Ghosts of Our Pasts by Sophia Duane (ARC)

This is my first ARC (Advanced Reader Copy), and I was so excited to get it, nevermind that it's not an actual book like I dreamed (a downside of living in Singapore), but an ebook. It took me longer than expected to finish this book though, although that's not the fault of the book, but the fact that my attention span is significantly smaller for ebooks than paperbooks.

To get back on track, Ghosts of Our Pasts is really quite good. I was a bit hesistant about it at first, because I'm Christian so I naturally take a more conservative view to moral matters, but the book really won me over by the end.

-Spoiler Alert-
Essentially, the book is about two wounded souls, Emily, who lost her father at the 9/11 attacks and Will Darcy, who lost his love of his life at the same 9/11 attacks, and how they come together to slowly heal.

Except, it feels like only Will actually moves forward. You see, when we first meet Emily, she's compensating/displacing her emotions by sleeping with guys she doesn't care about. While at the end she does end up in a steady relationship with Will, I felt that she didn't change much, although she made him change. Granted, he was a lot worse, with a fear of tall buildings and others, but I would have liked to see her as less "heroic" and more "becoming-heroic". Will, on the other hand, has a moment in the book where he has to make an explicit choice between the past and the future, and the obvious is a good marker for his character developement. And it didn't help that at that moment, Emily was acting as though she had gotten over her trauma years ago (when it's mentioned in the first few pages that she hasn't).

The book makes me wonder, what would happen if something like that happened to me? The title is a reference to how we can sometimes be stuck in the past, and is (I think), a subtle call to move beyond that. While I would like to think that I have the strength to go beyond crisis's, I doubt if that's true. Up til now, which is about 5, 6 years from when I moved from my childhood home to the house I have now (and is, mind you, less than a kilometer away) and I still think of the 107E (my old home) as "home". It's a bit worrying, I suppose, that I'm so attached to what I have fond memories of, but it is, nonetheless, better than to be wholly unsentimental. Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself.

It's strange though, how now I'm aiming to go somewhere completely unfamiliar for university. I suppose it's because I don't like change so much, that if I study in another school in Singapore, it will invariably disappoint me for not being MGS (my school for the first 10 years of schooling), and so, I'd rather be somewhere else.

After this rather weird digression, I think I should just end of by talking about the book again. Plot-wise, I really would have prefered to know that the tragedy that they experience is 9/11, which would have made their actions more understandable. Maybe it's because I'm not American, that I don't realise it from the start, but still, it would have been nice to know.

All in all, I recommend this book, but only to mature readers (no kiddies). It's not very explicit (thankfully), but it does seem to portray drugs in a positive light, which I think is not only ironic, but would outweigh the benefits of reading this novel about healing.

Reading Wishes has a Giveaway!



Santa is looking suspicious here.... Santa, are you here
to steal presents or to give them away?



I'm very bad with technology, so it always impresses me how other bloggers manage to put together such a professional looking blog. One of them is Rebecca@Reading Wishes, who started only in May this year, but already has a really professional looking blog and book reviewing system running. Me? I'm just muddling my way through, and the most I can do in the way of "planning" is to decide ahead of time what to post (review, or quote or something unrelated).

And now, she's even got a Christmas Giveaway! I have no idea how giveaways are run, so this just makes me respect her (and the other bloggers) even more. I guess after exams, I should really put in some effort into making this blog look presentable.

Anyway, the details of the giveaway are like this:

It's from 9th to 23rd November and you must be a follower of her blog to enter. And since bookdepository ships to Singapore, there's no need to worry about anything else.

So what are you waiting for? You should join the Giveaway! (Yes, I'm joining, of course, but apart from that, I need to find bloggin mentors. Or something like that).

Outliers - Malcom Gladwell

Maybe it's because I'm having exams now, but reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell was really appealing. While I generally think his books are interesting, the added layer (of stress?) caused by exams makes you wonder: what does it take to succeed? Can I succeed in the exams? The second question being, of course, of more importance than the first for now. But as usual, I think Malcom Gladwell poses some really interesting theories, that may or may not be true, so rather than ramble off into something, I think I'll just go through the key points of the book (it's non-fiction so you can't really cry "Spoiler!")

To succeed you need:

To be born early in the year. This is supposed to be especially applicable for sports, because you're born earlier, you're slightly bigger, appear to be more talented which gives you more training opportunities and so, a self-enforcing cycle is born. The same, I suppose, applies to school work, since being born earlier would imply that your brain had more chance to develop. Hmm.... I really wondered about this. All my siblings and I are born in the later half of the year, but so far, we're doing ok. My sister is a gymnastics coach (to cite the most athletic of us all), and she's born in December. In fact, all the sporty people I know are born later in the year....

To practice 10 000 hours. Ok, this, I believe in. The old adage: Practice makes Perfect is probably true. I don't think I need to elaborate, but you should read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother if you want to real life example (that's documented).

But seriously, 10 000? That more-or-less rules me out for success, since the only that I can remotely achieve 10 000 hours of is reading books. And um, while that is a valuable life-skill, it's one that is neglected by employers and those in the admission boards.

