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…

It is always interesting to observe how a character from a book comes to life on the silver screen. One of my all-time favorite detectives Hercule Poirot is a complex character with his own peculiar habits. A man most brilliant but also multi-dimensional. I am more than impressed than David Suchet’s interpretation of Poirot. He brings Poirot to life. David’s Poirot is just what Agatha Christie would have imagined – the short bald Belgian, with…

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…