The Geek Bookworm

Film : Yes Man

2009-01-31T19:00:00.000-08:00

“The world is a playground. We knew that as a kid. But somewhere along the line we forgot that.” -- Allison

Yes Man
American comedy film directed by Peyton Reed and starring Jim Carrey as Carl Allen and Zooey Deschanel as Allison, based on a memoir by British author Danny Wallace

Our class was dismissed early last Saturday, so I got a 4-hour free time and decided to watch this movie.

The film doesn’t fail to tickle me; I find myself laughing ‘till the end of the movie. I thought the concept was the same with those old boring comedy stuff, stale and irrelevant. But I enjoyed this one. It turned out to be a funny love-story-inspirational stuff.

It is about saying “yes” to every opportunity – but also emphasizing that even though the single word “yes” can provide endless possibilities, it can have its drawbacks.

It is surprisingly funny and full of lessons about living a balanced life.

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

2009-01-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

Coelho, Paulo. 2004. Eleven Minutes,.New York ,New York:HarperCollins Publisher Inc. ISBN : 0-06-072675-X

I borrowed this book from Tonet who also loves Paulo Coelho books. It is a novel about a Brazilian girl named Maria. At a very young age, she was convinced that love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. With dreams of finding fame and fortune, a club recruiter deceived her and ends up working as a prostitute. Drifting farther and farther away from love, she develops a fascination with sex.
She fall in-love with a young painter who showed her “inner light” and later realized the possibility of a “sacred “ sex in the context of love.
The main theme of this book is about sex, prostitution, and falling in love. I do not normally read novels with this subject but Paulo Coelho, being a gifted writer, never fails to inspire me. He doesn’t just write to entertain but to inspire. I also learned a great deal of information about clitorology. Ha ha. Cool stuff.
Some passages from the book:

“Sometimes life is very mean: a person can spend days, weeks, months and years without feeling anything new. Then when a door opens – as happened with Maria when she met Ralf Hart – a positive avalanche pours in. One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with.” - From page 141

“When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are the people who never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here.
Work, marriage, children, television, bitterness, old age, the sense of having lost many things, frustrations, illness, disability, dependence on others, loneliness, death.”

From Maria’s Diary : “I am two women; one wants to have all the joy, passion, and adventure that life can give me. The other wants to be slave to routine, to family life, to the things that can planned and achieved. I’m a housewife and a prostitute, both of us living in the same body and doing battle with each other.” - Page 149-151

“I’ve confronted my demons, and my dark side. I plunged into the depths of my soul and know that I still want good things, many good things from this life.” – Ralf Hart - From page 192;

Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho

2009-01-20T05:43:00.000-08:00

Coelho, Paulo. 2003.Warrior of the Light, A Manual.New York: HarperCollins Publisher Inc.

When I finished reading the “The Alchemist”, I immediately bought this book as an inspirational companion. It contains short passages, which invites every reader to live out their dreams, to embrace uncertainty in life and to rise to their own unique destiny.

This book really inspires me; hence, I named my personal blog “Struggles of the Warrior of the Light.” Paulo Coelho really helps me in bringing out the Warrior within me and showed me how to embark upon the way of the Warrior: appreciating the miracle of being alive, accepting failure and being the person I want to be.

For all the seekers out there, you must have this book.

Here are some passages from the book: (from page 84)

“You can recognize a Warrior of the Light by the look in his eye. Warriors of the Light are in the world, they form part of the world, and they were sent to the world without saddlebags or sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always act correctly.

Warriors of the Light are wounded by the most foolish things, they worry about trivialities, they believe themselves incapable of growing, Warrior of the Light sometimes believe themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle.

Warriors of the Light often ask themselves what they are doing here. Often they find their lives meaningless.

That is what they are Warriors of the Light. Because they fail. Because they ask questions. Because they keep looking for a meaning. And, in the end, they will find it.”

Books I read Last 2008

2009-01-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

Here is the list of books I read last 2008. I will post a review of each book on this blog, but I don't have the time yet.

 What is your life’s work by Bill Jensen
 In the Place of Fallen Leaves by Tim Pears
 The Manuscript by Michael Stephen Fuchs
 The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
 As A Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
 The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker
 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
 Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho
 Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
 The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho
 Wealth Within Your Reach – Pera Mo Palaguin Mo by Francsico J. Colayco
 Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte
 Self-Powerment by Faye Mandell
 If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
 When I Say No I Feel Guilty by Manuel J. Smith, Ph.D.

Description of my Bookshelf

2009-01-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

My bookshelf contains books with various topics - self-help, inspirational, novels, IT books, feel-good-novels, etc.
I decided to have some sort of a review or commentary about the books I've read, that is why I created this blog.
Hopefully I can update this blog more often.