Winter is here. As temperatures plummet across the northern hemisphere and people scurry inside warm houses, it is the perfect time to settle into that recliner, grab a cup of hot cocoa and read a book. What else are you going to do? (Yes, you can always binge watch Netflix, but is that what you really want to do with your life? What I read is determined by how my day was, what I am…
Top Reads
Not entirely sure if this post qualifies for a ’round-up’ as I read only two books in October. I was travelling half-way across the world to India, busy visiting family and friends, and was jet-lagged for half that time – I could only squeeze in very limited reading. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan This one has made all major award circuits this year and it’s not hard to see why. Spanning several years and continent,…
The Things they Carried is an astounding book that leaves no doubt in your mind on the true nature of war. There is no glory and it’s horror has endless depths. It can’t be an easy thing to write personal war stories – especially painful, gut-wrenching, embarrassing, shameful ones. But that’s what Tim O’Brien does in this semi-autobiographical collection of snippets from Vietnam War. He digs into his war wounds and slices them open and…
Only Wodehouse can make a story about the occupants of a stuffy English Country House and a silver cow creamer entertaining. PG Wodehouse’s novels brings all the charms of the English humor to your home and the adventures of young, spoilt Bertie Wooster and his butler, Jeeves form the icing on the proverbial cake in his collection. The Code of the Woosters takes Bertie and Jeeves to the residence of is Sir Watkyn Basset in…
I often find that great stories are not just about the writing, the plot or the characters, but what they tell us of the human condition. That is what really pulls me into the pages and makes me think about what I have read long after I finished the book. Stories about ordinary women in extraordinary situations are my personal favorite which is why I am in love with Good Evening, Mrs. Craven. The author,…
“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” – Shakespeare So. Many. Thoughts. Where do I begin? Perhaps at the very beginning–when a little magical baby survived a deadly attack from a very cruel wizard setting in motion events that culminated in the Battle of Hogwarts in which the evil wizard was finally defeated. But what if the magical baby did not survive? Or what if that cruel wizard did not…
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” ― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair Isn’t that a beautiful start? I fell head over heels in love with the novel the minute I read that opening sentence. However, as it often happens, it was easier to fall in love than to stay in love. So, What’s It About?…
Someone at a Distance is a heartbreaking story of an ordinary upper middle class British family is so gripping. I have read no other work by Dorothy Whipple, so am not aware of her style of narrative. I enjoyed this from a literary point of view, but I found the book oddly regressive to feminism. Let me start with the plot, which, as the blurb shows, is ‘deceptively simple’. The Norths are a happy, self-contained family…
