Dust Jacket

Tigers In Red Weather - Ruth Padel

2011-08-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

We waited a long time. At the biggest waterhole at BR Hills in Karnataka, India, we waited, crouched near some under growth for almost an hour because one of has had maybe seen a bit of an orange splotch in the middle distance. Could be a tigress with her cubs; this was her territory. We went back to the forest guest house at dusk; the orange splotch never did show itself again and all we got that day were false alarm calls, a LOT of spotted deer and one extremely obtuse gaur. I have been going to the forests since I was a kid and I have never seen a tiger till date. Not one. What pushes me to go back again and again is the possibility. So what if I have never spotted the biggest of the big four of the Indian jungles? It is enough that they are there, we should protect them irrespective of whether we trespass their territory. And that is exactly what Ruth Padel tells you in her book, Tigers In Red Weather.

From the back of the book: "Can wild tigers be saved, or is this their last moment before extinction? Ruth Padel embarks on an astonishing journey to find out, searching forests from Bangladesh to Bhutan, China to Russia, Nepal to Thailand for that most beautiful of all animals, once known as the soul of Asia."

Retelling her experiences of a journey spanning two years across Asia in a quest to really understand tigers and their conservation, Ruth Padel gives us what is probably the most comprehensive guide to all wildlife and especially tiger conservation that exists today. Out of a five year relationship and slightly at loose ends, it isn't very clear as to why she decided to make this journey. Maybe it was her way of getting on with her life and this is evident throughout the book where she laces bits and pieces of her life into chapters.

The book is split into several sections: The first one covers India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan; the second covers Russia, Korea and China; the third covers south-east Asia and the extinct tigers and for the final part she comes back to South India.

As she travels across the continent, she braves the wild, fights her fears over leeches, snakes, rocky terrains where a foot in the wrong place will send you plunging, in order to really understand the tiger, its habitat, its plight, its future, its metaphysical links with man. India, Nepal and Russia leave you slightly despairing yet hopeful; China quite simply drives you mad; The violence in areas like Laos, Nepal, areas of Russia and Indonesia is described vividly and the reader comes away with real empathy for the people of the Asian Forest. The relationship that the locals around a forest area share with their wildlife is a delicate and sometimes belligerent one. It isn't possible to save one without the other.

This isn't a breezy travel memoir of a woman going on holiday; to me it seemed rather like a personal crusade against destruction of the wild. This is an important book; important because it is honestly written and without any facelifts. Difficult as it may be to see our cursory attitude to nature through Ms. Padel's eyes, Tigers in Red Weather evokes genuine concern.

Some might argue that the pace lags a bit at places and that there is too much of detailing. Sure, it isn't all about breathtaking journeys into the jungles; a lot of the book focuses on local administrative problems, the menace of poaching and logging etc. But that's why I say that this is an important book: in her two years in Asia, Ruth Padel is able to sight tigers just twice or thrice but that doesn't stop her from venturing into the forests over and over again: the tigers are there and that's enough.

Ruth Padel is actually the great-great grand daughter of Charles Darwin! Fancy that :)

After six months

2011-07-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

Six months....that's a long time to stay away from anything including blogging. But for several health as well as personal reasons I couldn't blog. Now that I am up and functioning again I hope I can keep this space going like I used to before. I like being back. It is good to be back.

Rama Comes Home

2011-01-18T04:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the wishes! For the first post of the year, I have decided to put up something I wrote a while ago. This particular piece on the Ramayan deals with the return of Lord Rama from his exile. Hope it doesn't bore you all too much :)

