.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park.

I don't usually read books from the best sellers or top 10 list, I tend not to be a sheep, reading completely different stuff from an eclectic range of genres.

My bookshelves are filled with hardcore hacking tomes, fantasy, sci-fi, biographies, crime books, martial arts manuals, health and philosophy books and so on.

For once the last few months when I was traveling so frequently I decided to devour some of the tops picks, the best sellers..

The first I chose was this, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I thought it was some kind of sappy self-help book, but I wanted to know why fairly sane people kept raving about it.

Mitch Albom got famous with his previous book Tuesdays with Morrie, another massive hit. I might read that too given time.

It's a cute story, it's easy to read and it's enjoyable. It's well paced, not patronising and kind of sweet in a non-sickly way.

Really though it's the same old tale, what goes around comes around, karma and all that but told in a slightly different way.

Definately worth a read, easy to pick up and finish in one shot.

It's not ground-breaking, or fantastic, but it's good. It's beauty is in its simplicity, yeah there's pages of cliches, but its straightforward it's not pretending to be artsy or intellectual or bourgeois.

It is nice to read a book now and then that is just easy to read and enjoyable.

Worth a try, I give it a good solid 7/10 - A good one to put on the xmas list for people you care about.

'Blah, Blah Blacksheep' is a helter-skelter ride through one week in your average journalist's life (no, really). Maggie Gibson's latest offering is fluid and full of Irish humour - the perfect comic beach read.

This is another one of those cheapo British trash novels I pick up for around RM5 at Popular/MPH, I always look for these, and 90% of the time I really enjoy them.

I suggest buying a bunch of these everytime you pass through.

It's indeed full of Irish wit, twisting and turning, her editor has a nervous breakdown and is replaced with someone nicer..

Following this she is immediately immersed in the dirty, sweaty world of human trafficking, sweat shops, murder and a nasty little extortionist drug dealer with the wonderfully Irish name of Broylan Grillo.

Somehow she ends up friends with Georgina Fitz-Simons who has has just overcome a flourishing cocaine habit, together they go deep into the world of durgs and murder end up in possession of a rather inconvenient corpse, being chased by a Serbian hitman and involved with an ex Glam rocker..

It's a well written, well paced book. Rather easy to pick up, not hard to put down and can be devoured quickly in a couple of sittings.

If you see it sitting around on the bargain shelf for the price of a drink, do pick it up.

Not much more to say about it, simple book, simple read, simple review.

I give it an enjoyable 6.5/10.

Midnight Cowboy is the powerful and unforgettable novel of the compelling need of human beings for one another -- a wrenching story of pain and loss.

Freewheeling loser Joe Buck arrives in New York City and embarks on a quest to live the American dream. Along the way he meets street hustler and petty criminal Ratso Rizzo. Together, the two form an extraordinary relationship full of heartbreak and hope, resulting in a compelling American novel about the bonds of friendship.

An academy award winner in 1969 in spite of having an X rating, this is one of those classic films that I guess many of you have watched (Midnight Cowboy Movie), I saw the book in popular so decided to pick it up (it's the UK paperback edition).

This is a very well written and well-paced book, it has excellent character development and has a certain way of strolling along that keeps you firmly in its grip.

It raises some interesting moral issues, and a lot about self-perception and ego.

Genital Joe as we could call him is the epitomy of lost youth losing his virginity to some Annie Rottencrotch, he has all the wrong ideas about sex and sexuality.

Being a good looking lad, tall and well built he goes out to make his millions in the world. Like most of us, he ends up finding reality stinks and not much more than that.

The book rolls along and it's hard to put down, it's not lightning fast but it sucks you into the dirty seedy world that Joe falls into.

I finished the whole thing in about 3 hours and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The writing may seem a little simplistic to some, but that's what gives it such a raw and honest charm. It's very real, real people and a real story.

It's gritty at times, explicit, violent and raw but can also be touching showing interesting aspects of humanity.

If you want to read something 'different' than all the pop shit churned out a the moment, take a look at this.

I think it cost me the grand total of RM5.90.

I give it a solid, well-paced 9/10.

Martha had never progressed much beyond hating her father for being cruel to her and her mum, even though he was supposed to be a man of God. Martha was now 38 and eight months pregnant. She told everyone that she didn't know who the baby's father was, but she knew perfectly well it was Ugly Ted, who owned the lapdancing club.

Jo Brand is a pretty famous comedienne in UK, deadpan, lesbian-ish humour with classic one liners like "I'm anorexic, everytime I look in the mirror I think I'm fat".

Hilarious.

So when I was back in UK, I saw this book in one of the discount book shops and decided to pick it up as I love her Jo Brand's style of humour, I guessed this book would be right up my street.

The basic premise of the story is of 3 close female friends and the trials and tribulations they go through with the men in their lives (or lack of men in some cases), the weird relationship one has with her parents, the hippy lifestyle of another (with her overly paranoid boyfriend) and the bimbo-ish nature of the 3rd with the anti-hero in the story 'Billy' as her boyfriend.

It's a very easy to read book with the story flowing along nicely at a good pace, the character development is a bit iffy sometimes as it seems to be based well upon stereotypes, but I enjoyed the sarcasm and social commentary anyway!

More info on Jo Brand here and here.

You can check it out on Amazon now here: