I picked up this book solely because it was a Virago Modern classics cause one can typically trust their curation. However, I am not sure if this was a win. I am not entirely sure whether The Play Room qualifies to be a modern classic. But I guess, 50 years down the line, it may be considered a reflection of teenage youth in England during the Swinging 60s. The Play Room is centered on Laura,…
Book Reviews
Twilight is a book for the young adult segment, a demographic I am not hence probably not qualified to review it. However, I have read it, I have an opinion and I want to say it out loud. Twilight is one of those rare books appearing to be much better than they actually are. The plot, in short, is the love story of Isabella, a young teenage girl, and Edward, a vegetarian vampire. Quite enticing,…
I have mixed feelings about this book having just finished it yesterday. I had expectations from this book. I expected it to be the story of the American dream, like in the movies – the hero will rise above himself to be a bigger and better person. Clearly, I was obviously mistaken. This is about real life and real life is not the like the movies. Read More…
Guest post by Kapil Sood, Writer-at-large, Shades of Words Often in our lives, we commit mistakes that leave us in overwhelming guilt. In the absence of a suiting redemption, we end up living our lives under the burden of this guilt. Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel The Kite Runner is about how this guilt and later a desperate attempt at redemption drives the life of Amir. With Afghanistan in turmoil as the background, it is a…
Assorted tales of comic fiction – edited by Peter Haining I always appreciate an entertaining or thought-provoking story-line and I got plenty of those as I read the ‘The Flying Sorcerers’. A motley collection of humorous fantasy fiction tales with a mix of both science fiction and the supernatural. What makes the book really special is: A) It has the earlier works of some of the best names in the business – Terry Pratchett, Arthur…
The Blind Assassin book is my pick for Canada for Around the World! I always have very high expectations from award-winning books and I am usually not disappointed. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood was an exception. The novel traces the story of Iris & Laura Chase, two sisters born into a rich but fading household in a small industrial town in Canada. Our narrator is Iris Chase, the elder sister who unravels her life…
Piece of Cake qualifies to be neither a great piece of literature nor a thought-provoking book, but it makes it to our web pages simply because reading it was ”fun’. Classic chick-lit, it follows the trials and tribulations of a 29-year-old business school graduate, Minal Sharma, in a cutthroat multinational food corporation. Running parallel to the core story is her need to find the ‘man’ of her life before her mom dumps the HT Matrimonial…
Imagine you were in a fairy tale….. What would you do if you realized it was in your hands to change the course of the story? What would you do if you realized the characters in the fairy tale were real people and did not want to be a part of the story? Terry Pratchett’s ‘Witches Abroad’ does it all and in a very entertaining manner. Three witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat, one…
