My Top 5 Reads for 2019

THESE ALL MADE ME CRY. I truly believe they're essential reading! And yes, get the hardcover editions if you can... THEY'RE WORTH IT! (Coming from a penny-pinching, eternal paperback purchaser... this says a lot!)

(These are arranged in no particular order)

1. CHERNOBYL PRAYER by Nobel prize winning historian Svetlana Alexievich is a collection of first-hand testimonies from survivors and next-of-kin, written in monologue form. Best taken in small doses because each one is like a knife in the heart. They reveal the mortal danger of government inefficiency and cover-ups.

2. PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING by Fil-Am author Randy Ribay is a YA tale of a teenager whose cousin is an EJK victim under Duterte's regime. Don't let the YA classification fool you. This is necessary reading for all ages.

3. DARK AGE by Pierce Brown is the fifth book in the RED RISING series, the longest and the best. When I think of the word "epic," Dark Age comes to mind! It's 700 pages of gory damn good writing. It just doesn't get any better than this. It transcends genre! Think Roman and Greek mythology plus Ender's Game with Game of Thrones thrown in.

4. A DUTERTE READER: CRITICAL ESSAYS ON RODRIGO DUTERTE'S EARLY PRESIDENCY is a nonfiction book published by Ateneo Press in 2017. It's a wonderful collection of different papers written by academics from various fields, and a refreshingly objective way to make sense of recent political events.

5. FIRE FROM HEAVEN is the first in Mary Renault's classic trilogy on Alexander the Great, and the best written of the three! A nice combo would be to read the series and watch HBO's WATCHMEN, because the theme is the same: a deep reflection on human nature and hubris.

And hurrayness, I finished my Goodreads Challenge for 2019!!!

Book Review: VIENNA BLOOD (The Liebermann Papers # 2) by Frank Tallis

Vienna Blood by Frank Tallis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is the second book in The Liebermann Papers series, and the third one I've read. The author, Frank Tallis, manages to make 1902 Vienna come alive with historically accurate descriptions of Mahler's conducting, Freud's lectures, and most importantly, the detailed write ups of Viennese coffee houses and desserts!!

Gorgeous setting, check! Mouth-watering dessert descriptions, check check! Intelligent dialogue and well-constructed plot, triple check!

And instead of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, we have Detective Inspector Rheinhardt paired with Doctor Max Liebermann, who hunt for serial killers by day, and meet up for music-making at night, singing around the Bosendorfer piano before working some more.

The music major in me revels in the descriptions of the lieder or the operas that they listen to, but it's not thrown in merely for pedantic effect. It's always connected to the case they're working on. I didn't think Mozart and murder went together, but Frank Tallis changed my mind!

It was such a pleasant surprise to discover that the first three books of the series has been made into a BBC TV show! Entitled... VIENNA BLOOD! :) For the trailer, go to this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg1rX...



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Book Review: FUNERAL GAMES (Alexander the Great # 3) by Mary Renault

Funeral Games by Mary Renault

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"It is for the scholars of each generation to purge it of its errors, before they infect the next."

"All those great men. When Alexander was alive, they pulled together like one chariot team. And when he died, they bolted like chariot horses when the driver falls. And broke their backs like horses, too."

I finally read the last book in Mary Renault's trilogy on Alexander the Great, and it has left me feeling more shocked and dismayed than did the other two books. And this says A LOT, when you factor in the fact that Book 2 ends with Alexander the Great's death!

Book 3 opens with Alexander's death in 323 BCE and ends in 310 BCE, with a postlude set in 286 BCE. It tells the tragic story of how his great empire (the largest one in the ancient world, stretching from Egypt to India) disintegrates in the span of thirteen years... which some sources say parallels the thirteen years it took for him to conquer these lands.

What shocked me was the inhumanity of the murders that kin committed against kin, brother Macedonian against brother Macedonian... the women proving more barbaric than the men. And yes, while this is a work of fiction, Mary Renault is known to base her novels on historical fact. She even lists her primary sources at the end!

For instance, it is a fact that Alexander the Great had a half-brother who was "on the spectrum," to be politically correct about it. His story, I suppose, was one of the more tragic ones, because of his innocence.

Also, Alexander the Great had at least TWO sons (some sources say he had three), from two different women, both of whom also have tragic ends ... ON WHICH I AM HAVING DIFFICULTY RESTRAINING MYSELF TO COMMENT ON BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO POST SPOILERS... But then again, can one spoil if it's history? Ahaha.

It is the death of the innocents that leave me so dismayed, and also makes one reflect on Legacy.

There is much to chew upon. The novels, while based in antiquity, speak much of human nature, both its bestiality and its nobility. And I take comfort in the fact that the book ends in a library, with the one remaining general of Alexander's (Ptolemy, now Pharoah and founder of a dynastic line that ended with Cleopatra) writing his version of events, to counteract the negative propaganda that his rival Kassandros spread.

