A Word of Warning

Just a word of warning:

This blog may contain graphical depiction of violence and nudity and may not be suitable for children under 18 year old of age or people who have problems with the mentioned content.

And while I’m at this sticky post, might as well put some more information:

1. For the BOOKS (read BOOKS, not MANGA), I review what I own / I own what I review. All the information is from the edition that I own (which may differ from other editions of the same book). So if something is listed “N/A”, which means I couldn’t find that information printed on the book.

2. to be added later…

BOOK (Fiction) – The Stolen by Alex Shearer

Title: The Stolen
Author: Alex Shearer
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-39892-3
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £5.99
Publish Date: April 04, 2003
Rating: 2/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk; Panmacmillan
Synopsis: Meredith is a new girl at school. An orphan, living with her elderly granny. She must be lonely – or so Carly thinks, trying to be nice.

But sometimes nice doesn’t work. Sometimes people are worse than you could ever imagine. And Meredith has a secret – a story Carly can hardly begin to believe. About a girl with no future and someone else’s past. A vicious old lady who refuses to die. A young life stolen. For Meredith is not Meredith at all…

BOOK (Fiction) – Tins by Alex Shearer

Title: Tins
Author: Alex Shearer
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-43191-0
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £5.99
Publish Date: March 03, 2006
Rating: 3/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk; Panmacmillan
Synopsis: Fergal collects tins. He likes the bargain ones without labels: the contents are always a nice – or nasty – surprise. Then Fergal finds a finger inside one tin and the world HELP inside another… And what was just a screwball hobby becomes a deadly can of worms.

BOOK (Fiction) – The Hunted by Alex Shearer

Title: The Hunted
Author: Alex Shearer
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-43190-0
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £4.99
Publish Date: July 01, 2005
Rating: 2.5/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk; Panmacmillan
Synopsis: Tarrin is born into a world where both the dreams and nightmares of medical science have come true. People look younger and live for longer. But real children are rare. They are bought and sold, won and lost, and live in fear of being stolen – or worse.

So Tarrin knows what it is to have a price on his head. As one of the few natural-born children around, he’s something that science can’t make and money can’t buy. Every day he’s stalked by the terror of being taken. He’s one of the hunted.

BOOK (Fiction) – The Architect by Keith Ablow

Title: The Artchitect
Author: Keith Ablow
Publisher: Pan Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-44140-7
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: N/A
Publish Date: June 06, 2007
Rating: 4/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk
Synopsis: An extraordinarily talented architect whose clients are America’s wealthiest families. A sociopath whose search for perfection leaves a trail of murders he considers work of art. A story of obsession that opens doors to secret corridors of power – and into the private quarters of the White House itself.

West Crosse, educated at Yale, member of the ultra-elite Order of Skull and Bones, is a stunningly brilliant, strikingly handsome architect with a love of ideal beauty and commitment to achieving it at any cost. But underneath that facade lies a dangerous man who will stop at nothing to create the perfect dwelling and the perfect lives for his high-bred clientele – even if that means deadly rehab … As Crosse is about to embark on the master work of this creative life, the FBI puts forensic psychiatrist Dr Frank Clevenger on the case, and the ultimate cat-and-mouse game begins.

BOOK (Fiction) – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Title: The Secret Garden
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Publisher: Sterling
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1-4027-1459-7
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Classic
Pages: 248
Format: Hardcover
Cover Price: $9.95
Publish Date: October 01, 2004
Rating: 4.5/5
Link: Amazon.com; Sterling; Wikipedia
Synopsis: Born in India, the unattractive and willful Mary Lennox has remained in the care of servants for as long as she can remember. But the girl’s life changes when her mother and father die and she travels to Yorkshire to live with her uncle. Dark, dreary Misselthwaite Manor seems full of mysteries, including a very special garden, locked tight for 10 years. With the help of Dickon, a local boy, Mary intends to uncover its secrets.

YOUTUBE (music) – Xaphoon and Hang Drum

Title: Xaphoon and Hang Drum
Posted by: Gradeso
Category: Music
Description: A lovely and soothing duet with xaphoon and hang drum. Hand-made video as it is, but the melody, the song itself and the performance is not something which is be taken lightly of.

BOOK (Fiction) – The Devil’s Labyrinth by John Saul

Title: The Devil’s Labyrinth
Author: John Saul
Publisher: Pan Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-230-70218-9
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 448
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: £6.99
Publish Date: June 20, 2008
Rating: 3/5
Link: Amazon.com; Pan Books
Synopsis: Teri McIntyre has enrolled her 15-year-old son at St Isaac’s Catholic boarding school, hoping this venerable institution will have a calming influence on him. But Ryan arrives to find the school awash with rumours of violent death, mysterious disappearances, and a growing incidence of disturbing behavior within its hallowed halls.

Things begin to change after Father Sebastian joins the faculty, bent on an extraordinary mission to prove the power of exorcism. Willing or not, St. Isaac’s most troubled students become pawns in Father Sebastian’s one-man war against evil — a war so surprisingly effective that Rome itself starts taking notice.