For the uninitiated:
Ramayana, an Indian epic written by Valmiki is the story of Ramachandra, crown prince of the kingdom of Khosala, of which Ayodhya is the capital. It is said to have taken place roughly four thousand years ago. Rama's father King Dashrath had three wives and four sons in total. Rama, the eldest was born to Kousalya, Bharat was born to Kaikeyi and the twins, Lakshman and Shatrugna were born to Sumithra. The brothers are extremely devoted to each other and the three queens treat all four like their own. Around the time of Rama's coronation, Kaikeyi, her mind poisoned by her Lady's maid Mantra, extracts a promise from King Dashrath to exile Rama for fourteen years and make Bharat King instead. When this becomes known, the kingdom of Khosala is in uproar. Rama complies to his father's dictum and prepares for exile taking his wife Sita and his brother Lakshman with him. Bharat is heartbroken over the turn of events and vows to rule those fourteen years from the remotest corner of the kingdom, from a village called Nandigram. King Dashrath is heartbroken over what has happened and rues his inability to go over his words to Kaikeyi to whom he had promised some boon years ago. King Dashrath soon passes away. Kaikeyi eventually comes to her senses and bitterly regrets the wrong she has done Rama, whom she loved like her own. Bharat rules those fourteen years with Rama's slippers placed on his head, waiting only for the return of the rightful king. In the fourteen many events take place and Rama eventually returns. What I have written about is precisely that. Ramayana is considered to be one of the greatest works of all time and holds a special place in my heart.

A sort of glossary:
Khosala - The kingdom
Ayodhya - The capital city
Surya - The Sun God
Nandigram - The place where Bharat lives in self imposed exile
Sumantara - The minister of Khosala
Guru Vashishta - The Guru of Rama's dynasty
Ikshvaku - The name of Rama's race
Dashrath - King of Khosala
Kousalya - Queen, mother of Rama
Kaikeyi - Queen, mother of Bharat
Sumithra - Queen, mother of Lakshman and Shatrugna
Sita - Rama's wife
Urmila - Lakshman's wife
Pushpak - The golden flying apparatus (another story, another day) that brings Rama home
Vanars - The monkey race to which Hanuman is said to have belonged
Devas - Gods
Mahadev - Lord Shiva

