Friday, December 18, 2015

Book Finished: Girl on the Train

It was 6 maybe 7 months ago that @livingproofinc had #jenniferaniston handle their account for a few days. Luckily #rachelgreen shared and posted this story of another rachel! A great great read! Intense! Only regret was I hadnt read it earlier. Oh by the way, the movie version is currently filming with her hubby, #justintheroux as one of its lead stars. #thegirlonthetrain #bookstagram
A photo posted by Ana Valenzuela (@ana_valenz) on
Blurb fro Goodreads: A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people’s lives. Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good? Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Finished: World of Ice and Fire

A definite must read for any ASoIaF afficionado.  A plus, plus is the amazing visuals.



To those who want George to speed up his writing, may I suggest that you try reading this book, the Dunk and Egg novellas, and even the Princess and the Queen and the Rogue Prince (the last two covers the Dance of the Dragon).

This are all in the same universe as Game of Thrones, plus it gives readers a richer perspective of the Targaryens.

Fire and Blood!

Oh by the way, take your time reading this book, as it will make you flip through read pages for some info.

Progress:
09/27 marked as: currently-reading
11/19 page 260 79.0% "Now in the Free Cities! I am taking my time reading this book, as I don't want to be missing George RR Martin's song of Ice and Fire anytime soon (only have the last of the Dunk an Egg Series to read) and also because this book is as it says, it is history, that makes me backread and reread parts which I already have been through."
11/26 page 275 84.0% "On to the Summer Isles,"
12/07 marked as: read





Blurb from goodreads:

If the past is prologue, then George R. R. Martin’s masterwork—the most inventive and entertaining fantasy saga of our time—warrants one hell of an introduction. At long last, it has arrived with The World of Ice and Fire.

This lavishly illustrated volume is a comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms, providing vividly constructed accounts of the epic battles, bitter rivalries, and daring rebellions that lead to the events of A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones. In a collaboration that’s been years in the making, Martin has teamed with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson, the founders of the renowned fan site Westeros.org—perhaps the only people who know this world almost as well as its visionary creator.

Collected here is all the accumulated knowledge, scholarly speculation, and inherited folk tales of maesters and septons, maegi and singers. It is a chronicle which stretches from the Dawn Age to the Age of Heroes; from the Coming of the First Men to the arrival of Aegon the Conqueror; from Aegon’s establishment of the Iron Throne to Robert’s Rebellion and the fall of the Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen, which has set into motion the “present-day” struggles of the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, and Targaryens. The definitive companion piece to George R. R. Martin’s dazzlingly conceived universe, The World of Ice and Fire is indeed proof that the pen is mightier than a storm of swords.
 

Finished: King, Kaiser, Tsar

What I think:

A good read about some of the European royalties who took part in World War I, and how that sparked the end of the monarchy in Russia and Germany. Covers from the three kings birth, up to their death. 

I cant help thinking that it was Wilhelm, always felt left out and was disable, who was the antagonist. Well, that's just my perspective.


Blurb from Goodreads.com:

During the last days of July 1914 telegrams flew between the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar. George V, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II, known in the family as Georgie, Willy and Nicky, were cousins. Between them they ruled over half the world. They had been friends since childhood. But by July 1914 the Trade Union of Kings was falling apart. Each was blaming the other for the impending disaster of the First World War. 'Have I gone mad?' Nicky asked his wife Alix in St Petersburg, showing her another telegram from Willy. 'What on earth does William mean pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not!' Behind the friendliness of family gatherings lurked family quarrels, which were often played out in public. Drawing widely on previously unpublished documents, this is the extraordinary story of their overlapping lives, conducted in palaces of unimaginable opulence, surrounded by flattery and political intrigue. And through it runs the question: to what extent were the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar responsible for the outbreak of the war, and, as it turned out, for the end of autocratic monarchy?