Author : Joshua Ferris

Price : SGD 17.66 (Bookweb Kinokuniya)

We thanked each other. It was customary after every exchange. Our thanks were never disingenous or ironic. We said things for getting things done so quickly, thanks for putting in so much effort. We had a meeting and when a meeting was over, we said thank you to the meeting makers for having made the meeting. Very rarely did we say anything negative or derogatory about meetings. We all knew there was a good deal of pointlessness to nearly all the meetings and in fact one meeting out of every three or four was nearly perferctly without gain or purpose but many meeting revealed the one thing that was necessary and so we attended them and afterward we thanked each other (page 5)

With the decline of the dot-com era, layoffs are on everyone’s door, including a Chicago-based advertising company, where this novel is situated. Capturing the life of the employees in a *probably* typical american(if not all) corporations, bringing gossips, secret romance, stress, frequent breaks in a humorous way. It’s written in such details, if you’re a white collar worker, you’ll probably see yourself here and there, laughing and smiling at the gossips or pranks you probably have witnessed (or even involved in) on your work history.

Joshua Ferris successfully capture how workers think, reason, and feels at the same time. It may be based on an american company, yet I found his description familiar, even dead-on on some parts. There is Karen Woo, who is always ahead on gossip, there is the boss, Lynn Mason who has breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about (although it’s always be part of coffee-break gossip), there is Joe, that guy who never involve with anyone but surprisingly close to the boss. You have a colleague whose character you hate the most, you name it, this book have it :D.

A real entertainment.

This book has been around awhile I guess, and it’s kinda late to read it now, but nevertheless, I picked up a copy of it while I went to Plaza Indonesia the other day, and start reading. And I’m hooked

If you ever read Harry Potter series book and see how the magic world there works, with this book it all goes upside down. Jonathan builds up a fantasy world of magician who rule the world (London, for that matters) and actually live together with non-magicians or commoners, both aware each side actually exists and live together side by side. However, magicians in Jonathan’s book is different. They don’t own the power themselves by casting spells or do other sort of tricks, but they summon and controls demons from the other world who actually do the job, i.e. by themselves they’re actually powerless :). There are many types and many grades of demons of course. One of them, the focus of this book is Bartimaeus, a five-thousand year old djinni who posses knowledge, abilities, and experience ( it is 5,000 years, yes, so might be aware know what this djinni has gone through :p).

Bartimaues is summoned by an apprentice 11-years-old magician, Nathaniel, who wants revenge after being humiliated in public by another magician. Nathaniel, raged by the humiliation, order Bartimaeus to steal The Amulet of Samarkand, a very powerful amulet with outstanding protective charm. The story switches back and forth from Bartimaues and Nathaniel points of view, where Jonathans writes the twist, conspiracy, and politics, of his magical world.

The best part, of course, is Bartimaeus character. Sharp-tounged, witty, sarcastic, and hilarious with his foot-notes, he’s just something you can’t stop read until you’re finished

Totally recommended