Top 10: Manuscripts from Accra (Paulo Coelho)

“In life’s most significant moments we are always alone.” 

The year is 1099, and the Muslims, Jews, and (Coptic) Christians of Jerusalem are about to be overrun by the armies of the European Crusaders. The people of the city will be slaughtered.

On the final day before their death, hundreds of residents gather around the city’s wisest man, the Copt, and question him about their fate, their faith, and the nature of humanity. A scribe records the proceedings.

Now, a millennium later, the proceedings are miraculously found and released for our reading pleasure. This is the fascinating premise for Paulo Coelho’s newest novel, Manuscript Found in Accra.

With this book, Mr. Coelho continues his intermingling of faith, fable, and fiction. But unlike The Alchemist and several of Mr. Coelho’s other books, Manuscript Found in Accra lacks one of the most fundamental elements of the classic novel: a story. The set-up is delicious: a cosmopolitan but nervous city, on the eve of its slaughter, queries a wise man for final advice. But can this one scene be an entire novel?

The answer to this question ultimately rests with the reader and her/his expectations. But this reviewer, at least, expects more storytelling in the fiction he reads.

Link: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/manuscript-found-accra

Top 8: What To Say Next (Julie Buxbaum)

“Good weird is what I’ve been telling myself I am for years, when being just plain weird was too much of a burden to carry.”

August review:

When you read a book that you can relate to, heck when you read a book that seemed to be talking to you or a book that makes it seem that you’re the one speaking, then you know that it is special. David Drucker here is socially isolated, he did not want to be bothered by anyone and people did not care anyway. He did not know the word lonely but he was lonely. What to Say Next relates the story of David and Kit Lowell, a popular girl who one day after her father died, sat with David on his lonely corner table at the cafeteria and started a conversation, a conversation which led her into the lonely world of David, and for David, it will unknowingly lead him in uncovering the truth about the death of Kit’s father.

There is something comforting about reading the experiences of introverts in a book; somehow, we don’t feel alone because we’re listening to someone who is like us, making our loneliness less profound. The author Julie Buxbaum says in her acknowledgment page: “I wanted to write a story…about the wonder of finding an honest and true friend when you feel at your most alone.” And by reading this book, we felt that we found a friend too.

Link: https://geekgodreview.wordpress.com/2018/08/04/ginger-kid/

Top 6: What Happened (Hillary Clinton)

“Right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

January review:

“What Happened” is the story of the election of America, but also the story of a world who is searching for its identity, lost in all the noise. “What Happened” is the story of one woman who we all rallied behind. Ultimately, this is our story, the story of our defeat, and on how together, we can move onward.

The book serves as a beacon of hope moving forward. We knew it before we read it. It was not because of Clinton, it was not because we wanted to blame the other side, and in a brutal fashion have their transgressions read in a book. It was because it included the many things we could do to make things right, what we could do to remain fighting, the solid and clear instructions and choices we could make today, for the future.

When you read the book, it was like Clinton was there beside you, talking to you, narrating her experiences, airing her side of the story, sharing her thoughts and theories, as if she’s really close to you, more than you feel when you watch her campaign speeches. Because this book is raw and true, so its voice is clear.

There are some answers in this book, but ultimately we don’t need to know it all to move ahead. There will be more questions along the way, but what is important is that we know what we stand for, we know what we’re facing, and we know that onward, we’ll march together to face it.

Link: https://geekgodreview.wordpress.com/2018/01/27/nevertheless-she-persisted-what-happened-book-review/

Top 4: A Hologram for the King (Dave Eggers)

“What he had was a sense that few things mattered much. That few people are to be feared. And so he now faced all such situations with a sense of exhausted resolve, and he dealt with everything head-on.” 

January review:

A Hologram for the King is the story of Alan Clay who flew to Saudi Arabia with his tech team to win the communications technology contract to a city that was being built in the middle of a desert. In here, we will learn about Alan’s problems, like that of many Americans, on his family, the money to send his daughter in college, his divorce, his past jobs, his debt to investors and the reality of the declining empire of America.

The book is a brave take on what was happening in America during its decline, it could not provide answers, however, just a deep reflection of what they were and what they have become. But that is not to say that this novel is about failure, if anything, it is the opposite, as readers would see especially on the end, where Eggers tells us that they do not need answers because they have it all along: their attitude of not giving up.

“Hologram” in a sense is the author’s way of telling himself and the readers that he wanted to do what should be done to improve his life, the life of millions in his country, to search for answers, even though he does not know how to, or where to search for it.

Link: https://geekgodreview.wordpress.com/2018/01/21/a-hologram-for-the-king-book-review/

Silver Award: How to Stop Time (Matt Haig)

“To cling to who I was, right at the beginning when I was just a small boy with a long name who responded to time and grew older like everybody else. But there is never a way into the before. All you can do with the past is carry it around, feeling its weight slowly increase, praying it never crushes you completely.”

May review:

“I am old,” says Tom Hazard, the main character of the story. “I am old – old in the way that a tree, or a quahog clam, or a Renaissance painting is old. To give you an idea: I was born well over four hundred years ago, on the third of March 1581 …” Tom is not an immortal, or a vampire in the terms of us Millennials. Nope, Tom ages too but not just as quick as a “normal” person. In his world, there are “Albas”, like himself, and “Mayflies” like us.

The sorrow and sadness and loneliness could be felt in every word uttered by Tom as he relieves the past, “and the pain coincides with memories,” he said. Through Tom, the book also discusses the meaning of life, or rather on how to live a life, to exist on it. He asked some important questions like what you would do if you could live without doubt. “What battle would I fight?” Tom goes on. “Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?”

(Matt) Haig’s mastery of history is amazing but How to Stop Time is not so much as history or the society or its plot, rather it’s strength lies on Tom’s journey and realizations about time and wanting to live despite his sorrow and loneliness, while hanging on to memories. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.”

Link: https://geekgodreview.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/how-to-stop-time/