I’ve just finished this book 2 days ago. It was a pretty fast and easy read with many household handy tips/hints guaranteed. As always I absolutely adore dark comedy, dark-influenced literature and sexy and witty books/movies. I would say it is rather irresistible once you picked it up.
Also, I am currently mad over Victoria Beckhams’ latest fashion/style book – That extra half an inch. Written very intelligently. I was taken by surprise that she could actually write and provides valuable fashion tips. As always style/classic rules over trends. Amazing photos accompanied and we be all surprised that she actually don’t dress in Dolce and Gabbana or Versace on a daily basis. She actually wears Bonds, Topshop and “normal people” stuff. I adore.
Last but not least, this book is my all time favorite among others with the likes of Think Face, Black Heart. Applicable to every facet in our lives, regardless of era, age, gender, workplace and lifestyle. It is a spanking brand new illustrated edition of the old Art of War. As always, give me pictures in a book anytime. I like. [except no comic or cartoon-ny picture books]
“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f**king big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers.”
“Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of f**king fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f**k you are on Sunday night.”
“Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f**king junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f**ked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life.”
taken from trainspotting.
When I first started reading this book, it kinds of reminds me of Maddox’s Alphabet of Manliness but this book was first published back at 2003 so yea. Interesting read. It inspires woman to be as tough as Lara Croft!! With funny sections like How to navigate a roomful of Laser Beams, How to drink someone under the table, How to win a high-speed chase in high heels and a bustier, How to own a dance floor, How to hook a millionaire, How to seduce the enemy, How to choke a man with your bare thighs… and so on. Very cunning tips indeed. And I can’t stop reading it.
I reckon these two books are masterpieces. I love them to death and no matter how many times I have reread them I just can’t get enough of them. Both are my all time favourites and will always be beside my bedstand for me to read them time and again. Fantastic books and they will accompany me for the rest of my life, no doubt about it.
I want especially mention about Thick Face, Black Heart. I have been reading it since 1999 and the author writes inspiring lessons on building our inner strength based from Chinese values and beliefs. The gripping stories and principles about Chinese history as well as the present-day senarios are sooooo practical and are so much about turning adversity into victory. Very personal and a very provocative book. Love it.
With all the postmodernism and feminist hype around lately, there was no way I was not exposed to Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. I would say I am about 50 pages behind everyone who started talking in just about every other serious conversation I had (at work and at uni). The book is different from the type of “entertainment” reads I would usually go for (as if uni books and texts not sufficient, why tire the mind some more?) but I must confess I adore this book and it is absolutely inspiring to be introduced to the so called latest cultural phenomenon – raunch culture.
I’m pretty sure on good and set days, I’m no way the described postfeminist in any way. However, I believe deep down inside of each and every one of us, there’s always been the rebel itch in us, and sadly the rebel phrase for the new age is apparently and unavoidably the raunch culture. I am kind of ashamed to say, the pressure of being perfect, beautiful, sexy, generally appealing to the opposite sex and of course, the object of every male’s desire gets to me and helped shape the way I dress or behave (but not all the time though). Raunch culture is more than the ideology itself, it has manifested with the pop culture and it is unquestionably the ‘culture’ of the teenagers and the young adults of late.
Yes, not very encouraging to see how the future for the feminist never really did happened instead it took a detour to raunch culture, talks about empowering your own sexuality which includes happily posting on Playboys and walking around town scantily clad, having no-strings sex and talk about sex publicly and freely.
Has the fight for freedom, independence and equality for women from men has pushed the fairer sex to expose themselves in a freakishly vulnerable state and seek for generally degrading ways to attract attention just so they can be heard of? How can man listen to someone who do not love thier own body and instead parade it on the media and on the streets? Would you take women clad in business suit or a porn star seriously? Would you pick a decent dressed women (by that I meant all covered up, no cleavages, no butt cracks) or a scantily clad women as your wife?
Ariel is no doubt the braidchild to question these ridiculous trends of raunch culture which sadly shaped the current ‘culture’ and of the near future.
A book that worth questioning your purpose of choosing that revealing top over the more conservative looking one. Next time, when you shop or when you shake your booty at the club, ask yourself, who are you really doing all that for? Yourself? or that group of guys prying on you and your girlfriends since you entered the club?
Last but not least, I have changed my blog’s templete (obviously) in order to celebrate the resistence of raunch culture I am trying to take each day. Baby steps. One at a time.
