📚 Books I've Read

I’m honestly not much of a bookworm, reading books is like that time I tried yoga–I cannot seem to keep my focus and my mind just wanders away.

But in the very few instances that I did, here they are:

Rick Riordan

Since their mother’s death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane. One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a “research experiment” at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives. Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them–Set–has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe—a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

Source: The Kane Chronicles

Stieg Larsson

In these page-turning thrillers, a crusading journalist and a cyberpunk hacker team up to drag Sweden’s darkest secrets into the light: family scandals, political corruption, sex crimes, and murder. Experience Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, which introduced the world to one of the most original, unforgettable characters in crime fiction: Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo and a quest for revenge.

Source: The Millennium Trilogy

Dan Brown

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of da Vinci…clues visible for all to see…and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and da Vinci, among others. The Louvre curator has sacrificed his life to protect the Priory’s most sacred trust: the location of a vastly important religious relic, hidden for centuries.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who appears to work for Opus Dei—a clandestine, Vatican-sanctioned Catholic sect believed to have long plotted to seize the Priory’s secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory’s secret—and a stunning historical truth—will be lost forever.

In an exhilarating blend of relentless adventure, scholarly intrigue, and cutting wit, symbologist Robert Langdon (first introduced in Dan Brown’s bestselling Angels & Demons) is the most original character to appear in years. The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller…surprising at every twist, absorbing at every turn, and in the end, utterly unpredictable…right up to its astonishing conclusion.

Source: The Langdon Series

Mitch Albom

The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience… Although no final exam was given, you were expected to produce one long paper on what was learned. That paper is presented here. The last class of my old professor’s life had only one student. I was the student…

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Michael Crichton

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price.

Source: Jurassic Park

This was the very first paperback I got as a gift from mama and papa.

Rainbow Rowell

“Bono met his wife in high school,” Park says. “So did Jerry Lee Lewis,” Eleanor answers. “I’m not kidding,” he says. “You should be,” she says, “we’re 16.” “What about Romeo and Juliet?” “Shallow, confused, then dead.” “I love you,” Park says. “Wherefore art thou,” Eleanor answers. “I’m not kidding,” he says. “You should be.”

Set over one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Source: Eleanor & Park

Have to Read Again

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

is a book by Thomas L. Friedman that analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century. [wiki] Originally published: April 5, 2005

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

is a 2015 non-fiction book written by Peter Frankopan, a historian at the University of Oxford. A new abridged edition was illustrated by Neil Packer. The full text is divided into 25 chapters. The author combines the development of the world with the Silk Road. [wiki] Originally published: August 27, 2015

Rough Guides

In the very rare instances that I do read something (like a physical copy of a book) that isn’t in the Kindle, and is with aplenty of inserts from trips:

• Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei
• Rough Guide to Spain

I intend to collect a copy of this for every country Biboy and I will move to.

Novellas (from an ex), I have to read these again!

• Three Filipino Women by F. Sionil Jose (1992)
• The Woman Who Had Two Navels by Nick Joaquín (1961)

Currently Reading (trying to read)

• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2002)
• Dune by Frank Herbert (1962)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)