Flesh dies, but books remain. And this glorious series is truly a treasure-trove I shall reread all throughout my life.

(Rated it only 4 stars because of all the violence, ahuhuhu, because it's impossible to LOVE something so bloody! But to be honest, the writing deserves 10 out of 5 stars!)

And if you're in the mood to learn more, I highly recommend this amazing review! https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...


Click on the links to see my reviews for Book 1 and Book 2 of the trilogy.

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Book Review: MOOMIN (Comic Strip Vol. 2)

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Vol. 2 by Tove Jansson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book 2 has four new stories told in the form of comic strips, and we are introduced to Mymble and Little My, and Mrs. Fillyjonk! And it is every bit as charming as the first volume.

It is so comforting to read! A fitting book to start the Christmas break with. It offers advice on how to rear children ("I don't like to keep scolding them. I just pour some water over them... or lemonade."), how to embrace change instead of blindly following society's dictates ("No, we are not going to hibernate. We shall create new traditions!"), how to face life with humor and joy, and how to be generous with one's neighbors.

We love Moomin!

View my review for Volume 1 here.

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Book Review: THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (A Memoir) by Karen Armstrong

The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book cut me to the quick, in ways too profound to discuss at length here on social media, and will require a blog entry unto itself! But I simply can’t rave enough about my third Karen Armstrong book. And I suspect it will appeal to anyone (everyone?) who has been hurt or disillusioned by flawed humans in any organized religion.

I first heard of Karen Armstrong at the dinner table several years ago, when my dad would speak of her as the ex-nun who went on to write religious books that presented the true history of Christianity, without white-washing its messy, bloody past, as well as emphasizing Christianity’s commonalities with other major world religions.

I went on to read two of her books during my years as an Asian Civilization and World History high school teacher (“The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism” and “The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions”). These books gave me new appreciation for Protestant / Jewish/ Islamic fundamentalism (as an understandable reaction to the challenges of homogenizing modernity), as well as a renewed appreciation for the Axial Age of the 8th to 3rd century BCE (and yes, it’s Before Common Era and not BC = Before Christ, out of respect for the rest of the world that does not subscribe to Christianity). I remember being amazed at the idea that practically all philosophical traditions were born in this era! Confucianism and Taoism. Hinduism and Buddhism. The roots of the three Abrahamic faiths.

I remember thinking I was very lucky to teach in a nonsectarian school, where there was no Christian Living subject, but where Values/ GMRC was taught separately from discussing the world religions in the context of world history, not as theology. Having students from different faiths in the class made for rich discussions, and I believe we all benefited from realizing that there were several different ways to worship our Creator, and that there were more things that united our faiths than separated them.

This third Karen Armstrong book was vastly different in tone from the two others, being a memoir rather than an academic text. How can a former nun turned agnostic become a leading international figure in interfaith dialogue? This book recounts her amazing journey, from the nunnery, to Oxford, to her time as an English high school teacher, to her life-changing trip to Jerusalem. It reminded me a great deal of Thomas Merton’s “Seven Storey Mountain!” Except that while the latter made its readers run to seminaries, the former just might make would-be nuns re-think the “Get thee to a nunnery” inclination, ahaha.

I suppose this is why this book speaks to me enormously. Close friends know that 2019 was a difficult one (to put it mildly!!), causing many a cry unto heaven, many a dark night of the soul. And I only realized it when I was reading this book, encountering similar challenges, familiar struggles.
Karen Armstrong’s book makes us appreciate how God’s infinite nature cannot be confined within the walls of any religious institution. He is greater than human understanding, deeper than demagogic dogma.

Armstrong also reiterates her call for compassion to be put in practice:

“The one and only test of a valid religious idea…was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God’s name, it was bad theology.”

“If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant.

“Our task now is to mend our broken world; if religion cannot do that, it is worthless. And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings, even our enemies.”

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!



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Book Review: CHERNOBYL PRAYER by Svetlana Alexievich

Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future by Svetlana Alexievich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"This is not a book on Chernobyl, but on the world of Chernobyl... What I'm concerned with is what I would call the "missing history," the invisible imprint of our stay on earth and in time... I am trying to capture the life of the soul... How many times has art rehearsed the apocalypse? Now, though, we can be assured that life is infinitely more fantastical."

The show that impacted me the most this past year was HBO's "Chernobyl," and writer/producer Craig Mazin said of this book that this was where he "always turned to find beauty and sorrow."

I thought nothing could top the horrors depicted in the series. But as it turns out, there ARE more horrible things! Things unfilmable, things unimaginable, that broke my heart as I read the powerful monologues in this unforgettable book by a Nobel laureate.

