Before I go to sleep by S J Watson

What would you do if every day you wake up remembering nothing? This is a book about despair, confusion, trust and self reliance. When half of  your life is gone and you don't remember anything from your past, even from yesterday, what are you left with?

This is an interesting book to which I can relate up to a point, because I have a very poor memory and I have to rely on others for remembering things. This brought me to a place where I had to ask myself who do I trust, and are my instincts true or gone haywire? This is the story of Christine Lucas who wakes up every day not remembering the last 2 decades of her life, after a terrible incident that sent her to the hospital. She doesn't remember the man she wakes up with, she doesn't remember her son, her friends, her things, anything.Every night, after she goes to sleep she forgets everything and every morning starts with her trying to figure out who is the woman staring at her in the mirror and what has happened to her life.

"Before I go to sleep" is mostly structured like a journal, Christine's journal. You get some insight in the life of an amnesiac and how family reacts to this situation, while trying to take care of her. After reading the book you might get the brief sensation that your memories might not be real. You will try to remember what you had for lunch a week ago, just to see if you are still in your right mind. It kind of messes with your head a bit, making you wonder "what if?".

I would say that it is a good read. I wouldn't call it a thriller, even though in the last 50 pages or so your entire perception of the events gets turned upside down and gives you chills up your spine. Try to read the last chapter during the weekend,  because I guarantee you won't let it go until it's finished.

Happy Together: 500 Things to do for and with your sweetheart by Ken Shafer

If you are romantic and like lists, this is the book for you. This is a very easy to go through book and, given my experience with the former one, I had quite enjoyed myself. Out of the 500 pieces of advice 25% will not apply to you, maybe even more, but it's Saturday morning and I am feeling generous. "Why not?" you might ask. Maybe you don't have kids, or maybe you don't own a car, or maybe you have no musical talent whatsoever, or maybe you don't own a pet.

Besides the 500 suggestions the book has some cute and funny graphics, relating to some of the recommendations. To give you some idea of what this book is about, here are some quotes:

No.20 Openly recognize the fact that your sweetheart is intelligent.
No.30 Play a board game together.

No.158 Let your sweetheart spend time with his friends.
No.159 Make a list of plans for the future.

No.408 Take part in a festival together. 

If you are in a relationship and never thought of doing some of these things with your significant other,  you really have a problem as an individual and as a couple. The suggestions in this book are common sense and you should take this book more as a "to-do list" than as a study book. You don't have anything to learn from this book, but it might remind you of certain things you wanted to do and forgot because of your busy life (e.g. work and other problems that might make your relationship monotonous). 

My suggestion is: read it together and mark the things you want to do with and for your sweetheart. It will remind you that being a couple is not just about house chores and watching TV together. This was a pleasant read for me, so give it a go.

Decoding Love by Andrew Trees

This is one of the most boring books I had ever read. I simply could not bring myself to finishing it. I guess he brings some viable arguments about sexual attraction and relationships. To be honest, if you've dated more than 10 people in your life and had sex with half of them, you can definitely skip this book. Simply because it doesn't bring anything more than just some facts you might or might not know, but you do them by instinct.

He tries to be funny at times, but it just doesn't hit the spot. The advice done like this " if you are a squeamish woman skip the next chapter" can rub people the wrong way. Maybe men like having sex more than women, but from this statement and calling us "sexual predators" it goes a very long way. I don't get offended easily and I guess he makes some valid points when he writes about the sociological experiments, but I wouldn't take any of his advice into consideration.

If you want to find out a bit about the differences between the 2 sexes, read the book. But keep in mind that it is mostly about heterosexual people (or I didn't get to the good part) and I haven't found anything that might suggest a path towards more interesting relationships like (swingers, gays, bisexuals, lesbians, transgender, fetishes, orgies, BDSM, role play etc.). 

This book just feels like watching old, boring, straight, softcore porn: missionary position, under the covers with lights dimmed, but there is no music in the background and they don't even show a boob or some ass. I wish at least he had some kink, or something interesting to hook me up with, or something to at least to make me relate to it and want to read it 'till the end.

Down the road by Bowie V. Ibarra

This time I come up with an easy book. It is a horror novel about zombies. Yes, I admit: I am a zombie geek. I am more fascinated how people imagine the collapse of society due to an epidemic (this time zombies) than the actual gore-fest of the undead. I like the idea of survival in a world that had lost its rules and how people start relating to each-other in extreme situations.

Down the road by Bowie V. Ibarra is the classic zombie story: the hero finds himself at the beginning of the zombie-apocalypse and he's trying to get back to his family. This short novel is entertaining even though I think the sex scenes are gratuitous in details and so is the gore. I believe that the author had seen himself in the shoes of George (our hero) and he wanted him to be some sort of geeky playboy. He made George a chick magnet and, go figure, he's Latino.   I did like the fact that it has a beginning and it has an end and the plot is not that bad (believe me, I had read far worse than this).

If you like the genre, read it. You won't be disappointed. You get zombies, sex, violence, the evil government, rebels, survivors, rapists, drug lords and druggies, Texans with lots of guns and a sexy widowed professor who fucks the women he saves and who can drive stick. Did I mention zombies and gore? I guess I did.

Final words: entertaining, somewhat predictable, but definitely worth your while.

Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole by Stephen Law

Do you want to nail your theist friends to the cross? Read this book and start destroying their belief system, one argument after another. Everybody believes in something: from ghosts to aliens, from the almighty God to the Loch Ness monster; but this doesn't mean it's not complete and utter bullshit.

I am going to state from the beginning that in a way this book is very offensive because it attacks the belief in the supernatural. "Believing bullshit" is a hard book due to the fact that it does require a certain amount of intellect, education and open-mindedness to be understood at its true value. It is very entertaining and gives some pertinent arguments in the fight with the bullshitters.

Law seems to be an atheist and in this book you get the feeling that he preaches exactly that. At the beginning of the book he mentions the fact that he doesn't dismiss the existence of a higher power and that he only wants to make you aware of the theists' tactics of forcing their beliefs on you. The so-called "intellectual black holes" are ways of explaining something completely ludicrous by claiming it to be a mystery of the supernatural, hence no matter how many scientific arguments you throw at the believer, he will always find an counterargument.

The moral of this book? Keep an open mind, think for yourself and don't follow James 1:6 - "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt." In my first review I had mentioned the next book that I was going to read simply because I had my mind set on it. Afterwards I had realized that I'd rather not mention the next title because I might change my mind  after the post.  Who knows what interesting book might drop into my clutches?!