Primal Fear

Primal Fear
by William Diehl
reviewed by Jessica Liang

Everyone knows about the movie adaptation or might have watched it. But I feel that the book portrays all the emotions of the characters better.

It deals with the emotions of a cool-headed lawyer and his client. He believes that every client is innocent until proven guilty. However, he finds out that it is a thin line between the bad and the good. It is packed with enough twists and turns to keep a reader breathless! Tension is built up bit by bit till it explodes in the court.

I was so engrossed in every page till I reached the last page where the ending was unexpected!Little wonder that this book was raved about.

Claudine's Purchases

Claudine's Purchases

1) The Good Women of China by Xinran
2) A House by the River by Sid Smith
3) Love Lives by Josie Lloyd and Emilyn Rees
4) The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble
5) Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
6) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
7) Dreaming Water by Gail Tsukiyama
8) Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
9) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Dark Room

The Dark Room
by Rachel Seiffert
Reviewed by Claudine

Found it really good in the way it dealt with the Holocaust from the German perspective. Definitely not a 'tra la la' book, with some really heavy impacting scenes, but very readable, with no lengthy paragraphs and mostly written in conversational style, which certainly brings out the emotions in the characters as they struggle to deal with the War, or the past.

My favourite story is about Lore. It was really painful to read about her struggle to bring her younger brothers and sister, across the country to Hamburg to look for their Oma (grandmother) after her parents were captured by the Allies and may perhaps never see them again.

The part below was taken from the book jacket.

The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert
(Winner of the Booker Prize 2001)

Each of us is an individual; each of us has an individual responsibility for our own actions. Each of us is also a member of the family, of families;each of us is a citizen of a state, member of a nation. Can we, must we, take responsibility for them, for their actions too ?

Perhaps in no other country in twentieth century Europe have such questions has as much resonance as they had in Germany. What has it meant to be German in the twentieth century ? What has it meant to be the child of German parents, the daughter of members of the Nazi party, the grandson of a grandfather who was in the Waffen SS, the father of a German child ?

The Dark Room tells the stories of three ordinary twentieth century Germans: Helmut, a young photographer in Berlin in the 1930s who uses his craft to express his patriotic fervour; Lore, a twelve year old girl who in 1945 guides her young siblings across Germany after her Nazi parents are seized by the Allies; and half a century later, Micha, a young teacher obsessed with what his grandfather did in the war, struggling to deal with the past of his family and his country.

Adelynn's Purchases

Adelynn's Purchases

1) Sarah Webb - Some Kind of Wonderful
2) Mil Millington - A Certain Chemistry
3) Kirstie Speke - Angel
4) Eva Rice - Standing Room Only
5) Karen Nelson - Tea and Tiramisu
6) Fiona Gibson - Babyface
7) Pete McCarthy - The Road to McCarthy*
8) John Larkin - Larkin About in Ireland*
9) Peter Greenberg - The Travel Detective*

*Travel

The Da Vinci Code vs Angels and Demons

The Da Vinci Code vs Angels and Demons
by Dan Brown
reviewed by Adelynn

I first read The Da Vinci Code due to the hype about it. Before I picked up the book at MPH Citylink, I had thought it was a non-fiction book, ala The Bible Code. I got hooked after the first 2 pages while browsing and received it as a birthday gift.
Having read it so long ago, I can barely recall the contents of the novel, but I remember being captivated throughout the story and raced to finish it. I found the ending a bit of a let-down. What? After all the wild-goose chases, no Holy Grail?? Oops! Gave it away did I?
The content was very well-researched though, like in Angels and Demons, the next Dan Brown book I got. It is set before The Da Vinci Code, with the same protagonist Robert Langdon. Again, a well-researched piece about the group Illuminati.
I actually prefer Angels and Demons. Robert Langdon, an academic, races against time to save 4 cardinals and the world in general. Each is doomed to die in 4 different ways: Air, Fire, Water and Earth. The lag time between Robert figuring out which church they'd be at and when he actually finds them gets shorter and shorter, and my eyes flickered furiously across the pages hoping he could save them.
If the hype and my review haven't already gotten the book snobs out there interested, they're number 1 and 2 on the top 10 fiction list currently. Good enough reason? *

*Update: Tom Hanks is set to play Robert Langdon in the movie version of The Da Vinci Code.

Book Sale

One more day left to the Pansing Warehouse Sale! It's held at Expo Hall 5A, from 11 am - 9 pm. Books are 3 for $10, or $4/5 each, going up to $20 for hard-covers. Do make a trip down. It's worth the travelling time (if you live in the west like me).