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With the Harry Potter series at its end with the 7th book finally being published this year, I took some time to search for other books with roughly the same genre, teen fantasy. Through a friend, I stumbled upon the Artemis Fowl series, written by the Irish author Eoin Colfer which began in 2001. This series has been ongoing with roughly 5 books, with the last one projected to emerge in 2008. Although it lacked publicity compared to the Harry Potter series, it still made up by becoming quite successful, receiving a favourable response.

The setting is relatively simple to understand and intriguing at the same time. Artemis Fowl II is a child prodigy, a genius, at 12 years old, he has an IQ debatably one of the highest in the world. He is the sole heir to the affluent Fowl family line, a long line of infamous Irish criminals who reside in their traditional Fowl Manor. Accompanying him are his personal bodyguards and servants, Juliet and Butler.

The story begins with Artemis brooding over his family's recent misfortune. His father, Artemis Fowl I was recently lost in the Arctic during a business transaction, driving his mother to insanity due to his absence. Normally, a 12-year-old kid might be stunned with not knowing what's next to do, but not Artemis. Immediately, this classical "evil genius" tries to hatch a plot to reinstate the Fowl name as the wealthy family they were once were, by amassing another fortune, illegally. This leads to the main plot of the first stolen gold from fairies.

The stereotypical image of fairies are little "pixies", small hand sized humanoids who fly around with their wings, accompanied by the Irish myths of leprechauns with their magical pots of gold. However, in Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer not only utilises this myth thoroughly, but pushes it beyond our wildest imaginations. In the story, fairies are a large colony of humanoids including pixies, dwarves, goblins, the usual mythical group. Centuries ago, they had war with us (humans) and after being defeated, they fled underground where they stayed hidden for centuries using their superior technology and fairy magic.

Artemis, through someway was able to come to the knowledge of their existence, and knowing their secret, plans to steal gold from them to help reinstate his family's wealth. What we are given in the end is an interesting plot full of mythical twists and turns as we see this boy, not even a teenager, attempt to outwit the other races based on his cunning plans. Artemis, in this way, plays a lovable "evil genius", whose plots for personal power and greed against the fairies form the basic plot line of the series.

As with the Harry Potter series, one thing I noticed was that as the series progressed, the themes of the books become more and more mature. Having read the entire series, I can safely say that the unique setting would draw the interests of both the young and old into the very possible scenario that we are not the smartest beings on this planet. I personally recommend getting hooked onto the series, which has its last book coming out some time in 2008, in addition to a movie in the works.

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When anyone mentions the American band OneRepublic, the first song which would spring to most minds would be their hit single Apologize, produced in collaboration with producer Timbaland, which broke the records as one of the most successful singles ever released. One would have to agree that this band has came a long way from a lowly beginning within MySpace back in 2004. Dreaming Out Loud is OneRepublic's debut album, containing "Apologize" and it's remix version with Timbaland, as well as 11 other pop-rock songs, with another 3, "Hearing Voices", "Dreaming out loud" and "Something's not right here" available at certain locations only.

To get the ball rolling, I'm sure many have heard their single "Apologize" before. With that song in mind, I have to say that the rest of the songs within the album bear the same genre and some resemblance to it. I'm no music guru, but they have a heavy emphasis on acoustics and drums as well as the occassional piano. Most of their songs combines this and Ryan Tedder's(Their lead Vocal) unique voice to craft brlliant songs. For example, the much acclaimed "Apologize" uses the piano as well as the guitars to produce a melodic and addictive beat, providing the platform for this song to be the success it is today.

Despite OneRepublic claiming themselves as a rock band, I personally find "Dreaming out loud" somewhat contradicting it. Most of the album's songs are more of pop and non-metal, being what I myself would consider "soft" in nature. Their songs all follow one main theme, that would be emotional struggles, relationships and such problems. Another example, "Stop and Stare" is a catchy song relating to the act of trying to move on from something of the past, only realising later that although you try to get away, you would end up being unable to move away from that incident.

Furthermore, I find some of their music extremely repetitive. Perhaps one of the problems with this album is the lack of variety, some of the tracks sound alike, all bearing identical themes, and to put it bluntly, I would get sick of hearing the similar melodies or beats over and over again in several the songs. In addition, one nitpick I noticed is that they like to reuse the chorus repeatedly, for example, in "All fall down", as well as repetitive lines in "Prodigal". Sure, in the end, it may produce a great sound, but after sometime, it gets monotonous.

All in all, despite just falling short to the hype and high expectations one would expect after "Apologize" came out some time before the album, I still find the album still containing some solid music, a recommended buy for pop-rock lovers.

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Most of us would probably remember Lord Jeffrey Archer as a criminal, having spent time in jail for perjury. However, if one were to look behind such an ignominious history, you would have to agree that he has a knack for spinning a long tale, as seen by his earlier successes, specifically, Kane & Abel.

Having read most of his other books, I can easily describe to you the style of which he writes. He takes two characters which seem to have next to zero relationships with each other, and follows their trials and tribulations from birth to adulthood seperately. Then, in this period of time, the lives of these two characters who were thought were seperate would somehow be deeply entwined with each other, causing drama and tension for both characters who we have been following. It is no different in Kane & Abel.

William Lowell Kane is the son of a rich Boston millionaire, whilst on the other hand, Abel Rosnovski is a poor Polish immigrant. Both only have one thing in common, their birth dates. In the span of the book, which covers a life to death story spanning nearly sixty years, we see both of these men grow up in their respective homes and countries, before their goals bring them together as partners and eventually, enemies. We will learn about both their families, their loves and even their children, all brought up in juxtaposition to each other.