Rama Comes Home

And so it came, the Sun God's gift:
A day so bright, exaltation in its wake,
Like a whisper of joy, like victory's cry
It came with fanfare, Deliverance Day.
The sky and land were awash with light,
Of Surya's might; his heart song rained:
Pink and amethyst and gold so pure,
Happiness gained and injustice slain.
As the Sun moved on from its Eastern home,
Nandigram danced like never before
To the sound of hooves, of kinsmen's feet,
Ayodhya danced to Bharat's abode.
The queen mothers and princess in their palanquins,
The ministers with Sumantara in their chariots,
Townsmen and women; youths and maids,
Set forth with song in their holiday's best.
There came Shatrugna, radiance personified,
There was Kousalya and Sumithra alight with joy,
There was Kaikeyi waiting for her eldest son,
With love and longing for the sight of her boy.
And alone at the head there came a steed
With fiery eyes and tossing mane,
Leading a chariot, white leading white
It came for its master; the jewel of his race.
Listening to the rumble, there he stood
Eyes seeking the horizon, Dashrath's son,
The very brother of brothers, he waited with heart,
With tingling nerves; his penance done.
Blessed Bharat stood covered with with dust,
Emaciated bones that bespoke sorrow,
With matted hair and mud-caked feet,
Hardship and heartbreak besieging his brow.
As he stood there with his Guru Vashishta,
His heart thudded in its cage,
He yearned for the sight of his Master and Lord,
His smile mirroring that of the sage.
But Bharat's breath caught with every smile,
His face though bright was anxiously so,
He prayed to the Gods to grant him this wish
For the sight of his brother, his Master and Lord.
He renewed his vow for them millionth time,
The echo of it burned fierce in his throat,
If his brother failed to come, he would leave this world;
His broken spirit could endure no more.
Then in the distance, there came a sight
That Bharat was waiting for many a day
A cloud of dust rose up to the sky,
Khosala's King was on his way.
The dust motes grew with the thundering hooves,
The thundering echoing Nandigram's heart,
Royals and rustics stood as one,
To welcome their hero, returning from war.
Shatrugna, Bharata and Guru Vashishta,
Stood with blazing hearts and blazing eyes;
Hope for the future over a poisoned past,
Like ivy on a wall. In an iron vise.
And in that moment when the forms took shape.
Across the bare plains some miles ahead,
The earth stood still and all life froze,
Just the beat of hearts and words unsaid.
The angels in Heaven sang so pure,
Heralding the Lord of Khosala,
"Come and regain the kingdom you lost,
Embrace your right, Son of Kousalya!"
Here they could see the flash of an eye!
And there they could see hovering gold!
Pushpak rose from the cloud the sun,
With the three that they'd loved, the three that they'd lost.
The army of the good came nearer still,
Men and vanars came galloping hard,
Towards that little Godforsaken town
That became Bharat's home: Nandigram.
At last they could see the Pushpak's form,
At last they could behold their good Lord's face,
And khosala broke its fourteen year fast,
And wept and cried and laughed in a haze.
As the vehicle landed in the open land,
Bharat ran to meet and greet,
With Ram's slippers on his head, with tears rolling down,
He fell with a sob at Rama's feet.
The very brother of brothers hugged his brother,
When Bharata cried, the universe cried,
Emotions pulling heavy in his heart,
With bounding love and quiet joy.
Rama embraced Bharata tight,
His eyes brimming with tears unleashed,
He was home at last and appeasing fast,
The filial hunger of years fourteen.
There was Lakshman to be hugged with heart,
There was Sita whose blessings he had to get,
But most of all there was Rama to hold on to,
There was Rama to heal the heart that bled.
Sumithra embraced her long lost sons,
Urmila with tears, her faithful love,
Kaikeyi and Kousalya with open arms,
Calling for wishes from the Gods above.
The mothers rejoiced, the repentant and wronged,
As one for the return of Dashrath's sons,
They of might, the just and brave,
With the wisdom of years and hardships won.
He first went to the one that'd brought him up,
When Kaikeyi cried, the Devas cried,
He now embraced the one from whose womb he came,
When Kousalya cried, Mahadev Himself cried.
And the cold, hard fist over Khosala's heart,
The cold hard mist over Rama's land,
Broke and yielded to the Lord's return,
Vanished in front of Rama's hand.
The return of the King brought the salvation of the other,
As Khosala prepared to return to its head,
That walled city of the Ikshvaku's seat,
To the Sun Wood throne that waited there.
"On to Ayodhya!", cried Bharata loud,
And the citizens took up the joyous refrain,
"On to Ayodhya!", resounded the cry,
The horses and elephants began their way.
Ramachandra mounted his chariot,
With his wife and brothers by his side,
The white leading white tossed his head
At the sight of his master, Dashrath's pride.
On they drove at the sound of a cry,
On the hopped and danced their way!
With good hearts full they ran on home,
Full of thanks for Deliverance Day.
Rama, at the thought of his home and hearth,
Trembled with joy, with eyes that shone,
For the sight of Ayodhya in his blood,
For his white walled city, his rightful home.
And yonder waited she, lit by the Sun,
Its amber nestling on her walls,
She has waited long and waited true,
Our Lord's pride Ayodhya of Khosala!

After a month....

2011-01-14T07:11:00.001-08:00

Extremely busy work days apart from another bout of illness is the cause of this month long absense from blogging, mailing, wishing and a general deplorable lack of contact. Hope to put up a new post by tomorrow. Hope all your New Year celebrations were joyful...have a wonderful year ahead! Looking forward to visiting all your blogs :)

A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

2010-12-15T00:23:00.000-08:00

A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel drawn from Ernest Hemingway's experiences in Italy during World War One.

Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American, is an ambulance driver with the Italian army, based in a little town called Gorizia. There he meets and falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a nurse at the local hospital. The two themes explored in the book are love and war; and with Henry and Catherine, one is inseparable from the other. Henry describes his war experiences with an aloof and almost brutal honesty. He spends his nights at the public house for the officers, drinks when he can and goes into the war with a sort of unemotional stolidity. He is in the war and yet he is far from it. Henry is a man who has realized that he is fighting someone else's war and yet he goes on because he simply must. His seeming indifference about the war is at direct odds with the strength of his emotions for Catherine. The two begin a tumultuous love affair where they cling to each other with increasing desperation as the book progresses. This is an intense love story set against the backdrop of a war that the common man simply did not seem to interested in fighting.

