Category Archives: Books

The Magic of Kindle

I gave in. I bought myself a Kindle for my 22nd birthday. Other than joining the bandwagon of e-Reader owners, I thought it made a nice birthday gift to myself. And now, I am completely hooked.

Believe it or not, it is THAT tiny. The “graphite” color differentiates the latest generation from the older versions and iPods. (Am I the only one who remembers those first generation white iPods?) And in the green leather cover that resembles Kate Spade wallets, my Kindle now permanently resides in my bag.

Despite the number of companies that make e-Readers – Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc. – I went with Amazon because of its name. After all, Amazon came up with an e-Reader first, and Kindle is most well-known.

Kindle also in a way saved Amazon. Due to the rise of the popularity of online shopping, new websites, such as Zappos and Overstock, quickly became competitors of Amazon. Subsequently, Amazon releasing Kindle gave it a new boost.

All in all, Kindle as a gadget, I LOVE.

I do wish, however, Kindle had more features similar to those of iPads. Honestly, $500 for an iPad did not quite fit my budget. In the end, I am still a poor college student – also another reason why I settled for a Kindle. But sometimes I want to be able to surf the web without delay or play those awesome zombie games.

Nonetheless, a few reasons why my Kindle experience has been superb so far:

I can download select books for free. Who doesn’t love FREE things? In the past, I have spent way too much money on books – novels I want to read, required readings for classes, let alone TEXTBOOKS. Yikes. I am still quite bitter about dropping $100 on my statistics textbook. (When am I ever going to need this Elementary Stats book down the road?) Thanks to Kindle, I have acquired classics, including Pride and Prejudice, and historic novels for free.

Easy-read format news blogs for only $1.99 per month. I subscribed to the New York Times blog updates via Kindle, which automatically downloads the latest headlines and full-length articles. I am basically reading the hard-copy version of the Times on Kindle for significantly cheaper than annual subscription fee.

Word games, one of the best ways to kill time or procrastinate. Alright, fine, not as cool as slicing fruits or killing zombies on fancy iPads or iPhones, but Word Shuffle can still keep you occupied for hours. Finding words… entertaining!

What I've Been Reading: The Other Boleyn Girl

We all know the story of King Henry VIII who married six wives, beheaded two, divorced two, saw one die and left one as a widow. Yeah, really, NBD. Right? And I’m sure more than half of us saw the movie, “The Other Boleyn Girl,” featuring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman.

The movie received mixed reviews. Critics on RottenTomatoes gave it 41%. Some friends said “fantastic drama.” Some said “awful movie.” Some suggested watching the TV series The Tudors, instead.

I personally have NOT seen the movie, and despite the movie’s reviews, I decided to go ahead and give the book a try. Written by Philippa Gregory, “The Other Boleyn Girl” captures the story of two sisters, fighting for King’s love.

First, let’s be real. There is no surprise ending here. Even though it’s a work of fiction, Henry does not miraculously change his mind when it comes to Anne’s beheading. Nor does Katherine of Aragon win back Henry’s love. So we all know what we’re getting into even before reading. After all, it was rather hilarious when we first learned about this once handsome king in history classes in middle school.

The book contains plenty of drama, emotion and love. At times, I was extremely frustrated with Uncle Howard who merely used his female relatives as tools with which he can gain power in the court and with Mary who just could not get over the fact that her being a Boleyn was NOT a good thing for her.

As an uncle, how can you ever say “There’s always another Howard girl?” And Mary, why can’t you see that helping out Uncle Howard because you’re a Boleyn doesn’t do yourself any good?

Nevertheless, through exchanges between Anne Boleyn and Uncle Howard and the relationship between the three Boleyns – Anne, Mary and George – and their parents, I realized ambition and desire can easily overcome love, passion and care even in families.

More importantly, usually family goals outweighed personal interests. You don’t marry for love. Rather, you marry for riches and prestige.

Even more importantly, in Tudor’s court, once you lost King’s favor, you were lost forever. Once you were branded impure, you were never getting married. Once you were accused of treachery, you were dead.

Intense, huh?

Throughout the story, I vicariously lived through the ups and downs in Henry’s court: Queen Katherine’s failure to give Henry a male heir, Anne taking down anyone and everyone to get to the throne, Uncle pushing her to be a King’s whore no matter what, Anne’s coronation (finally), Anne’s failure to give Henry a male heir and her beheading.

In all this madness, the only winner is Henry. As a king, he’s invincible.

If I were to actually live in his court, I don’t think I could have survived a day. All the games played to rise up, all the drama, all the meticulous calculations for marriage. Yeesh!

And fat, ugly, selfish king on top of all this? NO, THANKS.

But just reading about it? It was wonderful. Almost 700 pages long, but not one part was boring or unnecessary. Thanks, Liz, for suggesting this book to me, and now I suggest it to ALL of you. In fact, I’m currently reading another book by Philippa Gregory, The Queen’s Fool.