Sembreak Page Turners

By Janina Lagunda

Bid farewell, goodbye, adieu and sayonara to textbooks and readings that seem to stretch on painfully for miles and miles (for now, that is). Make the almost four weeks of idle time, rest and relaxation this sem break rich, imaginative and entertaining by diving into the pages of these bestsellers that just might bring out the bookworm in you:

Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen

Alive with exciting and spectacular circus lore, the New York Times bestseller tells the tale of a man named Jacob and his wild and wonderful life when he ran away and joined the circus. Life in the traveling Benzini Brothers circus was not all that entertaining. The circus was squalid and brutish, and Jacob found himself becoming the caretaker of the menagerie of exotic creatures, getting beaten up and hung over, and falling in love with the crazy animal trainer’s wife, Marlena.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
By Kim Edwards

During a heavy snowstorm, Norah Henry goes into labor and her husband, Dr. David Henry is forced to deliver their twins himself, aided only by a nurse, Caroline Gill. He delights in seeing that their first-born, a son they named Paul, is as healthy as can be. Yet upon seeing that their second, a daughter to be later called Phoebe, is handicapped by Down’s syndrome, David asks Caroline to secretly take the baby away to an institution, rationalizing it as a need to protect his wife. But Caroline takes the baby away to another city and raises the child herself.

A Spot of Bother
By Mark Haddon

A successor to Haddon’s first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, A Spot of Bother tells the story of recent retiree George Hall who is convinced that he has cancer after discovering a skin lesion on his hip. Starting to think that he’s losing his mind, he begins to obsess over his own mortality. In the meantime, his wife is having an affair with his former colleague, his daughter is marrying her second husband whom he and his wife disapprove of, and his son is afraid to bring his boyfriend to the wedding. In short, George Hall’s life is falling to pieces.

The Other Boleyn Girl
By Philippa Gregory

The Other Boleyn Girl tells the story of two sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, contending for the heart of the passionate King Henry VIII. The two sisters and their brother George are brought to the royal courts at a young age to advance the family fortune. Mary wins the king’s favor and their affair produces a daughter and a son. But soon Anne ousts Mary from her position and begins to carry out her plans of replacing Henry’s wife, Catherine of Aragon. Gregory combines sibling rivalries, power struggles and intrigues in this tale set in old England which will be seen early next year on the big screen with Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana in the lead roles.

Twilight
By Stephenie Meyer

Bella Swan and Edward Cullen are a pair that take “star-crossed lovers” to the superlative. After moving to the dull town of Forks, accident-prone Bella falls in love with the beautiful, porcelain-skinned, golden-eyed and velvety-voiced Edward and he reciprocates her love. However the farther they take their relationship, the greater the danger Bella is in because Edward could, at any moment, give in to his blood lust and kill her. He is after all… a vampire.

Across the Nightingale Floor

By Lian Hearn

Set in feudal Japan, the first book in the Tales of the Otori trilogy begins with young Takeo, the only survivor of the massacre that wipes out his village. He is rescued and taken in by Lord Otori Shigeru and starts a new life as heir to the Otori clan. Thrust into the world of warlords and feuding clans, he soon discovers that he is a member by birth of an ominous organization called The Tribe, a group of assassins with supernatural abilities. The Tribe lays claim on Takeo for he has incredible magical powers – invisibility, being in two places at once, hearing what other people cannot – that make him the perfect assassin… perfect for wreaking vengeance.