An excerpt from one of Henry's conversations with the priest on the disposition of the Italian Army: "They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is.”

I came away from the book not having any concrete opinion on either Henry or Catherine. They are not very inspiring and do not seem to possess many redeeming qualities and yet, their story moves you because it is, if you look at it, a study of a society gripped in uncertainty. Perhaps, with Henry who is wounded unexpectedly in the trench mortar shelling, and Catherine who is mourning the death of a former lover, being faced with their own mortality is what propels them towards each other. They constantly have to will themselves to be happy and while their love might have been true it seems fragile, insecure and like a reaction to the war and ravage around them.

Consider what Catherine Barkley tells Henry, "You don’t have to pretend you love me. But I do love you." Catherine is haunted by the fear that if she does not mold herself to Henry's wishes, she would lose him. She doesn't want to consider herself as a separate entity; Henry seems to be the only tangible thing in her world. Right from the beginning, their relationship is fraught with an impending sense of doom and is felt in Henry's words towards the later stages of the book, "We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both the feeling as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time together."

The story of Henry and Catherine is distinct in the fact that it is quite subversive and yet traditional. They perhaps epitomized the emotions of the multitude facing the "war to end all wars" at a time when the west was poised on the brink of great cultural change. Read Henry's and Catherine's story without any illusions and with the understanding that there were probably many Frederic Henrys and Catherine Barkleys whose stories we will never know.

My very first Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms had me in an iron grip from start to finish and less than half way through the book I was a Hemingway convert. The writing is magnificent, with the kind of uncompromising spareness that confronts you with the war and the conflicting emotions that go with it. Frederic Henry is said to have been modeled on Hemingway himself and Catherine Barkley on Agnes Von Kurowsky, the twenty six year old nurse that the eighteen year old Hemingway met during his convalescence in Milan. Agnes went on to become Hemingway's first love only to eventually break up with him citing the difference their ages as one of her reasons. Hemingway was never quite purged of his feelings for Agnes and her memory was to stay with him for the rest of his life. You can read her farewell letter to Hemingway here.

Hemingway on being wounded in WWI, "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you ... Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you."

This is a link to a website about Ernest Hemingway if anyone is interested. You can also check out information on Hemingway's house in Key West, where he is said to have finished A Farewell to Arms, here.

I have included pictures of Anges Von Kurowsky in her nurse's uniform in Milan, of Hemingway in his WWI uniform, of the both of them together and Hemingway at a later date, all sourced from various websites. If there are any copyright violations, please let me know, I will remove them.

A Christmas Carol Read-a-Long : Stave Three

2010-12-14T22:03:00.000-08:00

3. Stave Three - The Second of the Three Spirits:

Scrooge's lessons in stave three seem milder on the surface but in reality, this jolly good fellow of a ghost sears him with questions that Scrooge has no answers for. In showing the very spirit of Christmas, in showing the joyous attitude of the Cratchits who are poor as church mice, in the good natured ribbing of Scrooge's nephew, The Ghost of Christmas Present lets the cheer and joy slowly take hold of Scrooge without his even realising it. But this Ghost in his green mantle who spreads the holiday cheer with such generosity shows Scrooge very clearly that ignorance and want are the two poor devils of the world and that he should beware of them.

It is interesting to see Scrooge come out of the shock of the first visit and accept the Second of the Three Spirits with even alacrity. As with the second stave, in this one too you feel pity for Scrooge but more than that, there is this sense of shame on his behalf.

Charles Dickens, with mouth watering imagery and a jolly ghost, full stomachs and happy hearts has set us up for the last ghost of them all. Disconcerted? I bet, so is Scrooge.

