Dear (most) English teachers and (some) writers:...

The situation occurred to me during high school. I have always been a dedicated reader whose taste hardly discriminates. Yet, I don't usually have a good time with school-required reading. For some alien reasons, most high school teachers LOVE forcing us to read and analyze crappy phony, boring novels. They don't care if you read hundred thousand good books in your private time, they want you to read the crappy books for their class!

The book in the described situation is 'Wave Rider' by (I think) Graeme Lay. Although it is hardly one of the worst books I have over read (both in private time and in class), it somehow sticks with me as one of the few books that I didn't finish. The teacher describes the book as 'a complex, impossible-to-put-down YA with a strong moral message for readers'. The paper that I halfheartedly wrote for that book passed with an excellent grade... So much for the complexness!

I don't know how they picked the books. If they want something 'classic', there are million amazing classic titles out there. If they want something 'complex' so the students can rick their brains trying to analyze, there are zillion of classic complex titles out there too! It's almost like the teachers just want students to hate their class!

May be the teachers just hate books, so they are giving the students reading-trauma.


(Fortunately, I get to read awesome Sci-fi books for the 'Science fiction' class that I am taking at my college, apparently some teachers know how to pick the right book after all!)

[Apple] Z moment...

I read a (Japanese) book that I have bought for some time lately. I won't read it again in a while. I may not ever read it again.

May be I would, when I am in my masochist mood.

Still, this is definitely one of the times that I wish I can place [apple+z] and turn undo my action. There are things I can live without ever seeing (or reading about).

Bush, Putin, board game, and the fourth reich

Ever read an Obama-related comic? That's quite nothing compare to what Japanese writers do with the politicians... From Hillary Clinton porn comic (with Obama featuring in it) to this GODLY AWESOME comic 'The Legend of Koizumi'. It's about Japanese most popular prime minister. He fights with North Korean leader, Pope, Putin and other leaders in the game of life and death before teaming up to fight the ultimate evil: NAZI! If this isn't BADASS at its finest, I don't know what it is...




(Apparently, Hitler won the space race...)

By the way, they fight POLITICALLY in the game of mahjong. YES! The world's politic (including the selection of a new Pope) has always been decided by a Chinese board game, and our good leaders are all secretly fighting to death (no, seriously!) with this God-chosen game. You don't even need to know the rule of the game to understand the badass-ness of it.

...Also, as a person who has always thought of Putin as being 'hot', this comic artist has done a nice job of drawing him. He draws Westerner and makes them look like Westerners without exaggerating their features (with the exception of Bush Jr who is treated like a joke here though. Not that it is anything new.)

I highly recommend it. If you like your read to be ridiculously awesome, I can guarantee you a hell of good time.


[A repost of my comic review from another blog with some minor edit]
[Credit: With the exception of my own comic, the other images are from Mangafox.com]

Read your eyes out

Back in America without much regret. I (somehow) managed to read most of books that I want with only less than ten of those that I didn't get the chance to finish (or couldn't find at stores. We don't have Thai Amazon.com, so for books from publishers that don't have their own sites, hunting for them can be darn difficult.)

However, a week before my break is over, my eyes suddenly become weak to light and air. My eyes never hurt like this before, so I visited an Eye doctor (whatever technical name they call themselves) for a check. Apparently, (as told by my doctor), I just read too much.

My eyes still hurt right now even though I have only read one book in a few book (on the flight back to US).

This isn't the first time I have done a marathon reading though. I had tried to finish off a Thai Indiana Jone-ish series in a short period of time once. The side-effect of that previous marathon reading was more severe mentally though. After consuming 20-something books in about five days with no other activity apart from eating and sleeping, I started to hallucinate. In the end, I had to give up reading that series, and I haven't continued reading it again yet, even until now. I think it was due to the fact that I was only reading one series without doing anything else at all for days and nights.

I wonder when would my eyes stop hurting. Not that I prefer post-reading-hallucination to this.

Masochist guy and a lot of love (or not)

When a really nice guy with a duo masochist personality is the LEAST screwed up person in the entire cast, you know that you are probably reading a Japanese book...

...which reminds me why I have read this book in the first place!


‘MM!’ by Akinari Matsuno is a Thai-translated Japanese light novel (a new genre of Japanese novels that targets teenagers and young adults by being dialogues-driven and containing comic-style illustrations) that I have picked up during the past holiday. The book is pretty much characters-driven, which is a good thing when you have a book filled with characters in need of psychiatrists. However, even though every character in the book is disturbed (to say at the very least), the book is mostly comical because it doesn’t deal with each mental issue seriously.

To sum things up, the book is a (somewhat) romance-comedy. It sets a love-triangle between a masochist guy and two women who often beat him up (for different reasons). The guy hasn’t set on a certain woman yet, but I have a hunch that he would end up with the megalomaniac lady.

I find this series to be quite entertaining even though I wish that the writer would have pushed the story to be even more extreme with his mentally-unstable characters. For a book that deals with incestuous behavior as a joke, the book is terribly PC (although that is probably the reason why this book can be published in Thailand since our government has a fetish for censoring and banning unconventional media). It is still a nice wacky read though, but it would have been a better book if only it is R-rated not PG-13.

For any Thai parent who happens to be reading this blog, don’t set on burning the book or the publisher. The book is not that unPC. Also, your kid can easily find more screw-up things to read out there.


-NOTE- This book has yet to be translated into English language nor has it been made into any other source of media (i.e. anime), so don’t kill yourself if you can’t find it in (non JP) Amazon.

Read 'em all or die trying...

I am still working on the grand mission that I have given myself ( http://www.eggnog.me/2009/12/may-your-coming-year-be-filled-with.html ) by finishing every Thai & and Thai translated books that I want to read before returning to America. This process is entertaining yet tiresome because I am covering a year worth of release within less than a month.

I have about 12 days left. I have just finished three more books today. Even worse, I have mainly focused on novels and I haven't even really started catching on a year-amount of Thai-translation comic (that doesn't have an US release yet)... I don't know if I would make it...

May your coming year be filled with good read

To put things simply...

Happy New Year to all my readers (and mom who also follow my blog)! I hope that you will have a great year with plenty of amazing books to read!


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On other news... I am quite busy lately working on finishing books. There are just too many Thai books or books that have been translated into Thai (with no available English translation) to read, so I am on a reading crunch time here.



These are a few of books that I have finished. Most are translated Japanese novels, some are Taiwanese.

To top that all, my neighbor just gave me her old books after hearing how much I like to read...



These books are quite old vulnerable so I doubt that I can carry them to US without damaging these old pals... I don't know if I would have times to eat, breath, and finish all of them...