieves I think I will someday be giving The Historian a try.

Book: The Swan Thieves

Author: Elizabeth Kostova

Number of pages: 607

Published by: Sphere

Price: PHP 299

Available at: Fully Booked

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A Book Review: House, by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker

A collaboration between two of today's best thriller writers: Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker.

The result is...

...a really. scary. book.  I'm a bona-fide scaredy-cat, so, I don't know if other readers will be as creeped out as I was.

House is a story that follows 7 characters trapped inside a haunted house who are forced to play a game imposed by the serial killer, Barsidious White.  While they play along they will have to kill one in their group if they want to get out of the house alive.  As the game progresses they each will face their own fears and the darkness of their hearts.

The reader is taken through twists and turns until you can see the characters for who they really are.

Overall, this book, though creepy, is a lightweight and very good read.  The symbolisms the authors entwined throughout the plot is remarkable.


Book: House
Author: Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker
Number of pages: 372
Published by: Thomas Nelson
Price: PHP 550

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Books First Lines

They say to not judge a book by its cover.  I don't, but, I do judge it by its first lines.

First lines printed on a page.  It can capture or lose readers.  

Reading a good one is like receiving an embrace and welcoming words from a new friend.  Encountering a bad one is like listening to a stranger with bad breath talk gibberish or hearing nails scratching on chalkboards.

Here are some first lines that I find arresting:
"It was love at first sight."
~Catch 22, Joseph Heller

"Woof!  Woof woof!  Woof!  Woof!  

Barking in the night.  Barking, barking.  I shriek but no one answers.  I scream but there's not even an echo."

~Nexus, Henry Miller

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.  My sin, my soul.  Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.  Lo.  Lee.  Ta."
~Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

"In the middle of the twentieth century three men were charged with the task of removing the tension between minute and vast things."

~Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, Lydia Millet

"Who is John Galt?"
~Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand




What are your favorite first lines?

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When History becomes Fiction

There has been news about recalling from shelves and halting publishing of The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths you've always Believed About Thomas Jefferson due to inaccuracies and misinterpretations made by the author.  You can read the full story here.

There are numerous reasons why, if not careful, historians or writers can turn history into fiction.  History is such a gigantic subject.  It is a given that historians tend to be biased on their subject or topic based on their beliefs and prejudices.

But when someone writes history by interpreting it to suit their bias they are then writing, well, fiction.

Also, history has countless points-of-view and the historian is limited to their chosen few to tell the story.  Therefore, it is important to have reliable sources regarding their chosen point-of-view.  But with archives and archives, and books and books of information available, this is not an easy task.

Learning from not so distant past I have no plans of reading The Jefferson Lies.

Have you read this book?

The Secret Wife of Louis XIV.  I picked this up from a discount rack of second hand books.  I was smittened with it until I searched the web for more information on the author and the book itself.

One of the author's secondary sources for this book is The Secret Diary of Louis the XIV.  Sounds intriguing, doesn't it?  It turns out that source is a fiction written by an academic imagining the contents of Louis XIV's diary if he ever had one.  How come the author of The Secret Wife..., who had a critically acclaimed book on a queen of Sweden, did not know this source is fiction?

It is heart-breaking for readers, damaging for writers, and a headache for publishers when a history book that seems promising end as being unreliable.

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Reading List: The Iron Ladies, a 2nd Volume, and Thieves

Next on my list of books to read are:

Golda, Elinor Burkett - This past Israeli Prime Minister fascinates me.  She is the first to be called the Iron Lady.  She has the tenacity of a Honey Bagder, has a delightful charm, and fuses the mind with the heart in the realm of politics.  And according to the St. Petersburg Times review this book is "...a better-researched, better-written biography [of Meir]..."

"Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources.  The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome."

~Golds Meir

The Iron Lady, John Campbell - I became interested in Margaret Thatcher whilst reading the wikipedia page on Golda Meir.  I wanted to know what made her also be called an Iron Lady.  Is she as head-strong as Golda?

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.  Where there is error, may we being truth.  Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.  And where the is despair, may we bring hope."

~Margaret Thatcher

Plexus, Henry Miller - Plexus is the 2nd volume of Miller's Rosy Crucifixion trilogy.  I've read the third volume Nexus and loved it.  I consider Henry Miller one of the best writers I've ever read.

"In my portfolio was locked the key to all human knowledge.  Presumably.  And wisdom, like Winchester, only forty miles away.  Nothing in the world is so dead as this compendium of knowledge."

~Henry Miller

The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova - This about a doctor and a patient.  It is up to the doctor to dig deep to find out why his painter patient refuses to talk.  The story sounds like a mystery of the human psyche.  But it's not only the plot that I find interesting.  I've read the first few paragraphs while in the bookstore.  It is beautifully written.

"Someone is lighting a lantern there, too, bending over the flame, a human form but distinct in the distant window."

~Elizabeth Kostova

In dreams I am reading all these books all together at the same time.  But in reality I'll start with Golda.

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Bastardizing the Classics: Why oh why?

Today's mass market consumerism has affected the literary world as some authors and publishers are riding on the success of literary giants by combining their books with the taste current readers have for the paranormal.

Every time I browse in book stores and see shelves stacked with such books I am filled with awe (not the good kind).

Why oh why, talented authors and publishers of today, have you decided to do this...

and this...

 and this?

Your "co-authors" are dead by now.  They cannot agree or disagree with your actions.  It is unfair.  It is treason.

Talented authors and publishers of today, I am sure you have more creative juices flowing in you.  You can do better than this.  Please labor for genius to produce awesome books that will stand the test of time.


Not only with the undead are the classics being butchered.  Following the baffling popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, the classics has been bastardized for the adult fiction readers.  Shame shame shame.

Anna Karenina

I've read the book a couple of times.  Each time I read I get to see and feel differently for the characters.

Anna is one of those types I would love to hate.  But seeing things from her perspective I felt compassion for her.

Alexei Karenin is the character, who at first, I felt compassion for but in the end disliked.

As for Vronsky,  I hated him from beginning to end.

In the chaos of affairs Levin and Kitty are the only ones who emerged well from their struggles.

And then the movie... trailer.

Doesn't it look dazzling?

I can't wait to see how they will portray all those anti-heroes and how they will interpret the values, or lack of it, that buzz around them.

Have you read the book?  Are you excited to see the movie?

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The Tehran Initiative (A Book Review)

So far I liked all the novel's from Rosenberg that I've read.  All are fast-paced action-packed political thrillers.  It's like reading something from Michael Crichton.

The Tehran Initiative is a fiction novel and sequel to the first The Twelfth Imam.  This book continues to follow David Sharizi's journey to unravel the twelfth imam's plot to destroy the world through war.  It shows three conflicting countries with differing beliefs and points of view.

I personally liked the first book more.  In reading trilogies (which this book is) the second book is often the least I like.  I find it less exciting than the first and last.  Anyway, The Tehran Initiative has suspenseful moments.  Will the nuclear devastation planned by the antagonist be stopped?  How will the characters and three main countries handle high pressure situations?  What will be the consequences of each action they take?

The secondary plot of this story is a love story.  Every now and then this gives the reader a break from all the politics and action.  But the love story, though it softens the plot, is also gripping.

This book concludes with a solution and then a cliffhanger.  The third book is called The Damascus Countdown which will be available later this year.

Have a blessed weekend!

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