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

2010-12-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

Gerald Durrell moved from England with his eccentric, oh! so eccentric family to Corfu, an island in Greece. He spent almost all his time exploring the island and making nice with it. His experiences on Corfu eventually took the form of the autobiographical novel, My Family and Other Animals.

Here is a teaser:
"This is the story of a five-year sojourn that I and my family made on the Greek island Corfu. It was originally intended to be a mildly nostalgic account of the natural history of the island, but I made a grave mistake by introducing my family into the book in the first few pages. Having got themselves on paper, they then proceeded to establish themselves and invite various friends to share the chapters. It was only with the greatest difficulty, and by exercising considerable cunning, that I managed to retain a few pages here and there which I could devote exclusively to animals."

Let me tell you right away that I absolutely adored this book; and if it hadn't been for Urbi Chatterjee of The Bootle Bum Trinket I wouldn't heard about this probably for a really long time.

Gerald Durrell with his family captures your imagination right out and what ensues is many hours of enjoyment getting acquainted with the Durrells and their singularly funny experiences in Greece. I loved the family (in fact I wish I could adopt them; please don't ask me for an explanation, it is just one of those things) and the dogs Roger, Widdle and Puke and Dodo; I loved The Magenpies (curious aren't you? Ain't telling. Now you have GOT to read the book); I loved Achilles the Tortoise and Quasimodo. I loved the gecko (shudder) and the mantid that fight a deadly turf battle on Gerry's bedroom wall. And then there is Spiro and Lugaretzia and Theo and Peter. The book brims over with lives; human and otherwise.

The family to the most part take Gerry's menagerie of animals in their stride but the moments in the book when they are troubled by a somewhat belligerent animal that Gerry has acquired are laugh-out-loud funny. And even though you are Team Gerry, you can't really blame the others for wanting to strangle his "pets" at times. Larry with all his pomp and bossiness gives you many reasons to grin; Leslie manages to find a soft corner in your heart with his guns and barrels and smoke; Margo, well, at her you just shake your head now and then because she is not good for much else except sun bathing. And Mrs. Durrell! That woman was a star! She steers her jigsaw puzzle of a family with admirable skill; she is unfazed by the scrapes they get into and gets into their lives and their little doings with an alacrity that is beautiful to behold.

Gerry's book is a testimony to his life and just a glimpse into what was actually a lifelong love and effort to nurture what he called "the little brown jobs" and "small uglies". All sorts of troubles tend to go up in smoke when you are in Corfu with Gerry and Company, so I strongly suggest that you get yourself a fix.

You can visit the The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust's website here. There is also a Dodo Club for kids. I can feel a visit to Jersey on the Channel Islands coming. Thank you Mr. Durrell, I was transformed into that grinning, at-peace-with-the-world-creature that only animal books/movies can induce in me.

A Christmas Carol Read-a-Long : Stave Two

2010-12-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

2. Stave Two - The First of the Three Spirits:

In Stave Two we find a slightly worse for wear Scrooge waiting for the clock to strike one and the arrival of the first spirit. The clock strikes one and the first spirit, The Ghost of Christmas Past arrives and takes Scrooge on a whirlwind tour of his past. Scrooge as a lonely little boy, Scrooge unhappy in a boarding school, Scrooge with a much beloved sister, Scrooge as a young apprentice and Scrooge beginning to show tendencies of the greed that would govern him in later life. It is touching to read about the boy Scrooge, in the place of his upbringing quite forgotten by his friends on Christmas. You feel for the boy as you vaguely feel for the old man who sobs by the Ghost looking at the shadows of his past.

