Despite the purple pleasure of what they offer, take a break from a long litany of bad movies, trashy magazines and mediocre television shows to sit back and relax with a good book. P.Ramakrishnan recommends the following as some of the best books to read this year.
If only the cover of a book was even remotely indicative of the quality of writing in a novel. The false promises of the book jacket ("Bestseller"! "New York Times Thumbs Up!" "Hello says its OK!") aside, the sheer gloss of the lapel and the enticing pout of the cover girl beckoning you to slam down HK$89.90 for what turns out to be a dense and unreadable brick, can be disheartening. Only trust word-of-mouth recommendations from those who've committed themselves to reading cover-to-cover one of the 172,000 or so books published each year. From classics to horrors, fiction and fantasy to hardcore facts, the following should grace your shelves this year, if they don't already.
"The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger
This book is not great, but the captivating title certainly is. For a change, the film was a vastly superior product, greatly elevated by the superlative performance of Merly Streep, and the brilliant punchlines ("I'm not coming in to work today. I'm calling in fat"). So why is this best-seller listed here when the DVD was recently released? For the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of verbal voyerism! This gossamer-veiled peek into the life of Vogue magazine's uber-coiffed head of Anna Wintour, and the elevated lifestyle of a high-gloss fashionista limned for entertainment is riveting, and has more details and misdemeanors than the slightly rosier film adaptation. The expose of one of the most powerful women in media, it may seem line an exaggerated funneling of the truth, but fact is always stranger than fiction. It's easy to read and, should there be such a word, it's gleefully 'unputdownable'.
Feature for Signature Life Magazine. Got my first complaint letter from... polite word, polite word... someone, who was grievously offended by my including the book 'The God Delusion' on the list. Not for writing the book, just for recommending it as a summer read!
Believe it or faint, I had to issue an apology letter while biting my tongue.
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