ANDREA HIRATA

Edensor is the third tetralogy of The Rainbow Troop by Andrea Hirata. I managed to read it through e-book. Mostly it is about Ikal and Arai backpacked journey throughout Europe. This book is written differently compared to his other book. I mean not much hilarious pages.

Cinta di Dalam Gelas is the second book of Padang Bulan. Mostly about Maryamah or Enong trying to get back her dgnity by playing chess and beat all the men.

I realised that the characters are all the same Arai, Lintang and A Ling all mixed up from Laskar Pelangi.

READING

I read this book just in three days at home. I bought it in Gramedia Bali. It is the sequel for Laskar Pelangi by Andrea Hirata. The Dreamer revolve around Ikal, Arai and Jimbron, three high school boys. Ikal is the alter-ego while Arai is a distant relative of an orphan called "Simpai Keramat" as he is the last family member who is still alive and eventually became the foster brother of Ikal. Jimbron is an orphan who is obsessed with horses and stutter when he's enthusiastic about something or when he is nervous.

READING

I mananged to read two comics of the wimpy. One The Diary of the Wimpy Kid Dog Days and another is The Diary of the Wimpy Vampire. I bought both book in Gramedia, Galleria, Bali but the Diary of the Wimpy Vampire is the Indonesian translation. They are kids stuff. The vampire book does not have many comic strips as Wimpy Kid. They are not heavy stuff.

FICTION IN CARTOON

I managed to read these two books written in cartoon. I bought them in Gramedia, Grand Indonesia, Jakarta.

Diary of a Whimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney is about the life of a young school boy in US. I finished reading it while still in Jakarta. I think I would like to be a cartoonist after reading it.

But The Colour of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa is about a girl and her widow mother who alked about sex in a very symbolic way. I have this book in Indonesian - Warna Tanah. The drawing is very nice and the trees are drawn articulately.

MY FIRST BOOK OF 2010

In my busy schedule I managed to read a thick novel title Kharisma Kartika Konflik Kehidupan written by F Siswanto, 1249 pages in three days time. I borrowed it from the National Library. By the way, if one read then you don't play on the internet.

It is about a lovely Indonesian lady Kartika who is trying to find a quite life in her hometown. But actually life is just as painful anywhere in the world. The book is written with good Bahasa.
Well I give this four out of five star.

EQUINOKS BY AZIZI ALI

I just finished reading this novel EQUINOKS by Azizi Ali. This is his first novel. As a first timer I consider this is a very good book - worth to read. There are elements of murder, love, history, Taek-Kwan-Do, bussiness, a bit of 13 May episode, history of Kuala Lumpur, Pulau Pinang ... many, many more.

Title - EQUINOKS

Author - Azizi Ali

Publisher -Anggun Publishing 2008

Pages - 405

NARATIF OGONSHOTO - MY SECOND BOOK

I supposed this is rather a good book to read compared to my first one - Musim Sepi. How to say the style of writing is very different and the stories (ten short shories) are damned creative. These are my words, not the writer - Anwar Ridhwan.

The stories linger around the island called Ogonshoto who is ruled by a terrible President. This island is supposed to be somewhere near Hawaii with many Japanese immigrants.

One of the story is about a boy, who was being saved after he was floating alone in the sea for about two months. When the President of Ogonshoto came to know about it, he was impressed and later adopted the boy. This boy was well behave and a fast learner. One of the traditional game of Ogonshoto was to kill your own favourite pet using your own choice of weapon. One must let go the pet and try to kill it with just three times of the weapon used. If you missed after three tries, one must not look back and must let the pet free. SO actually, the sad part was , this boy became the President pet and he was short in fact four times and his tounge cut off.

Other stories are also very nice to read. I don't say one is wasting time reading this novel. Try to read it yourself.

This is just for my record. I read this book while travelling, you can't do anything while travelling in a car.

Title Naratif Ogonshoto
Author Anwar Ridhwan
Publisher Arsalia
Pages 256

MY FIRST BOOK IN 2009

Title MUSIM SEPI
Author Ali Jusoh
Pages 345
Publisher Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (2005)

This is my first book that I have read this year. I am glad that I can manage to read a novel even though I am quite busy with the school activities.

It is about an old couple who are very lonely when their first son Bakhtiar was dead. But actually Bakhtiar was long gone when he refused to contact his parents after about a year in England to further his studies.

Their only living son Bustaman was also offered to further his studies in England but his mother denied his request. The story lingers around this son getting married and trying their best to please the mother who lost a son.

RETIRE RICH - AZIZI ALI

I have less than five years before I retire. I never save any money seriously throughout my working life. I did some saving but never really put the extra effort about it. Reading this book opened up my eyes. This book is recommended by son, Ucin. Just read it and see the facts of life about retiring. The book - RETIRE RICH by AZIZI ALI.

Have you ever seen those retirees enjoying their days cruising all over the world, sight seeing or just sitting around filling their golden time? Most of us Malays NEVER enjoy that. Most of us are becoming grannies or granddads taking care of the children of our own siblings. The terrible word is we Malays, become the servants to our own kids. How many of us deny that? In fact some of us civil servants redho doing it and a few us tell the boss ' I don't want to change this. Why? I'm going to retire, what for? I want to take care of the grand kids.'

Some how it is because we don't have any saving when we retire. We have no money. So we don't mind become the servants, nannies or the nicer words 'to help my own children with their kids'.

In fact we never save any. I think we (mostly Malays - I remember I am a Malay too) never save for our kids education. We blame the government if our children don't get the scholarships. We don't blame ourselves for not saving.

I hope to save some now even though I don't have much time. Azizi said in his book, you must not depend on the pension money or whatever gratuity that comes. They are not enough.

Well, this is the fourth book that I managed to read during the school holidays. It's better that you are still having more than twenty years of working life to read this book. Not a few years like me.