“ In the game of Thrones, You win or You die. There is no middle ground.” - Queen Cersei Lannister, 

One boring morning, my officemate brought forth a thick book. Curiosity took on me thus he was boasting about the book. If I wanted a literary piece like that of J.R.R Tolkien, probably that book was in the toplist, he says. I ignored it. Then he brought a copy of the HBO Series Game of Thrones and so another colleague of mine soon hooked on the series (well, she was a lazy woman to read some books so she started to prowl on the series) . I was still busy reading, Agatha Christie’s books that time and soon as I finished, Miss Marple’s story, I was indulge on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse Novel. Next was Crime and Punishment by Fypdor Dostoevsky (SEE I”M JUGGLING WITH MANY BOOKS)… As soon as the two started talking in the office, there was not a day I couldn’t hear them at silence about those book and series. IM SORRY MY LIBRARY AND BOOKS!! I downloaded an e-book for that matter.. I”M SO SORRY!! 

Oh my goodness. ASOIAF: GOT was one hell of a book. If you’re looking for a series of tremendous battle, epic and worth of a good new story, I highly recommend you with this. I was on the fourth chapter when I bought the book. The epic tale of kings, brotherhood, fantasy, dragons and love. But no more than that, the epic tale resides the first viewpoint of the characters wherein words are powerful enough for you to be attached on every character. Beware of being too attached to every characters, Martin do disappoint you soon. But hey, it is one good of a disappointment for you to love the characters more or probably hate more. (laughs) This book is a leaf-turner and you don’t want to stop to breath a while. 

(PS: How I wish I could write one like this. I’ve finished the book for 5 and a half days..)

I was still gazing at the book in front of me. Should I? or should I not? Impatiently, I took it since it’s getting darker outside and I really wanted to go home. So off I am and paid it on the counter. I was on the ride going home and even if the lights were dim, I started reading it. 

At the back of my mind. OMG! France? Really in Paris France? I knew that I would soon enjoying every pages of it. I was hooked up and I never bother to close the book. It was like announcing to myself that I should be at France as well ( well, I was considering about going to France myself even before or with my friend). And no sooner than that I indulged myself at la belle Paris. Everytime I would turn the page it spells majestique! I learned so many from it. 

And what’s more? As an enthusiast of food and cuisine, I couldn’t take my eyes off from it. Even though I got myself pushed from reading the words in French, which I found it gorgeous, I still continued. I love learning French and it gave me quite a number of French words to learn and the cuisines in French. The winery, picking up the freshest poultry or meats. It all gave me ideas and even trying to make it at home. Really I did. Even Julia’s style of accurate measuring has changed me.. I am the typically experimental cook from the kitchen where in dash and dab are the words I always used in the kitchen. But reading them had given me quite a scare in culinary. 

And the worst of me was that I even looked up and considering going to La Cordeun Bleu Academy but really I backed off. Seeing how expensive that was. (laughs). But no, I wanted to attend just one class. 

The book was very beneficial and worth reading off. I mean you get a lot of things to understand and learn about. and how Julia writes was exhilirating and soft. It was like narrating from her diary. It was fun and you could almost feel that you were the one chopping off scallions and onions or talking to the salesman down the street.  

To read such reviews that compares to the compelling work of Dan Brown., I snatched this mystery novel on the bookshelf of Powerbooks. I was quite enticed since I  always loved the works of author Dan Brown and another thing was that, I love the playwright of tudors, Grand dukes and Kings from the 1900’s. 

Interestingly, the book opens during one of hemophilliac attacks on the Russia’s last tsarevich, Alexei and the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s anxiety for his health. Alexei was Tsar Nicholas II’s only son and the successor on the throne.. Rasputin, the staret, has been summoned for the cure of the tsarevich. The story evolved on the prophecy spoken by Rasputin, his death, the cause of it and the ill-fated end of the lives of the last Russian Monarchs. Enter Miles Lord, the lawyer of the present day, and was commisioned by the Tsar Commision to look up at the background of some Russian claimining the throne to ascend as the next Tsar of Russia on whom, Russian people wanted their lives be  freed from the poverty they’ve been hanged. Okay, hmm, I think it was pretty boring to expand the story into so many chapters wherein likewise it can be summed up.. What’s the idea of putting words to granded it up? The idea was there but the mystery was yet to be ladden up. It was fed up and even on the third or fourth chapter, you get the idea of the totality of this whole story. It was pretty dumb but hey, I get to applause his credit for digging up supplemental and making up those letters of Kolya Maks and the dated accounts. Anyway, one thing bothers me, the prophecy spoken of Rasputin. I laughed at it. It was literally literal. Raven becomes literally Miles being black American. and Aikilina means eagle in old Russian language.. what are to decipher?  The hell bells? everyone can make it up.. I mean why not try to use historical accounts and contexts? It could be more reasonable to try and reasearch on things that people doesn’t still know off and use it for the book. Really I think It’s better to put it that way. Author should catch up readers’ attention and surprise them in every pages. It’s not about the entertainment reader’s could get but their newly profound knowledge and wisdom. That is what I call book. 

On the corner of a restaurant where my Mom and I usually met during Saturday afternoons, I was timidly eating spaghetti and a can of  soda. It was yet another sullen afternoon—hazy skies and pavements wet with the drizzling rain. I thought it would be the same again but to no avail, my phone rang or beeped. I got a message from a dear friend of mine. Of course my afternoon lit up. I was alone and the weather seems to sympathize with me. We exchanged messages and i wasn’t sure if somehow why the conversation came to a question he asked,  “ What is love?”. I was perfectly stunned because I never consider myself asking that question. And remembering his newly profound faith, I just simply answered, “ God is love” or “Love is God, or whichever would it be. He agreed with me. Only his answer was “Love is a choice”. I agreed with him but my mind wandered. I was thinking why was he asking sudden questions? I knew better that he was pulling out something I don’t seem to understand at allor he was trying to quote something. I was right. because he followed a quote of 1Cor 13:4-8. That time, it didn’t mattered to me. What I remember was “ Love is patient and kind.” I even thought he was just pulling something from the usual slumbook’s answer to a question of what is love. He adieu by telling me to read Nicholas Spark’s A Walk to Remember. 

Curiosity has played through my mind. Decidedly, I craved to read the book. Fortumately one of my friends lend me one. Just after classes, I lounge on my bed turned my door’s sign to “ Do not Disturbed, Reading” Status. Just Kidding. It was a nice story, so moving and very fanciful. And the words from the 1Cor 13:4-8 has stayed with me. My eyes became misty as soon as Jamie’s illness  surfaced and Landon’s relationship problem with his Father who was then a political figure was opened. But believe me, Landon’s problem burst me to tears than that of Jamie’s. Anyway, I empathyze more with Landon especially since he has been on the loss—losing Jamie and the wreck among his father-son relationship. 

I can only agree that the book compells you to wallow on the painstaking reality that a loss of one of your beloved is more painful than that of anything in the world and nothing can ever replace it. It was the book that madden me to look at Nicholas Spark’s works. It moves your heart and clamped it. As I finished the book, 1Cor 13:4-8 has stayed with me and I can only agree that when I marry, those words should be present. 

“⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

The utterance I have made on the restaurant I sat one chilly afternoon do not changed at all. Always and has been, “Love is God.” 

Can you name the books?

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