Book Review: The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak
http://lyndsaycambridge.com/wp-content/themes/ccx/ By danderma | December 3, 2016
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Highly acclaimed and an award winner, I had no second thoughts about picking Elif Shafak’s The Architect’s Apprentice. It took me a while to read through it, so many pages and so much details, tale upon tale you stumble upon and sometimes the details are of little and no consequences, but in the end you put it down and sigh, for this unusual, oriental, mystic tale of old is a telling of the circle of life for Jahan, a little foreign elephant mahout who became the apprentice of Sinan, one of the most renowned Architect’s of his time.
Though at times I was frustrated with the lack of a definite or a thrilling plot and with the amount of details, I adored the personality of master Sinan, who to my delight he is an actual historical character though Read more »
Then comes the ending, was not a surprising one and I was not that impressed with to be frank but overall when I was done I was left with this silly smile on my face and a warm happy feeling, like someone draped you in a fluffy blanket and gave you a cup of hot chocolate… Its sweet, light, and worth the read if you are looking for a pick me up.
This is the third book I’ve read by Harlan Coben within 6 months and I have to say I’m left surprised and constantly guessing at the answer of the mystery again and again! Read more »
I have not one but two copies of life after life on my bookshelves, for whenever I’ve visited a bookstore for the past few years I’ve seen it on the best seller and highly acclaimed list of novels. I also got its semi-sequel, the second novel “A God in Ruins” that is based on another character but its not necessarily a continuation of the original story. The only reason I’ve put up reading this one was its sheer-volume of 600+ pages. I however finally decided to read it and its semi-sequel, for I’m in desperate need of a book that sucks me into its world and leaves reality behind. Read more »
For a while now almost every bookworm social media account I’m following was rearranging their collection of books in a colour-coded book theme so the end result would resemble a rainbow. I have an ancient photo of my bookshelves when I was a kid back in the early 90’s, my collection of some magazines were arranged Rainbow style but I have to look for the picture and scan it before I can share it with you, most likely in this post. Anyway, since my bookshelves are overflowing and organising the books in a readable manner became one messy affair, I thought I’d dedicate myself to this task and arrange all my books rainbow-style. After all, how hard can it be, right? Read more »
On the cover of this book there is a little sticker stating that reading it will fill the void left behind by the Girl on the Train, or was it Gone Girl? I’m not really sure, but it is being compared to current IT suspenseful crime novel and so I’ve started it with high excpectations. I did enjoy it, it was a good crime with a very gasp-out-loud-surprise kind of twist and a proper ending that lays to rest most of your questions, yet there was something missing from the story that would make it as good as either Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. Read more »
Years ago, I read Rosamund Lupton’s debut novel Sister and was mesmerised instantly. Though I was not a fan of her bestselling second novel Afterwards, I did keep an eye out for anything new by the writer and finally managed get a copy of The Quality of Silence. I read the description on the back and though it wasn’t something I’d usually be picking up on my own, I still had a taste of the delicious writing of sister and I hoped I’d come across it again, hence the eagerness I felt as I started this one. Read more »
The mysterious Six Years by Harlan Coben started off by a man sitting in a church watching the love of his life marry someone else. As heart breaking as you’d imagine, especially with the bride’s parting request, you flip a page and now you are given new hope for the doomed lovers as the bride is now a widow. As the professor, the hero of this novel, cannot resist the urge to go and pay his respect at the funeral of the man who stole the love of his life, he finds his life turned upside down and everything he once believe shattered in one single life, its fair to say he never seemed to recover from the side effects of that trip. Read more »
A deceptive husband and respectable novelist, whose entire life is built on a web of lies, is basking in his own fictitious success and leading a double life without a care in the world. It is only when his affair doesn’t go according to plan and he decides to take matters into his own hand that his lies start unravelling one by one, for he made a terrible and grave mistake that cannot be undone no matter how hard he tries. Read more »
If you’ve been around my blog for a while then you’ll know how much I love and admire f2o’s artistic talent and designs, so much that my book cover is actually illustrated by f2o<3 Just before Ramadan was out and everyone ready to flock the country to their summer vacations Fatima Al-Othman, the lady behind f2o, sent me a bag of her latest products: colouring books, a current trend in its own, featuring f2o’s children, Essa and Asya, with the Alphabets in Kuwaiti dialect. Read more »
Book Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the long awaited 8th book!
By danderma | August 1, 2016
I’m writing this post with a head buzzing with thoughts, heart fluttering with feelings, and eyes brimming with tears as I’m in a roller coaster of emotions that’s been tumbling since I returned home from work and sat with my iBook copy of the long awaited 8th book of Harry Potter, the one with the Cursed Child.
