Open: An Autobiography

by Andre Agassi

The tennis fever! My second consecutive book on tennis greats. Agassi has not won as much as Nadal probably but his life is certainly more colourful. He had a tough upbringing from a very harsh tennis father. And one thing strange about Agassi is he has always maintained that he hates tennis, yet he continues to play and excel at the sport, though in tempestuous patches.

I can relate with Agassi and his temperament as much as I could relate to Nadal's. Agassi's life is full of contradiction and bursts of passion and lulls. It gives hope to us 'regular' folk when a God of Tennis like Agassi can be so contradictory about his life, what more to say us. Agassi is an a wonderful person and many can draw from his life lessons and hopefully focus on things that give their life joy and meaning, as well as success.

Rafa: My Story

by Rafael Nadal and John Carlin

This is a great book about one of the best current tennis players. He describes his life from childhood up to the current point, his rivalry with Federer and also Djokovic. It is very interesting to hear the thoughts and life of a champion. The mental strength this guy has, and how he handles his life with such grace and humility. I need to take a page from this guy's book. Though the language used and story telling isn't the best, yet the raw content of the story is very good. Overall, a book worth reading, and perhaps re-reading.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I only read 55% of this book on my Kindle and did not enjoy it very much. The first part (before the author went into the story) was decent but after that it just fell on the wayside. Several reasons why.

First I did not like the story. It is about a woman who had a child out of wedlock and has to bear the shame of having a bastard child. My gripe is not with this concept actually. It could have been a very emotional and touching journey. However, I did not feel an inkling of feeling for the main character Hester Prynne. Furthermore, through the author's prose, it seems the place of woman at the time was in the kitchen. This is shown in the early sections where he says the utility of a woman is cooking and cleaning (or something to that effect, I cannot remember the exact words). Perhaps this was an ironic statement, though i feel not. Perhaps this story does not carry much weight in the current society, life has advanced so much from 1850 after all. That said, I still feel there are books out there that describe their respective period with much more emotion and impact, Like To Kill A Mockingbird. Or perhaps 1850's English is so hard to read that I just cannot fully appreciate the beauty in the words. I felt the prose lacked elegance and were very poorly constructed at times.

It is surprising I would have such a negative of such a popular and classical piece of literature. I guess it really is subjective people's taste in book. I really cannot say I enjoy this book no matter how much I tried to force myself to.