In a odd way, the boy Scrooge reminds me of the boy Snape: both were odd fellows in that young age when getting slighted at school or in the sand box can be quite heartbreaking. Both take to paths best left alone; while love is the salvation of one, the sense of a wasted life and a wasted love is the salvation of the other. And this where I would like to point out the brilliance of Charles Dickens; while I find Rowling's writing more outwardly dramatic and you feel the tragedy of Snape's life quite distinctly, in the case of A Christmas Carol, the pathos of Scrooge's life permeates your mind slowly and you go through a variety of emotions in such quick succession. When Scrooge cries looking at the shadow of his childhood, you want to cry with him. You feel pity for the old man and yet with just a few paragraphs you feel such contempt for the young man on the threshold of becoming a miserly skin flint. When Scrooge, unable to take it any longer sobs to Ghost to take him back you feel sorry for him again.

Blown away by brilliance and in a lovely mood for the holidays.

Does Scrooge realise the error of his ways? Watch this space for Stave Three.

A Christmas Carol Read-a-Long : Stave One

2010-12-01T03:22:00.000-08:00

This event is hosted by Cyndi at Dog-Eared & Bookmarked. I shall devote a complete write-up to this book when I am done but as this is the first part of the read-a-long, I will just punch in my thoughts in the form of a quick post:

1. Stave One - Marley's Ghost:
I am always very excited when I read this book. A portion of every Christmas vacation while in school, was devoted to A Christmas Carol but I somehow lost track later on. So thanks are due to Cyndi for bringing this old habit back to life! I was so tempted to turn the page and continue after stave one but decided not to. I want to take my time and savour the chapters; I want to think them over and read the book till Christmas Eve.

As always, Mr. Dickens amazed me with the word play and the imagery. Even though it was a particularly sultry day in Chennai I could feel some sense of the cold and fog pervading my bones. If peered closely enough over the top of the book I could almost see Scrooge hunched over his desk with his ledgers. What a dismal picture he makes!

Stave One begins off on the eve before Christmas with the old miser Scrooge (a killer of the holiday spirit if there ever was any) shut up in his office with his poor clerk, with barely a fire to keep them warm. Scrooge is hard as flint and Christmas, good cheer, generosity of spirit all mean nothing to him. This is shown in a few quick episodes and a general sketch of Scrooge's character. I have always gotten the feeling that I am trapped inside that cheerless office with Scrooge and would give anything to join the throng outside and rush to some place warm. Then bum-da-bum-da-bum! (Or a more ghastly sound like a death knell?) Scrooge's long dead business partner Bob Marley, appears as a ghost and warns him of the danger of living a life devoid off all humaness while on the mortal plane. Marley's ghost evokes such fearsome images with that look of perpetual agony on his face and all those heavy chains filled with money boxes and ledgers. But Scrooge has a chance yet to escape Marley's fate and for that, he must do exactly as Marley's ghost advises him to.

If you want to know more you will have to read the book :) See you next week!

The Pre-nup - Beth Kendrick

2010-11-28T21:16:00.001-08:00

The Pre-nup by Beth Kendrick was unexpectedly fun. I say unexpectedly because I seem to have somewhat outgrown candyfloss books although I do pick one up now and then when I need a light read. It is hard to stay interested in cardboard romances, barely there plots and more often than not, in heroines who do not seem to have a single sensible thoughts in their heads but The Pre-nup was a pleasant surpirse.

For the blue-bloods and the nouveau riche living in Mayfair Estates in Phoenix, Arizona, pre-nups are a matter of routine. After all, it makes sense to protect one's assets before one ties the knot in the event of a divorce. Because what is one to do with a rabid ex-husband or ex-wife who is out to fleece you? Right. Everyone does it and for Ellie, Jen and Mara the pre-nup doesn't hold much significance anyway because they are in love or in some definition of it and everything will work out fine and besides, pre-nups are just a "technicality". So what happens when life threatens to kick them in the shins? When their relationships seem to be disintegrating right before their eyes?

When Ellie married rich and handsome Michael she was sure the marriage would last forever and she had no qualms in signing the pre-nup Michael's family insist on. A few years on and Ellie is alone with her five year old daughter. She couldn't save her marriage but she will save her divorce. The pre-nup can go to hell.

