When I first saw the Ip Man movie billboard starring Donnie Yen, I was intrigued by the title, which is the name of the legendary Wing Chun grandmaster. I must admit I was attracted to the fact that Donnie Yen (my favourite martial arts star) is playing the role of the grandmaster. I decided I must read the grandmaster’s life story before I watch the movie to appreciate it better.

I did some research and found this book, IP MAN: PORTRAIT OF A KUNG FU MASTER, written by his son, Ip Ching, who is now the grandmaster. The book is co-written with Ip Ching’s disciple, Ron Heimberger. I also decided to write this review only after I watch the movie. The book offers stories of the great Wing Chun Master’s life. It also provides a set of fifteen principles as a guide to mastery but none of the actual Wing Chun moves. […]

THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD by J.K.Rowling is a collection of five tales:

1. The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

2. The Fountain of Fair Fortune

3. The Warlock's Hairy Heart

4. Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump

5. The Tale of the Three Brothers

What makes the book even more interesting is the comprehensive commentary after each story, including extensive footnotes, by Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore (my favourite guy apart from Harry Potter, of course). […]

THE MCKINSEY MIND is researched based on “interviews with and questionnaires from more than 75 McKinsey alumni who have successfully implemented the Firm’s techniques and strategies in their post-McKinsey organizations.”

Why read this book? Because you will discover a problem-solving and decision-making process; management techniques needed to implement that process in your own career; plus presentation (and communication) strategies that will ensure all your hard work in that earlier process pays off. The authors, Ethan M. Rasiel and Paul N. Frida, were both consultants in McKinsey & Company. […]

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman is inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Such wonderful storytelling. If you are looking for something exciting and magical, imaginative and adventurous, you will not be disappointed with this. Garth Nix said: “I wish my younger self could have had the opportunity to read and reread this wonderful book, and my older self wishes that I had written it.”

The story opens with a man named Jack coming to the house to accomplish what needs to be done: to kill the whole family. When the man Jack is done with the father, the mother and the sister, he goes to look for the fourth and youngest member—a baby boy. Before this, the baby is awaken by some crashing sound and feeling bored after being awaken, ‘plots’ for an escape from his cot. He just decides to leave the house and totters up the hill, to the graveyard.

Page 206: That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami tells the story of what happens to a few particular persons between 11.56 P.M. and 6.52 A.M. in Tokyo on a particular night.

I revisited this book again in August this year for a book discussion with my colleague, Eugene Foong. He was preparing a presentation for his Masters degree based on the same book. One day during lunch, he asked if I’ve read Nassim Taleb’s FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS and I answered yes. That’s how the book discussion came to be.

It is interesting to note Taleb’s observations on how chance plays a part in success. Luck is democratic and hits everyone regardless of original skills, he says. Take the example of millionaires: […]

GOSSAMER is my first Lois Lowry book and definitely not the last. It’s an interesting and delightful read. I’m intrigued by the dream-givers, especially Littlest One. I could almost hear her tiny soft voice whenever she speaks, or asks this and that while she follows her teacher on duty to bestow dreams.

Littlest One is a tiny creature slowly learning her job of giving dreams to humans. Where do dreams come from? What makes the stuff of nightmares? In this story, two people—a lonely, sensitive woman (we do not know her name) and a damaged, angry boy named John—face their own histories. […]

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY by Roald Dahl is my first Roald Dahl book and I must say I love it! This highly imaginative book is a gem and one that’s full of lessons. I like the little boy Charlie very much and like most children, he is full of curiosity. He is also obedient for he listens to his parents, Mr and Mrs Bucket, and his very old grandparents. His family is poor and the seven of them live in a tiny, worn-down house. It is heartbreaking to read his family situation.

One day, Mr Willy Wonka, a well-known chocolate maker who has been missing in action for a long, long time comes back into business. […]

WARNING: Do not read this in public. Please also be ready with a box of tissues because NIGHTS IN RODANTHE is a tear-jerker. Nicholas Sparks always makes me cry.

Adrienne Willis is a 60-year-old divorced woman and a mother of three grown children. She retells her story—a flashback of love and redemption, loss and grief—out of concern for her widowed daughter who is going through depression after the death of her husband. This is a story that has resided in the deepest corner of her heart for 15 years: Two middle-aged people met by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe.

Michael Dirda, a Pulitzer-winning critic and longtime columnist for Washington Post Book World shares his love of literature and books in BOOK BY BOOK. This book ignites the passion for classics in me and in my opinion, is an effortless read. In BOOK BY BOOK, Dirda speaks not only of classics but he also covers contemporary works ranging from Cicero to Dr. Seuss.

I had a wonderful time pondering Dirda’s observations and the quotations he lavishes on his readers. Needless to say, my copy of the book is filled with markings and scribblings. He did encourage readers to do the same and perhaps from our own reflections, we create our own reader’s guide as well.

Reading third chapter into THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP (my post here), I came across a text that I liked very much, and which Roger Mifflin the proprietor of The Haunted Bookshop is also very much fond of. He had it hung over his own desk while I’ve reproduced it below:

ON THE RETURN OF A BOOK LENT TO A FRIEND

I GIVE humble and hearty thanks for the safe return of this book which having endured the perils of my friend's bookcase, and the bookcases of my friend's friends, now returns to me in reasonably good condition. […]

The Haunted Bookshop draws me straight into its story. I’m intrigued by its title and this American classic first catches my attention when I read Wendy’s review Musings of a Bookish Kitty. It’s a story book-lovers will enjoy—a romance with books and a mystery to be solved—and there’s nothing haunted or spooky about it.

Roger Mifflin owns the second-hand bookshop on Gissing Street, Brooklyn. The bookshop operates under the name “Parnassus at Home” and is known as the Haunted Bookshop. He has a loving wife, Helen, and she is a fantastic cook. Her signature dish is the chocolate cake […]

INDIANA JONES AND THE HOLLOW EARTH by Max McCoy takes us on an adventure with Indy traversing the Arctic to retrieve a canister that contains the crystal skull. With a team of military folks, they fly the B-18P (P for Polar), also affectionately called the Penguin by Indy’s copilot friend, Clarence. The name seems to rub off on the others too.