Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

The first sentence:

Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house which Sheridan died in 1814.

And this is my second eBook random choice for this year.

Image copied here

I guess I am longing for an adventure that's why I randomly selected this book.  I turned to planetebook.com for a short list of eBook titles, and went to goodreads.com to download their version.  This is the most convenient way so far since keeping track of the pages won't be a problem if I downloaded the books from goodreads.  But of course, you can also get it from planetebooks if you're not really particular about the pages.

Anyway.

I guess I've been wanting to travel that's why I randomly selected this book.  It's like I imagine myself travelling around the world in just eighty days without leaving my home.  I guess this is also the product of watching too much TLC on tv.  Anthony Bourdaine was in Italy the last time I watched and I was really fascinated about the lifestyle of the folks there.  They still make their own cheese, grow their own cattles, extract their own pork lard, make their own pasta, and call themselves as the best makers of their own produces.  How I wish I could taste them for real.

So, that's tv.  But with books, I want it to take me back in time.  And this book took me back in those days when it took days to get from one country to another (when now it's only hours) and read about how it looked like at that time.

I am already on page 29 at the time of this writing and the boat Mongolia with Phileas aboard was just about to get to the Suez Canal.  This brought me to google about the canal since I wonder why there seems to be many Africans on board.  Yeah, yeah, I need to learn more about geography.  And maybe that's why I chose this book, too.

At page 68:

Phileas Fogg, self-composed as if the judgment did not in the least concern him, did not even lift his eyebrows while it was being pronounced.  Just as the clerk was calling the next case, he rose, and said, "I offer bail." 

"You have the right," returned the judge. 

Fix's blood ran cold, but he resumed his composure when he heard the judge announce that the bail required for each prisoner would be one thousand pounds. 

"I will pay it at once," said Mr. Fogg, taking a roll of bank-bills from the carpet-bag, which Passepartout had by him, and placing them on the clerk's desk.

First Family, Fourth Reader

I am the third fourth reader of this book, assuming that the owner finished it - which I hope he/she did - before my room mate found it somewhere.

*Image cropped from Shelfari

The wife was next but she didn't get too long.  She had commented that she didn't like the alternating chapters between the events.  I do not have a problem with this.  Blaze was written in such a way that past and present were alternately presented which actually made perfect sense to me... It was like revealing secrets as it affect the story.

So this is the story about a president's family.  I am pretty sure that this was written before Obama won.  But I am not sure if it was started before even rumors came out that he would run for office.  But whichever is the case, I just brought it up because the president in the story happened to be black.

Willa, the president's nephew, was abducted by Quarry.  The intent and relation of the abduction is not yet revealed so far but the private investigators - Michelle and Sean - hired by the First Lady herself do have their theories that actually involved Willa's father.

The line of relationship between Quarry and Tuck (Willa's father) is not yet presented - that is, if there is any.

I have read two books by David Baldacci years before.  The first was Simple Truth, and then, much later, Wish You Well.  I didn't get to finish Wish You Well.  I just lost interest, that's it.  I was only half-way through the book and I couldn't pick up the sense of continuing any further.

This one though, is something I am engaged so far.  I hope my hopes wouldn't wither.