When Jen married Eric, they both knew that she loved him as a best friend but wasn't in love with him. Eric thought that his love would be enough for both of them. Jen's entire life is her health drink company Noda, that she started from scratch and that Eric invested in. But now, Eric is a jaded man; he is desperately in love with his wife but tired of her nonchalance. When he floats the question of divorce, Jen is suddenly scared that she would lose everything including the husband that she loves more than she realized.

Mara's fiancé has forgiven her for the foolish one-night fling she had ages ago. So why does he include a cheating clause in the pre-nup that she insisted on drawing up in the first place? Mara is hurt but is there something more? Is she so afraid of commitment that she is subconsciously rebelling against the marriage? Mara has to pull herself together if she wants the man she loves, who is tired of her being cynical. It is either no pre-nup at all or a pre-nup with a cheating clause. Meanwhile the wedding plans are hanging on by a thread; what will she choose?

I finished this book in one sitting because it was funny and absorbing. Add in a perceptive Vegas stripper as an unlikely Fairy Godmother and you have the whole zoo. There are likeable and dislikeable characteristics in all three protagonists and I was very interested in finding out how things turned out (even though one always knows with these stories). According to me that is the mark of a good "chick lit.", even though you know that there would be a happy ending, the pace, the dialogues and the plots should keep you interested in wanting to know how that happy ending comes about. The Pre-nup is a funny light-hearted take on the cynical concept of pre-nuptial agreements. This book kept me turning the pages on a sleepless night and for that I will give it full marks.

"A Christmas Carol" Read-a-Long for the festive season!

2010-11-21T00:48:00.000-08:00

My first Read-a-Long!

Thanks to Whitney over at She Is Too Fond Of Books, I came to know about this Read-a-Long hosted by Cyndi at Dog-Eared & Bookmarked. I had been planning to reread the book this December and it will be much more fun to read it as a Read-a-Long. Looking forward to it!

This is the weekly schedule:

November 24-December 1: Stave One: Marley's Ghost (pages 1-25)
December 1-8: Stave Two: The First of Three Spirits (pages 28-51)
December 8-15: Stave Three: The Second of Three Spirits (pages 51-81)
December 15-22: Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits (pages 81-101)
December 22-24: Stave Five: The End of It (pages 101-106)

All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot

2010-11-20T04:23:00.000-08:00

I don't think there is anything better than James Herriot when one is sick and in need of some comfort. His books are simply made for late night reading under the yellow glow of a bedside lamp. I admit, I am romanticizing the book a little (I tend to do that a lot), but I can't help it. All Creatures Great and Small made me supremely happy.

It is the late 1930s: The Nuremberg rallies were spewing hatred, the Anschluss had come to Austria and the world was being driven inexorably towards war. But we, along with James Herriot are faraway from it all. Indeed, while reading this book, a part of me could not believe that anything other than the fictional village of Darrowby could have existed in those times.

James Herriot, M.R.C.V.S is fresh out of college when he comes to Darrowby to be interviewed for the position of assistant to Siegfried Farnon who owns the veterinary practice there. He gets taken on and is installed as the newest member of Skeldale House. All Creatures Great and Small, which follows the first two years of Herriot's life as a country vet is a wonderful account peppered with amusing anecdotes and touching experiences all with a wry sense of humour, an ability to laugh at himself and an indefatigable joie de vivre.

The best thing about about this book is that you don't have to be an animal lover to enjoy it. It draws you in until you are a part of the Dales yourself. I had a lovely time reading about the eccentric Siegfried, Tristan, Siegfried's incorrigible brother, the formidable Miss Harbottle, the various Yorkshire farmers in varying degrees of crustiness and all the cows and horses and sows and dogs that Herriot treats.

Some of my favourite stories are the ones about Tricki Woo, the dog, Angus Grier the brooding colleague, Tristan's scrapes, Herriot's courtship of a certain young lady, the various times when Herriot gets called out into the freezing night to look after a calving or a foaling. For me, someone who is extremely squeamish, it was fun to read about the young vet coming in regular contact with animal muck in poorly lit barns and sheds all over the country side. There are bad and frustrating days but there are extremely good ones too and Herriot manages to reinforce that belief with his magical talent of making the ordinary seem quite extraordinary.