Is it really an 8th book? A proper sequel to the battle of Hogwarts set 19 years later? I couldn’t allow myself to get too attached the the book nor let myself believe it was a “real” or “100% authentic” new Harry Potter book. I was afraid. I didn’t want to be let down by it, I know its based on a sold out play and its not only J. K. Rowling’s name on the cover, I’m not sure what to expect and I had a feeling that… well.. this story is only make belief and this Harry book is a fraud. Read more »
“What do you do when you’re visiting someone’s house and their garden starts vanishing?” Read more »
Turns out I have a string of Cecelia Ahern’s books that I’m yet to be read, this one I thought I missed entirely but it turns out I began reading a hardback edition in 2014, got to page 20, then let go of it and totally forgot all about it. The reason being that the story didn’t start off well and was kind of slow. I actually contemplated putting it down again and perhaps checking both of my editions into my “maybe not” shelf on my good reads account, but I’m glad I stayed on, I really am. Read more »
Whenever I want a palate-clenasing from all the disappointing or long boring reads I make sure I reach out for a Cecelia Ahern, I could always count on her for a wholesome and enjoyable read and her latest novel, The Marble Collector, didn’t disappoint me at all. It was an easy read, didn’t take a lot of effort to read or digest, and had enough intrigue between the pages to keep me flipping the pages at a quicker page than usual. Read more »
How do I feel about this one?
I’m not really sure. I didn’t even want to pick it up at first because when I vaguely recall the prequel, me before you, I associate it with “distaste” for some reason. Then I grabbed it, because I just had to now didn’t I? Then I checked my review of Me Before You and it turned out I didn’t loathe it, I simply didn’t like the ending. Therefore, suddenly After You became the must read next book on my list, I just knew it would be and that’s telling me something about Me before you, right? Read more »
This is a tough one, as I’m not sure if I liked it because it was good or because I somehow related it to it or, if its even possible, I didn’t like it. I have mixed opinions so the defining factor would be its “pull”, which to be frank began waning as I went further into the story. Read more »
I have a shelf in one of my bookcases that I’ve dedicated to books that come in a special “collection”. It contains the surviving copies of my old Mickey magazines, my 1001 nights stories, copies of my own two Dathra books, my collection of Ikea catalogue dating back to the start of this century, and my collection of the annual Bazaar eating in Kuwait guides from 2008 onwards. Read more »
This is book that I’ve found in the top-ten chart of Waterstones and, as I picked it up to read the description I knew right away that this the going to be my next read and that I am going to like it. Some books are just like that, you know from their idea that they are different, and good, and most of the time they do not disappoint and this one definitely did not. Read more »
After devouring and reviewing The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, it was only natural I’d be picking up its sequel “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy” which I’ve loved and enjoyed even more. Read more »
For the longest time I’ve been able to “guess” the plot of any thriller-style book during my reading and its becoming a tad boring especially when my guess turns out to be right in the end. What’s good about Disclaimer, however, is that whenever I’ve guessed at a plot twist during the course of my reading, which wasn’t very long because I wanted to know what happened, something would come up and negate my guess making me wonder what did happen and when I knew everything in the end, I was in for a good surprise indeed. Read more »
Cecelia Ahern’s latest novel, How To Fall in Love, was one I couldn’t put down until I finished it. It starts with a bit of a mystery, when Christine is found next to a man who just committed suicide in a run down building. Not too long after, Christine finds herself on a bridge next to a man who is about to jump and in a bid to stop him, she strikes up a deal with him to give her two weeks to help him try and fall back in love with life. Read more »
What pulled me to this book is the notion of “running away” and leaving everything behind to start a new life on a whim. Emily wakes up one day and boards a train from Manchester to London without telling anyone, leaving her loving family behind because of something grave that happened a while back. The idea of the book is to accompany Emily through her days as a new unknown person in London while trying to figure out what went wrong exactly in her life. Eventually you will know what her secret was and how having a twin sister doesn’t guarantee a friend for life and indeed you will be quite surprised at the twist in the story. Read more »
I was watching TV yesterday when a group of people in some series decide to dig up a time capsule they buried during their childhood and open it with their children. As the characters on the screen unearthed and opened up their time capsule, I felt a pang of excitement mixed with nostalgia waiting to see what they’d be displaying. Then I wished fervently that I had a time capsule of my own that I’d dig up one day and reminisce about the contents, but of course I never had and I suppose it’s a bit too late. Read more »
Many local cookbook authors time their new releases with the start of the holy month of Ramadan, given that for 30 nights people have to provide iftar, ghabga, and suhoor meals and they are always on the lookout for something new. This year I had my fair share of Ramadan cookbooks, four in total, each and everyone more delicious than the next with mouthwatering pictures and readily ingredients available in the nearest co-op. The first of which was the Ikea cookbook which you can get from Ikea if you purchase with the amount of 25 KD or more. Read more »
Have you ever read a book that captivated you, so strongly you didn’t want to put it down? When, if you were reading it, your eyes decided its time to sleep you’d force them open so you could continue reading because you couldn’t bear not knowing what will happen next? Dan Brown’s latest novel, Inferno, is that kind of book. Read more »
