Johnny B Hong Kong

I read this book without knowing the background of Hewlett-Packard (HP) or its performance during its six years under the helm of former Chairman and CEO, Carly Fiorina. I heard that she was fired by the Board under mysterious circumstances. Fiorina told her side of the story in this memoir.

Written by herself without the aide of a ghostwriter, Tough Choices is a systematic and lucid account of Fiorina's success story. She is a very good communicator and, without the benefit of the events leading to her dismissal, I was quite convinced by her account. According to Fiorina, her dismissal was a conspiracy of 3 of the Board members who had longed for power and control of the Fortune 500 company. In the eyes of Fiorina, these 3 people were villains and she was the victim of the power struggle. However, readers may wonder if the CEO had been capable and the stock had performed well, why the Board wouldn't have kept the CEO in place while pocketing hefty directors' fees and stock options?

Having said that, I still admire Fiorina for achieving what she had attained. I especially like her insistence on dismissing gender as a factor in her success. Her success is about tough choices, and how she made it without selling her soul and compromising her integrity.

The book is well-written. Her take on leadership is the best I have ever read - it's better than any management textbook. "Leadership means character, capability and collaboration." You can look at those CEOs around you and see if these are their attributes and how the companies fare under their leadership. Fiorina sums it up nicely.

I have to say my impression of Fiorina has been swayed after I read the reviews made by some HP employees, many of whom have worked with Fiorina. It seems that the only change or strategic direction made by Fiorina was massive lay-offs. Moreover, the stock price of HP kept falling during her six-year reign.

Maybe that was the reason of her demise in HP? You won't find the answer in this book though.

As a die-hard fan of the TV series since season one, I love the SATC movie as well as this companion book.

Full of gorgeous pictures from the movie and the set, including the fabulous wardrobes of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, the companion book is a must-have for all supporters of the show. Reading this book is as enjoyable as seeing the movie.

I love every piece worn by Carrie - she is really a fearless fashion icon with an eye for mix and match - except for the Manolo Blahnik shoes.

For You is the script of a short musical play. With merely 68 pages of sparsely printed dialogues and lyrics of the play, the book is very easy to read and one can finish it within an hour.

But don't be fooled by the brevity of the book as Ian McEwan never disappoints his fans. This short story about Charles Frieth, a renowned and philandering composer, preparing for a performance of his works is full of memorable characters, twists and turns and an ending that will leave readers fully satisfied.

I really look forward to seeing the actual musical - it should be fun.

The only regret I have about this book or the last lecture of Prof. Randy Pausch, now a phenomenal YouTube sensation, is that I haven't got round to watching his last lecture earlier when it first came up on 18 September 2007. I read this book first and watched his last lecture and got totally blown away. Randy, a computer science professor of Carnegie Mellon University diagnosed with terminal cancer, is truly a man of wisdom and virtues, and I am eternally grateful for his legacy of this great last lecture.

Randy's last lecture is titled "Really achieving your childhood dreams", but as he said it, it is about how to live your life in the right way. Many of the things said by him are cliches (he admitted it and even said in the book that he loves cliches), e.g. find something y0u are passionate about and work hard on it, listen to criticisms, help others achieve their dreams etc., but they are often right. His sayings encompass all forms of positive thinking and I really admire him for pursuing his dreams and persevering against all odds. We have been faced with too many setbacks in our life that sometimes we give up too soon by telling ourselves that "life is too short and take it easy". Randy's lecture steers us back to the right track that we really have to work hard on what we believe in and not to settle for anything less.

I recommend everyone to watch Randy's last lecture - the 1-hour lecture is truly inspiring and awesome and contains dozens of quotable quotes such as:

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
"The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

Then read the book which expands on many of the teachings in the lecture and elaborates on the background to some of his experiences, including the courting of his wife (which was not mentioned in the lecture). I particularly like the chapter on Randy's encounter with "Captain James T. Kirk" which explains leadership by using the Star Trek as an illustration and does it better than any management book I have ever read.

He is a strong man. I wish him well.

18-year old French writer Francoise Sagan was shot to international fame with this debut in 1954. That was the time before the sexual revolution in the 1960s and hence, the story which was hailed as scandalous, shocking and avant-garde then is today considered as banal and ordinary.

This short novel is about the summer vacation of the wilful and fiery 17-year old Cecile and her flamboyant playboy father Raymond. The free and hedonistic life of the two was thrown into disarray that summer when Raymond decided to marry Cecile's mentor, Anne.

The drastic reaction of Cecile to her father's marriage is, in today's standard, quite normal (maybe because the world has gradually become such a place that virtues like tolerance and forgiveness are at a premium). However, from the perspective of people in that era, it was extreme and radical, and Cecile was truly a rebel.

The fact that Sagan was only 18 years old when she wrote it makes this gem of a novel even more remarkable and fascinating. This debut paved the way for the talented Sagan to become one of the greatest literary voices of contemporary France.

I have read every book of the Shopaholic series of Sophie Kinsella, and I have to say the the days of Becky Bloomwood's shopping days are numbered.

