The Baptistry of San Giovani - The Gates of Paradise

In connection with Teaser Tuesday over at Miz B's blog, here's my snippet:


In Dan Brown's "Inferno" we read from the end of chapter 53:

"Crafted of gilded bronze and over fifteen feet tall, the doors had taken Lorenzo Ghiberti more than twenty years to complete. They were adorned with ten intricate panels of delicate biblical figures of such quality that Giorgio Vasari had called the doors "undeniably perfect in every way and . . . the finest masterpiece ever created."

It had been Michelangelo, however, whose gushing testimonial had provided the doors with a nickname that endured even today. Michelangelo had proclaimed them so beautiful as to be fit for use . . . as the Gates of Paradise."

This is The Baptistry of San Giovani, which Brown described in the above passage:

It's located next to the more famous Il Duomo, in the heart of Florence, Italy:

And here are the "Gates of Paradise", the doors of The Baptistry of San Giovani:

I must admit, they are stunningly impressive!

Beginning a sentence with "because"

I have excitedly begun the adventure of reading through Dan Brown's new novel, Inferno. 

Immediately I have noticed within the first 80 pages a similar layout to Dan Brown's most famous novel, "The Da Vinci Code."

Langdon meets a girl, he's in trouble, they are running away from police, trying to piece together some clues. It seems Brown is going back to the successful layout of his greatest work. And that's fine with me.

When I was at school, my English teachers always taught me never to begin a good English sentence with the word "because." So I've avoided it ever since. It was therefore surprising somewhat when I came across this line on page 28 of Inferno:

"Because the walls were nothing but metal screens, Langdon found himself watching the inside of the elevator shaft slide rhythmically past them."

Shock horror! Dan Brown wrote a sentence starting with "because!" Is he purposely writing wrong English? Or is English grammar more flexible nowadays?

Amazonia review

I finished reading Amazonia by James Rollins and thoroughly enjoyed it.

A U.S. agent stumbles into a small village in the Amazon after 4 years since setting foot in the jungle. He entered the jungle with one arm, but came out with two! Unfortunately he died from a plethora of cancers that very same night.

Another team is sent into the jungle to find out what happened to Agent Clark, but discover shocking truths, lies and death along the way.

Amazonia is a page-turner, and I specifically hurried up to finish it as I have just purchased Inferno, Dan Brown's latest novel!

I'm going to be a busy reader :)

Amazonia by James Rollins

I've started collecting some James Rollins books. I read "The Judas Strain" some time ago and really enjoyed it, one reason being because it is in the same style as Dan Brown.

"Amazonia" is another James Rollins novel, the second of his works I have begun reading. I'm 100 pages in and it's riveting. I would say it's definitely a page-turner!

The scene is set in the Amazon jungle in Brazil where an American agent has been lost for 4 years. He suddenly turns up in a small village with 2 arms, and dies a short time later. Turns out 4 years ago he only entered the jungle with ONE arm!

Teaser Tuesday (April 30th) AMAZONIA

For this weeks Teaser Tuesday I'm sharing a passage from "Amazonia", a book I've just started reading this week.

Amazonia is one of a series of books written by James Rollins. I bought three of his books at a recent book fair here in Kuantan, for just RM8 each!

James Rollins is actually the pen name of the author James Czajkowski - you can understand why he chose Rollins to be his more recognisable author name!

Here's a teaser from Amazonia:

"She turned to her brother and said matter-of-factly, 'The only cure is to cut the victim's penis off and extract the fish.'"

I'm sure that passage tickled you!