But as Ryan is drawn ever more deeply into Father Sebastian’s ministrations, he witnesses with mounting dread the transformations of his fellow pupils, and his certainty grows that it is forces of darkness, not divinity, which are at work here. For evil is not being cast out… instead, something unholy is being summoned. Something whose hour has finally come to bring hell unto earth

BOOK (Fiction) – The Witches by Roald Dahl

Title: The Witches
Author: Roald Dahl
Publisher: Puffin Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-32264-3
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 224
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: £5.99
Publish Date: September 6, 2007
Rating: 4/5
Link: Amazon.com; Puffin Books; Wikipedia
Synopsis: Witches really are a detestable breed. They disguise themselves as lovely ladies, when secretly they want to squish and squelch all the wretched children they despise. Luckily one boy and his grandmother know how to recognize these vile creatures – they can they get rid of theme for good?

BOOK (Fiction) – What to Do When Someone Dies by Nicci French

Title: What to Do When Someone Dies
Author: Nicci French
Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-04366-1
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 352
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: N/A
Publish Date: March 5, 2009
Rating: 3/5
Link: Amazon.com; Penguin Books
Synopsis: ‘This is not my world. Something is wrong, askew. It is a Monday evening in October. I am Ellie Falkner, 34 years old and married to Greg Manning. Although two police officers have just come to my door and told me he is dead . . . ‘

It’s devastating to hear that your husband has died in a horrific car accident. But to learn that he died with a mystery woman as his passenger is torment. Was Greg having an affair?

Drowning in grief, Ellie clings to Greg’s innocence, and her determination to prove it to the world at large means she must find out who Milena Livingstone was and what she was doing in Greg’s car. But in the process those around her begin to question her sanity … and her motive. And the louder she shouts that Greg might have been murdered, the more suspicion falls on Ellie herself. Sometimes it’s safer to keep silent when someone dies…

MANGA – Kurosagi

Title: Kurosagi, The Black Swindler
Original Title: クロサギ, The Black Swindler
Author: Takeshi NATSUHARA (story), Kuromaru (art)
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Psychological, Seinen
Original Publication: Complete (20 volumes)
Scanlation: On-Going (stalled)
Rating: 4.5/5
Link: Baka-Updates Manga; Wikipedia
Summary: White swindlers (shirosagi) are those that cheat people to take their money, red swindlers (akasagi) are those that swindle the opposite sex, and black swindlers (kurosagi) are those that cheat the white and red swindlers. After his family is swindled by white swindlers, Kurosagi sets out to avenge them by becoming a black swindler.

MANGA – Until Death Do Us Part

Title: Until Death Do Us Part, Shi ga Futari wo Wakatsu Made
Original Title: 死がふたりを分かつまで, Until Death Do Us Part
Author: Hiroshi TAKASHIGE (story), DOUBLE-S (art)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-fi, Seinen
Original Publication: On-Going
Scanlation: On-Going
Rating: 3.5/5
Link: Baka-Updates Manga; Wikipedia
Summary: A girl named Haruka Tōyama happens to be in the care of a certain company because she can see the future, but she wants to get away, so using her abilities she finds a blind though strong man and asks him to help her as a body guard ’til death do them part. The man, named Mamoru Hijikata, quickly dismiss her request as a joke from a small 12 year old kid, only to realize what shady business has beginning to unfold when people willing to do anything are desperately searching for the girl. As she predicted, Mamoru has vast experience in shady business himself, and will not be pushed around easily by any criminal. Is ‘protection’ the only reason that Haruka approached Mamoru? Or could it be something else?

MANGA – Shigurui

Title: Shigurui
Original Title: シグルイ
Author: Norio NANYO (novel), Takayuki YAMAGUCHI (story & art)
Genre: Action, Adult, Drama, Historical, Martial Arts, Mature, Seinen
Original Publication: On-Going
Scanlation: On-Going
Rating: 4.5/5
Link: Baka-Updates Manga; Wikipedia
Summary: At the beginning of the Edo Era, when people enjoyed a time of peace, Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga holds a fighting tournament. In the past, matches were fought with wooden swords. This time, real swords will be used. One-armed Fujiki Gennosuke and blind Irako Seigen will fight each other in this match. Both are disciples of Iwamoto Kogan, who is known as Japan’s greatest swordsman. Each of them are determined to prove himself the successor of Iwamoto’s school. However, there can only be one champion. So begins a story of intertwining fates, conflict, and strange destinies.

MANGA – Historie

Title: Historie
Original Title: ヒストリエ, Historie
Author: Hitoshi IWAAKI (story & art)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Historical, Psychological, Seinen
Original Publication: On-Going
Scanlation: On-Going
Rating: 5/5
Link: Baka-Updates Manga; Wikipedia
Summary: Historie takes place in ancient Greece and follows the life of Eumenes and his childhood, who would later in his life grow up to be the secretary and general to Alexander the Great.

MANGA – Emma

Title: Emma
Original Title: エマ
Author: Kaoru MORI (story & art)
Genre: Drama, Historical, Romance, Seinen, Slice of Life
Original Publication: Complete (10 volumes)
Scanlation: Complete
Rating: 4.5/10
Link: Baka-Updates Manga; Wikipedia
Summary: In Victorian-era England, a young girl is rescued from a life of destitution and raised to become a proper British maid. Emma meets William, the eldest son of a wealthy family, and immediately falls in love with him. William shares her feelings, but the strict rules of their society prevent their relationship from ever coming out in the open. Traditional class distinctions and rich, historical details provide the backdrop for this appealing romance.