I couldn't help but imagine how much more powerful this would be if it was staged or read aloud. The author wrote them down in monologue form, and the variety and number of the monologues are striking. From wives of first-responders, to children and mothers and fathers, to farmers and scientists and intellectuals... all striving for meaning, for some sense to come from their incredible suffering.

Then again, I'm not sure I could bear a live reading of these monologues, when reading them bit by bit already made me weep.

Julian Barnes wrote that the book leaves radiation burns on the brain, and it really does. It truly does.

It is not easy reading. But it is very necessary, if only to remember the names of the innocent who died, victims of a heartless government who cared more for its public face than for the fate of its people.

For that is the greater horror of Chernobyl... not the unimaginable scale of the disaster that still threatens all life on earth, and will continue to do so for thousands of years to come... what is more horrible is the human element of Chernobyl. Despite all the heroism, there was the cover-up, the willful neglect... the organized deception. And thousands died because of it.



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Book Review: THE TOLL (Arc of a Scythe # 3) by Neal Shusterman

The Toll by Neal Shusterman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


" "Why stress my emotional nanites by thinking of terrible things?"
A fine philosophy until the terrible thing comes to you."

The final book of the Arc of a Scythe series ended the trilogy with a neat ending, although one I didn't see coming! And while it left me unsatisfied with the fate of some characters, it is still a pleasant thing to recover from that cliffhanger of an ending in Book 2. The good thing about reading the last book in a series is that there aren't any more cliffs.

Shusterman takes elements of our own world and puts it in his book. Here we have a bisexual character whose gender changes with the weather, to underscore how changeable and inconsequential it is for some. We also have a powerful leader whose lust for power makes him change the laws of his country so he can persecute... and eventually kill... all the groups who dare to question his authority. And we have the Thunderhead, whose story arc asks, just how long can artificial intelligence remain... artificial?

A quick read, a great plot. Typical Shusterman. If I had to rate the books, however, I'd say Book 1 was great, Book 2 was the best of them all, and Book 3 was... OK. I imagine this would appeal greatly to a YA audience, especially because of all the moral and ethical quandaries brought up in the books.



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Book Review: THE ART OF THEFT (Lady Sherlock # 4) by Sherry Thomas

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"If there is sunshine I can walk beneath, and a good book to read in peace and quiet, then I'll be happy."

Book 4 of the Lady Sherlock series does not disappoint! Sherry Thomas is one of those "buy-on-sight" authors because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow and that your Book Depository purchases will show up on your credit card bill every month, you know that an S.T. novel will be filled with intelligent dialogue, a multitude of twists and turns, and elevated... nay, ARTISTIC prose.

Book 4 bring us an Indian queen. A shady art gallery. Charlotte's eternal battle between appetite and Maximum Number of Tolerable Chins. Pansexual relationships (tastefully presented) amongst middle-aged respectable people. And the usual S.T. verbal acrobatics.

In terms of stakes, I'd say the stakes were highest in Book 3. But Book 4 still places them in quite enough danger that you still feel a delicious frisson while reading. Not to mention a most memorable "sparring" match between heroine and hero. Ah... don't you LOVE those?

What I loved about Book 4 was the reunion of the cast of characters from the previous books, whom I've come to care for very much. And apart from the far-from-the-usual romance of our lead, Charlotte Holmes, there is also the love story of her sister, Livia.

And there we have it. Love. Everyone who has read this series has come to love it. Eagerly awaiting Book 5!

Here are the links to reviews of Book 3, Book 2, and Book 1.


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Book Review: THE PERSIAN BOY (Alexander the Great # 2) by Mary Renault

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than what they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that… Those who look in mankind only for their own littleness, and make them believe in that, kill more than he ever will in all his wars.”

The second book of the Alexander trilogy was very different in tone from the first, as the entire thing is narrated by the true-to-life lover and faithful companion named Bagoas. But of course, the quality of Renault's writing remains ever so lyrical and excellent. I feel like reading a single page ennobles me, if that makes sense??

Renault writes very sympathetically of the relationship between the two, a love that was greater than jealousy borne from Alexander’s two marriages and his older relationship with Hephaistion. She points out that as of his lifetime, "the Christian ideal of chastity was still unborn,” and treats the tender relationship with respect and compassion, never vulgar nor explicit.

It is a love that makes Bagoas follow Alexander through continent after continent, war after war. Through barren deserts and raging rivers and mountain eyries, Bagoas follows and bears all suffering because he can’t bear to be where Alexander is not… until the very end. And even without all his riches, one may call Alexander rich for having a love such as this. *sniff*

I leave the second book with a heavy heart, knowing that the disintegration of the mighty empire is yet to come in Book 3.


See my review for Book 1 here.

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