To have good EQ. Apparently, after a certain IQ range, the differentiating factor becomes your EQ. I think I'm inclined to believe this. My grandfather talks about how in business, what you need is for people to trust you, and that means going the extra mile (like driving across customs to give the client something). The same goes for the rest of life. If you can give reasonable explanations, most things can be solved. There are people in my school, that I think are probably smart, but I won't know because they're not very likeable. Even though I act like a spoilt brat many a time in school, I do try to give someone the benefit of the doubt so if I can't stand you, well, something might be wrong with me; but if the level doesn't like you, there might be a problem.

When and Where you're born. Because we all need a bit of luck (to be born in the right age, to the right sort of parents, in the right country even). Because this is really uncontrollable, I think I just want to touch on how culture affects us. Being Singaporean, we like to criticise ourselves by saying that we have a kiasu (scared of losing) and kiasi (scared of dying) culture. Basically, if it's to our advantage, we will take take take. It's definitely one of the ugly things about us, but I think it's also what makes us strong in things like rote-learning.

One of the things that was used as an example, was the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). It was cited, that we're one of the top few countries who answer all the questions, and that is supposed to say something about our perseverance. Um, actually, it's because we were taught to answer all questions (or lose marks), so the students probably finished everything due to the kaisu-ness inherent in us. ("If I don't answer, but the guy next to me does, I may lose marks!)

Minor Quibbles with the book:

Singapore does not have a "culture shaped by the tradition of wet-rice agriculture and meaningful work". Yes, we are mostly descended from the South China immigrants who did engage in wet-rice work before they came to Singapore, but most of our forefounders were coolies. If we have a very advanced country now, it's probably due to the good leadership we have.

William Thistlewood, the guy who kept a diary of his Jamaican exploits, is actually called Thomas Thistlewood, at least according to all the Internet sources I could see.

My Two Cents on Goodreads and Librarything



Strictly speaking, only one of my friends. But I'm
attempting to get more to sign up.

Since I have a lull in my reading schedule (apparently, studying and reading are two mutually exclusive activities), I decided to finally write down my thoughts on two very popular book-social/sharing sites: Goodreads and LibraryThing.

I was actually pretty much unaware of both sites until I got Zite and started reading all these blogposts about Goodreads/LibraryThing, which more or less piqued my interest. So, being indecisive, I decided to join both sites, figuring that if I wanted to, I could just delete an account. So, after about a month or so of playing around with both sites, I came to a conclusion:

Goodreads and Librarything are more complementary products than competitive products (products in competitive supply).

While this may be a very obvious conclusion, it took me quite a lot of time to figure it out. At first, I was more in favour of LibaryThing, since I wanted a place to catalog my books, and from what I heard Librarything was the winner. And it's true. LibraryThing's cataloging system is superior compared to Goodreads. While Goodreads only has shelves (which I find rather cumbersome to use), LibraryThing has categories and tags. Which means you can subdivide the books. That's pretty much why I only use LibraryThing to keep track of the books I own.

On the other hand, Goodreads is supposed to emphasise the social aspect of reading more. I don't know how true that is, since only one of my friends use Goodreads, but it does seem so. And it's somehow easier to enter a review on Goodreads (they have a dedicated review box), so I tend to use Goodreads to record the books I read but don't own (borrowed books, library books mainly).

The next thing both sites have in common are their discussion groups. Since I'm quite lazy, I tend to neglect such things, but I am making an effort to participate more. So far, what I've gathered is that LibraryThing is good for specific things - like discussions on Japanese culture, while I'm learning how to improve this blog most from the Goodreads discussion (Especially the groups Blogger Lift and Creative Reviews). Although it is difficult for me to just jump in the discussions, I got many ideas on how to improve just by reading the posts (sorry, all improvements will only be done after November 18th)

Now on to the peripherals of each site. (Basically, my studying-induced vocabulary is trying to say that I'm going to talk about the 'add-ons' of the site).

To be honest, the reason why I joined Goodreads was because of its peripherals. It had a quiz function (And I knew the answer!) and an app (which LibraryThing does not have, but is supposed to be working on). Since you can read ebooks on the app (as long as you have the ebook open when you go offline), it's yet another and very convenient way to read, since you can post updates on your reading progress and record quotes.

LibraryThing has a very interesting "Common Knowledge" section, which has interesting information such as dedications, quotations, opening and ending sentences and such.

And I think, this discussion will be incomplete without talking about their giveaway programmes. While Goodreads does let me try to win physical books, the copies are very little and there are much more participants. So the chances of winning go down dramatically. On the other hand, while I can only win ebooks from Librarything (at least so far), they have more copies and less participants (due to, I think, the lower number of members), and I've got quite a few ebooks already. Not to mention that LibraryThing divides the give aways into early reviews and member giveaways, which increases the selection (to me, anyway).

In conclusion, both sites have their unique selling points. While Goodreads is free, LibraryThing is free only up to the first 200 books. But honestly, I love the site enough that I'm considering paying the lifetime membership fee. Unfortunately, that requires a credit card, which I don't have at the moment.

Does anyone have other opinions? Whether there are any bugs in either site that I've neglected or some function I've missed out? Just leave a comment and I'll reply(:

UPDATE (30/3/2013): Here's an update after using both sites for a while