The story begins in World War I, where Abel is trapped in invaded Poland, while William Kane sits comfortably at home in Boston. Both their lives and difficulties are different from each other, one trying to survive in a dangerous situation that he is in, the other trying to survive in a different environment, his school, his business relationships. Only when Abel finally immigrates to the States, his goals change that of a monetary one, where now both of them now sharing the same goal, conflict each other.

Despite the interesting and long drawn out story given here, some might be simply disgusted at the sheer length of the story. Some readers would prefer to jump straight into the action, rather than go to through a long drawn out life story of both characters, no matter how interesting it is. Furthermore, Jeffrey Archer writing style of using Chekhov's Gun where certain characters or events early in the story may seem unmeaningful and unnecessary, only to be brought up later in the story, causing the reader to flip back to investigate it's meaning, having not paid proper attention to it just now. In addition to that, the story also lacks a major climax. Indeed, it has a number of tense moments at different parts of their lives, a childhood crisis, a teenage nemesis each character might face. This results in a fluctuating tension which does not climax well. In fact, come to think of it, I personally feel that some earlier events might have put me on the edge more so than the final ending of the story.

Kane & Abel, however, is still a decent read to avid readers who are looking for a good, moderate length work of fiction. If you do not mind a fully fleshed out story, perhaps Kane & Abel would be a good choice for you. Even if you are done with this book, the stories of these families actually continue in two seperate "sequels", "The Prodigal Daughter", as well as "Shall We Tell The President?", further following into the lives of these two families in the near future.

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It's a dangerous world in which we live in nowadays, what with so many terrorist threats popping up all over the place. Especially after September 11 2001 when the Twin Towers collapsed, it was then when the world, especially America, first started combating terrorism on such a large scale. However, such threats of terrorism existed long before 2001, and Geoffrey Archer is one of the many authors who decided to play around with this idea in several of his books, one of which would be Fire Hawk.

Published back in 1998, the story of Fire Hawk primarily revolves around the idea of biological warfare, specifically anthrax powder. It starts of when Sam Packer, a British spy and a recurring character in Archer's future books, is undercover in Iraq and discovers that terrorists have gotten their hands on an anthrax bomb and intend to make use of it outside of Iraq. Considering how just a few grams of the powder could potentially kill a few thousand people in a busy subway station, it's then a race against time for Packer and the other intelligence agencies, along with the UN, to uncover the entire plot and stop a terrorist attacks that would have unthinkable consequences.

I won't go into any more details about the plot here, since it would just spoil the story for most. However, there are a fair amount of twists and turns throughout the book that will undoubtedly leave you wanting to keep on fliping to the next page. Archer somehow manages to keep the level of excitement pretty high throughout the entire book with so many things going on at once, yet everything is connected to one another in the end. However, the problem with this book for me is that the excitement level is constantly high, which means that there isn't even really much of a climax, even though the plot calls for an action packed one. In the end, the climax is more or less just a few sentences long which is a let down. Still, that far from makes this a bad book, because one will undoubtedly enjoy reading through the entire book since it is constantly filled with lots of action all the time.

Fire Hawk is the first of Geoffrey Archer's work that I've read thus far, and from the looks of it I'll be trying to get my hands on his other books to read as well. In my opinion, he's a pretty great thriller writer. His plots also fuse fact and fiction together to produce a really intriguing plot of what "if" this happened in real life. While many other authors attempt to do the same thing by mixing elements of fact and fiction into the same plot, not many are able to do it as well as Geoffrey Archer.

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It was a gloomy morning, my head was spinning when I woke up with a bad headache. My body ached terribly when I turned in bed. "Should I go to work today?" I asked myself, I hesitated for a while. Then, glimpses of the school children's faces flashed through my eyes. "All the young adorable ones are awaiting me." With that thought, I managed to gather my strength, out of a sudden my body felt stronger and I finally rolled out of bed, got dressed and went to work.

Sometimes, in our daily life, we are likely to find ourselves questioning our values and purposes in life. One may refer to this pondering notion as the 'mid life crisis', especially if your work lies within a mundane routine. A mundane routine; allow me to describe this further in a teacher's perspective. Teaching the same subject matter - day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out. In such regularity, one may question the challenge, the excitement, the reward a teacher may gain from this absolute 'dullness' profession. If you do have that in mind, may I invite you to venture on the wonders in the teaching world with the book "Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul".

From this book, you'll find stories that open the hearts, touch the souls and enlighten a dampen spirit. Written by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen; the #1 New York Times and USA Today Best Selling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Even though this book spans up to 361 pages, please don't get intimidated with its volume, as each story only takes up to an average of 6 - 8 pages. A good 40 odd stories to read, packed with funny illustration cartoon figures.

The stories are contributed by real, actual people. Every word, every situation you read from the book is real-life experience from people mainly in the United States. Having said that, I begin to wonder if all the selfless persons or teachers are located only in the States? The answer, of course not! Most probably the stories from Asia did not reach the writers of "Chicken Soup for the Soul Series". If you have an interesting, heart enlightening story to share, the writers beckon for your kind contributions.

Besides inspiring stories from teachers, there are an abundance of stories contributed by students and parents sharing their appreciation of the teachers who touched their life. What I appreciate most from this book is the small phrases in the beginning of each story. It reminds me that life means so much more than your big house, your big pay check and your big car!

I left the book on my table one day, a friend dropped by and she finished 2 stories, while waiting for me to pack up. Her perspective on life changed after that 10 minutes. Need I say more?

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