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8/22/2004

Book Review 2

Finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie. Another very good book with a meaningful story. I'd recommend it.

My friend Ben says the book has a short effective (affected?) period: you will go back to normal life after reading the book. i.e. not that life changing. Yes, life does go on after reading books that talk about how to improve life and what should living life be like. I don't expect books to make an immediate impact on lives. But there will be a time that comes and something in your life will suddenly be relevant to something in the book. I promise that. For Tuesdays, it's a young man watching an old man die. As we age, that will happen to all of us as well. And I think it is at those moments that books we've read before come back to touch us.

Two books about the lessons of life and death. One teaching through life before death and the other life after death. I enjoyed both. Read them. Oh, and I already mailed three to my family in HK.Today, I went sailing after a nice brunch. Then came back to the office to study GMATs. Yet I cannot bring myself to full concentration... oh well. Two weeks before exam, and I don't have enough time to study.

8/17/2004

Book Review

The book I just finished reading is "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom, who also wrote "Tuesdays with Morrie." I have never read Tuesdays, but I plan to buy that book based on what I read in Heaven. A very creative book with a light story about life - a man dies and he goes to heaven and his experiences up there.

I wish Alan went through the same thing.

Back to the book. It's light and it warms your heart. Critics have said that the Tuesdays book is much better. I wonder. Heaven is already a very good book... most critics may be religious and therefore have a bias against Heaven. Either way, I haven't read the first book so I will pass on judgement now. Will get back to you guys once I read Tuesdays. Oh, and if you are religious, Heaven should still be a nice story to read. It's very short and shouldn't take more than a day.

Have fun reading. And hopefully you can reflect on your life as well.

8/10/2004

Let's start with the movie I saw. "The Village" by M Night Shyamalan. Excellent movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it. As you know, Shyamalan has made Six Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. He's a great story teller and has a knack for creating fear among the audience. Personally, I think Six Sense and Signs were just good stories. Unbreakable had a bit more flavor to it... the movie itself wasn'tthat great (certainly not as good as Six Sense), and the twists were that "twisty"... but it had a certain vibe about it. A certain vibe that people like myself would think about and talk about long after the movie was over.

The Village is like that. Except that it's a better movie and a much better story. What I liked most about it was the moral story it told. Although you may be tempted to think about the twists, think about whether the movie made sense, whether there were any points where you could have sensed the twist (I know I did... very early in the movie), whether there were any mistakes in the story telling of Shyamalan, I urge you not to. Think about the WHYS in the movie. It's fascinating how much moral come out of this movie.

I just worked 18 hour days... leaving the office at 330am and then returning at 630am... and now still going at 230pm. Will go home soon and sleep my head off... unless, I get to see another movie.