Kinsella has been using the same formula for every book and this is no exception. All characters are one-dimensional and the plot is deja vu. Even the jokes are familiar. It all boils down to cliche and I don't think I would give a damn to Becky's life anymore. In fact, she is obnoxious.

But the book is easy to read and at times, still funny.

I saw this play at Broadway, New York last month and loved it. I bought the script and read twice. This is absolutely a masterpiece in the same league as Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Playwright Tracy Letts sparkles with this great American play which has already earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2008.

August: Osage County is about a dysfunctional family in Oklahoma following the disappearance of their old man. I don't want to reveal too much about the plot as you really need to go and see the 3.5-hour play yourself to feel the twists and turns and the dynamics among the actors. This is a marvelous script with unforgettable characters and dozens of quotable lines. I never knew people could attack one another verbally with such ferocity and nastiness. It's really an eye-opener.

Fantastic. A must-see.

This is the first collection of Ian McEwan's short stories and was first released in 1975. Apparently, McEwan had shocked the literary world with this extraordinary debut.

This collection of eight short stories has a common theme: losing one's mind/ on the verge of losing one's mind. All the main characters in these stories were at various levels of mental illness. I think McEwan was trying to probe into these sick minds to see how far mankind can go in putting one's darkest thoughts into action. In these stories, murder could arise out of sheer boredom; incest could result from adolescent curiosity; and unbearable loneliness could lead to a total control freak.

The stories are all sexually charged, very depressing and in some cases, hard to stomach. The only redemption of the book is McEwan's impeccable writing and flair for storytelling, which makes the unspeakable subject matter somehow palatable.

Not enjoyable but not to be missed.

I bought this English translation of the script of the French play, "Art", by Yasmina Reza, in New York recently, after seeing the stage production by the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre last month. The 1.5-hour play was a direct Cantonese translation of the French play and was simply smashing. I loved it and wanted to relive the whole experience. Hence I read the script again and it is equally marvelous.

The story revolved around 3 long-time friends, Marc, Serge and Yvan. Serge bought a painting and invited the other two to view it. It triggered off a fierce debate among the three on their respective take on art, friends and life, and tested their friendship to its limits. The play abounds with crisp dialogues, sarcastic remarks and lively rebuttals. The actors' verbal attacks and retorts among one another are phenomenal. It's like watching a boxing match, but this one is much more mentally challenging and memorable.

Reading the script is also enjoyable - it's utterly hilarious and funny. It really makes you revisit your views on art and friendship. What is art? Does your friend need to share the same view with you in order to be counted as your friend? What if your friend no longer measures up to your expectation? What are you going to do about it?

I hope one day I can see the play again, in its original version, and read the French script to make sure that none of the original meaning has been lost in the translation. Considering my current level of French, that day seems to be very very far away ...

I want to give this book 5 stars. Another tour de force from David Mitchell, my favourite writer.

Black Swan Green is a journal-like narrative of Jason Taylor, a stammering 13-year old boy from Black Swan Green, a village in Worcestershire, the UK (at one point in the novel, Jason explained the difference between "stutter" and "stammer", which is hilarious". Charting 13 months from January 1982, the book is a nostalgic memoir of a middle-class boy in the Margaret Thatcher's era.

Maybe because I also grew up in the 1980s, the story brought me many wonderful memories of the era, e.g. songs from Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, the movies Superman II and Chariots of Fire, recording songs on TDK cassettes, recording TV shows on VHS/Beta etc. The descriptions of the Falkland Wars and the recession are also superb.

I cannot believe Mitchell has written this when he is close to 40. The narrative really sounds like it came from a 13-year old boy. Mitchell has really put himself into the mind of a kid. He thinks and speaks like a boy, and that's marvellous. It's also very easy to read (I finished it on my flight back from New York).

Extremely funny and enjoyable. Love it.

They say that one will have a different impression of the story and get something out of it every time one re-reads this classic.

So I read this again. But my impression has not changed a lot from the first time I read it as a kid. I used eight words in Chinese to sum up what the lesson of this story is: "用心去看, 珍惜所愛". My friends agree with me. In English, it means "See with your heart. Cherish your loved ones".

No wonder why Oprah Winfrey has picked this for her book club, the first current release in years (Oprah shelved her book club selections a few years ago as she could not find any good new works; she then resumed her book club but only selected the classics).

This is a novel about a man and his son trekking across America after the Apocalypse. Solely from the author's imagination, almost every living thing on earth was annihilated in the post-apocalyptic world. The few survivors lived in hell where there was nothing to expect. Barely subsisting on scavenged food, the man and his son only had a pistol to fend against the lawless marauders along the road, and each other.

This was a world totally without hope and you have to count your blessings that you are living in the world in its current state, despite its iniquities and shortcomings. Cormac McCarthy has conjured a world that was so bleak, dark and hopeless that it makes you cry as you read on.

Readers will no doubt marvel at McCarthy's boundless imagination. His vivid prose brought to readers images that are stunning and horrifying.

You may not like this book but it's a hell of a reading experience.