The Art of Racing in the Rain

Author : Garth Stein










This book is an emotional book even for people who don't really love dogs. I really enjoyed it, it's sad but funny and quite entertaining all at the same time. I would definitely try out another book by the same author.

Here's one of the synopsis about this book that I found :
Nearing the end of his life, Enzo, a dog with a philosopher's soul, tries to bring together the family, pulled apart by a three year custody battle between daughter Zoe's maternal grandparents and her father Denny, a race car driver.

Eat, Pray, Love

I finished reading this book last night. I was curious to know what the story is about, because : 1. One of the places on the book is Bali, my home. 2. The movie is playing in cinemas now, and I want to know the real version of the story before seeing the movie.

Therefore I happened to see it in a bookstore a couple of weeks ago and bought it right away.

I think the story is incredible, seeing as it is a true story too of what the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, went through. And she writes in a fun way, lots of humour in it. And I think it's good that she did a lot of research about the places she went too (knowledge I was interested to learn too).

This is one of the reviews I found about this book :

Gilbert, chronicles her intrepid quest for spiritual healing. Driven to despair by a punishing divorce and an anguished love affair, Gilbert flees New York for sojourns in the three Is. She goes to Italy to learn the language and revel in the cuisine, India to meditate in an ashram, and Indonesia to reconnect with a healer in Bali. This itinerary may sound self-indulgent or fey, but there is never a whiny or pious or dull moment because Gilbert is irreverent, hilarious, zestful, courageous, intelligent, and in masterful command of her sparkling prose. A captivating storyteller with a gift for enlivening metaphors, Gilbert is Anne Lamott's hip, yoga-practicing, footloose younger sister, and readers will laugh and cry as she recounts her nervy and outlandish experiences and profiles the extraordinary people she meets. As Gilbert switches from gelato to kundalini Shakti to herbal cures Balinese-style, she ponders the many paths to divinity, the true nature of happiness, and the boon of good-hearted, sexy love. Gilbert's sensuous and audacious spiritual odyssey is as deeply pleasurable as it is enlightening.

Sepulchre

Oops...I should have put this one before Nadi Amura..I forgot all about reading it, it's been so long...

The book is by Kate Mosse, the same author as Labyrinth, a book I also read in the last year or two (check old posts). Here's a synopsis I copied off the author's website :

"In 1891, young Léonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrive in the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in southwest France. They’ve come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous in the region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt Isolde—and the Domain—are not what Léonie had imagined. The villagers claim that Isolde’s late husband died after summoning a demon from the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. A book from the Domain’s cavernous library describes the strange tarot pack that mysteriously disappeared following the uncle’s death. But while Léonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteries of the Domain, a different evil stalks her family—one which may explain why Léonie and Anatole were invited to the sinister Domain in the first place.

More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an American graduate student, arrives in France to study the life of Claude Debussy, the nineteenth century French composer. In Rennes-les-Bains, Meredith checks into a grand old hotel—the Domain de la Cade. Something about the hotel feels eerily familiar, and strange dreams and visions begin to haunt Meredith’s waking hours. A chance encounter leads her to a pack of tarot cards painted by Léonie Vernier, which may hold the key to this twenty-first century American’s fate . . . just as they did to the fate of Léonie Vernier more than a century earlier."

I loved this book. I think it was amazingly written. A mix of history, fiction and a touch of horror. I imagine it would make a really good movie. Kate Mosse mentioned in her website that it's the second in her Languedoc Trilogy, a sequence of three novels set in - and inspired by - the landscape and history of the south of France. So there'll be another book by her that I'm anticipating..hopefully to come in the near future.