Interconnected Tales, Interconnected Lives: A Literary Orchestra of Eternal Recurrence ( A Book Review of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas ) Transcending genre, narrators, setting, language, and time, Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell’s symphony of storytelling dynamism seamlessly interlaced in an … Continue reading
More Than Bats, Castles, and Fangs (A Book Review of Bram Stoker’s Dracula) Conceivably, no other single work in horror fiction has had a greater impact than Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Published in 1897, Stoker’s vision of the vampire, based from … Continue reading
Of Chickens, Journeys, and Forever (A Book Review of Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto) With its share of joys and aches, Shelley Sullivan’s love story, on its surface, is something we have known and heard before — that is … Continue reading
Past Engagements (A Book Review of Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels) In 1955, Nick Joaquin left the Philippines on a Rockefeller creative writing grant taking him to countries such as Spain, the United States, and Mexico. This … Continue reading
The Power of Stories (A Book Review of Tess Uriza Holthe’s When the Elephants Dance) A group of neighbors seek shelter in the cellar of an abandoned house. They are cramped, huddled on the dirt, starving and terrified. Outside fierce … Continue reading
Historical Fiction at its Finest! (A Book review of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth) First introduced to me as a 2007 book selection by the Oprah Book Club, The Pillars of the Earth remains of one Ken Follett’s … Continue reading
A Spy Novel that Reads Like a Good Alternate History Fiction (A Book Review of Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca) The last camel collapsed at noon. So begins Ken Follett’s intriguing World War II thriller set in 1942 Cairo, … Continue reading
It is said that anything that happens once will come in twice and is bound to happen the third time around. Just when I thought I have had enough I’m still at it, for, indeed Gentle Readers, we’ll once more … Continue reading
Because of Dust (A Book Review of Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust) Since reading John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, I’ve often wondered how life could’ve been to the Oklahoman farmers and families who opted not to leave their land. … Continue reading
Afflict the Comforted, Comfort the Afflicted (A Book Review of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath) If it can be said that a work of literature has the potency to afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted, then I believe … Continue reading
Reading a Celebrated Classic (A Book Review of Haper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird) July 11 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, and arguably one of the most influential … Continue reading
Blurring Realities (A Book Review of Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado) Ilustrado is the ambitious and exceptionally complicated debut novel by Miguel Syjuco that won the Palanca Grand Prize for the Novel Category in 2008 and the prestigious Man Asian Literary Prize … Continue reading
Check out Uncle Stevie’s intro for his new graphic novel American Vampire exclusively here. Also, stumbled on this interesting article from USA Today about the upcoming comic book. Here’s a brief description about American Vampires shamelessly taken from stephenking.com: This … Continue reading
In a World of Turmoil and Transition, There Flies a Kite (A Book Review of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini) Khaled Hosseini’s powerful debut novel, The Kite Runner, is a heart-breaking story of an unlikely friendship; of a father … Continue reading
Through a Needle Darkly (A Book Review of Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle) At the young age of twenty seven, Ken Follett met with instant success — both critical and financial — with his first international bestseller Eye of … Continue reading
Entangled With a Writer’s Mystery (A Book Review of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind) The novel, set in post-Spanish civil war Barcelona, concerns a young boy, Daniel Sempere. Just after the war, Daniel’s father takes him to … Continue reading
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (A Book Review) There are some books you know will stay with you forever, and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader is definitely one of them. It has been highly critically acclaimed, winning the Boston Book Review’s … Continue reading
