We have a winner for Monica Holloway’s Cowboy and Wills contest: Congratulations to Ms. Vivian See. I am heartened by the fair number of emails that I received for this contest, including entries that came from abroad.
However, there is only one prize. I will be contacting the winner via email.
The publicist for the above book, Cowboy and Wills, written by Monica Holloway contacted me back in November last year and send me two copies of the books for reviewing. As I was quite occupied the past few months, I did not get the chance to go through the book till a few weeks ago.
In summary, the book is about an autistic boy (Wills)’s extraordinary relationship with his pet dog (Cowboy). The book is written by the boy’s mother and you can feel her love for her son, browsing through the pages as she document the bitter sweet experience of bringing up a special boy with special needs.
Getting a pet dog for Wills changed him for the better as Cowboy helped to overcome the boy’s fear of crowded places among others.
An autographed copyRachel and I reading the same book together
It’s the kind of motivational book that will inspire and cheer you up when you are going through a rough patch in life. Not exactly my favourite genre, but still accessible.
Since I have two copies of the book, I am running a small contest on this blog to give away a copy. If you are interested, email me your name, contact number and the answer to the question below to alvinologist@gmail.combefore 25 Mar 2010:
There’s a caste system, even in murder, begins the book.
Vikas Swarup‘s Six Suspects is a fine detective novel that delves into the rich and multi-layered society of modern India. A rich millionaire-murderer has been murdered, there are six suspects – who did it? That in essence is what the book is about.
Each of the six suspects represent a different caste in Indian society, from the slumdog handphone thief to the Bolllywood actress to the retired corrupt politician to the millionaire’s dad himself to the redneck American to a tribal native.
Each of the suspects have a intriguing story to tell of how they wound up at the scene of the murder and each will have their own reason to want the victim murdered.
I finished reading the book in one sitting. The story was just too arresting. It keeps you turning the pages, anxious to find out who committed the murder.
The ending did not disappoint. In fact, there was a twist to the ending which I won’t reveal so as not to spoil the story. If you like detective or mystery novels with a contemporary social setting, Six Suspects is a must-read.
Vikas Swarup, by the way, also wrote Q&A, the book which was made in the multiple award-winning, blockbuster movie, Slumdog Millionaire.I read both of his books and frankly, I find Six Suspects much better than Q&A. If it gets made into a movie, I will definitely go catch it. 🙂
This is a must-read for technology and Internet geeks like yours truly.
Little Brother is written by Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing, one of the world’s most popular group blog. Cory is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization (Cory actually put up the entire e-book version of Little Brother for free download HERE!).
As a result, common themes seen in his works such as digital rights management, file sharing and leftist politics were weaved into the storyline of Little Brother.
In summary, the fiction book details the story of cyber-rebel, Marcus in his fight against an oppressive state.
Marcus is only seventeen, but he figures he already knows how the state system works and how to work the system for himself. Attuned to the networked world, Marcus has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive surveillance systems as well as other state surveillance apparatus.
However, Marcus’s whole world changed when he finds he and his friends caught up in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew were arrested and whisked away to a secret prison where there were interrogated as terror suspects.
When he was finally released, Marcus discovers his city had became a police state where citizens are all treated like potential terrorists. That is the point where Marcus decided to take on the government. Thus the quest began where the geeks are the one who save the world, not the macho men.
Story aside, the book provides many insights on Internet-era civil rights that I were not aware of previously. There were also many sharp jabs made at excessive state surveillence – something that is happening worldwide, post-Semptember 11.
If you are someone into anti-establishment literature, David vs Goliath storyline, granted, with a technological twist, Little Brother will be ideal for you. 🙂
The Uninvited (不速之客), by Geling Yan is a fiction book, with the story set in contemporary capitalist China. The protagonist, Dan, is an unemployed factory worker who lives with his simpleton country bumpkin wife, Little Plum in a squalid suburb in Beijing.
By a chance encounter, Dan discovered that by posing as a journalist at corporate events, he can eat gourmet food for free. Thus the birth of the uninvited “Banquet Bug“, Dan.
This other life as a fake journalist leads Dan down a twisted path and ensnares him in a government scandal. Dan evolves in character from a simpleton who is satisfied with just having three meals to eat a day to one who can now see through the ugliness of capitalism, government and corporate corruption.
The book gives a harrowing portrayal of capitalist China and the displacement felt by suburb dwellers in the modern cities, often neglected and with no voices of their own. The huge income disparity results in many social tensions and conflicts, not easily resolved by government policies alone.
While jobless migrant workers starve; journalists, corporate and government officials wine and dine in excesses at various corporate functions. These are the two worlds that Dan had to straddle between.
It is interesting to note that in China, it is a common practice for journalists to collect a token red packet with money inside as a ‘transportation allowance’ and also as provision for taking up their time. The size of the red packet will determine the kind of coverage the event will get in the media.
The phenomenon epitomises the illness of a society where it’s people are only motivated by money above all else. The Uninvited is an interesting read for those who like to know about the lowdowns of modern Chinese society, beyond all its astonishing economic growth figures.
A L V I N O L O G Y 