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Showing posts from March, 2014

"Endeavor to always transform our tears into knowledge"

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While randomly browsing through the humanities section (I loosely use the term in this situation, however) of a National Bookstore branch, I pulled out Alain de Botton's How Proust can Change Your Life and then I realized that he had several other books all lined up together in that shelf. What caught my attention foremost were Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion and this one so I bought them together immediately. I really thought that reading this book will be understandably slow since it touches upon philosophy subjects, but I'm more than patient to see it through because I've researched about the author as soon as I bought his two books, and there are great things said about his writings. And upon getting started on The Consolations of Philosophy , I certainly saw for myself why: de Botton makes complex subjects more accessible and easier to comprehend and personally connect with, unlike with any of your average college textbo

"From Ender to Mender of worlds"

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I never expected Ender's Game to be so damn engrossing when I finally got around it last January. I certainly wasn't expecting I would even read anything written by Orson Scott Card ever, considering his homophobic stance which had personally offended me. However, I wasn't quick to dismiss his literary contributions to the science fiction genre, so I put aside my negative bias and bought the Ender Quartet series. And I'm glad I gave myself the chance to do that because I can honestly say that two books later into the series, what Card accomplished in both Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead has made me into a massive fan. Unlike its predecessor, Speaker for the Dead is more humane in scope, focusing on the empowering choice of peace and tolerance whilst Ender's Game dealt with war and annihilation of a species that threatened our own. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is no longer the sole and primary focus of the story though his importance is