No racy book, this but it is one of those quiet ones that are wholesome and full of fun and if you were to indulge yourself in them, you would come away with something rather valuable. As sick as I was while reading this, it was like chicken broth to me :)

In reality, James Herriot, whose real name was James Alfred Wight, practised in Thirsk in the Yorkshire dales. Darrowby is said to have been a composition of three towns and villages: Leyburn, Middleham and Richmond, according to this webpage. I have included a picture of the original Skeldale House in Thirsk. Skeldale House has been turned into an interactive museum. You can check it out here.

She has paracetamols! SO "Lost in Austen"

2010-11-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

Lost in Austen is the story of a modern day London girl, Amanda Price who is besotted with Pride and Prejudice. Amanda feels she was born in the wrong period and longs for the old world courtesy of Regency England. Voila, she gets her wish one day when a hitherto undiscovered door in her bathroom opens directly into Longbourne and through which comes Lizzy Bennet. Elizabeth Bennet convinces Amanda to go through the door. Amanda goes through, the door closes shut and now she is left to make her way through this inexplicable, very real Pride and Prejudice that unfolds in front of her.

But Amanda must be wary: There is no telling whether the world in front of her will follow Jane Austen's pen and it up to her to try and make it.

Now, I don't really want to go into an in depth analysis of the series ( I am useless at it anyway) so I will just give you quick points on what I liked and what I did not like!

WHAT I PARTICULARLY LIKED:

1. Jemima Rooper as Amanda Price: She was spot on as a bewildered leather jacket wearing London girl who is thrown headlong into Regency England. Amanda spent most of her time curled up with P&P but navigating that in real life is another matter.

2. I can't believe I am saying this, but, George Wickham: Yes. Scum himself. In this loose adaptation, Wickham is not all what we have known him to be and that is all I am going to say. Tom Riley did a great job!
3.Dialogues: They were fresh, brought out the laughs at the right places and held up the pace when there was a hint of lagging.

4.Ahem, well, Elliot Cowan in the wet shirt scene: I know that this scene is probably overrated but Elliot Cowan made a nice Mr.Darcy in it.
5. Pemberley: The exterior of Pemberley was shot at Harewood House, near Leeds, in West Yorkshire. While this is not my favourite Pemberley (mine is Chatsworth House from the 2005 adaptation), the house of course, is breathtaking. I would love to make a pilgrimage of sorts to all these places if I ever get the chance.
THINGS I DIDN'T PARTICULARLY LIKE:

1. I might draw flak for saying this but Elliot Cowan as Mr.Darcy did not work for me. I found him too stiff necked and ill tempered. Mr.Darcy is a mite arrogant and prejudiced, true, but at least I don't think he jerked his head in a stiff bow the way Cowan does. And I found Cowan's Darcy MUCH more inconsistent than the real article. Also. I wonder if it did not hurt him to hold his jaw that way? He did it throughout.

2. Jane and Mr.Bingley: Why? Probably, the thing that disturbed me the most about Lost in Austen was Jane and Mr.Bingley's story. It was a bit of a mess.

3.The ending left me with a few questions and I felt that it could have been handled better.

4. They showed so little of Elizabeth Bennet!! That was such a disappointment.

5. Guy Henry as Mr.Collins gave me the willies.

I had a few good laughs this weekend while watching Lost in Austen. Let me tell you straightaway that this one is not for Jane Austen purists. I suspect that the many digressions, the many unprecedented twists and turns might make a purist howl with rage. On the other hand, if you are in the mood to watch an interesting spin off on what is one of the most delightful (for me, it jointly holds the number one spot with Little Women and will remain there) books, and if you want some good laughs with a runaway plot then I am sure you will have a fine time with Lost in Austen.

Note: Do check out Kal's lovely write up on Lost in Austen on her blog At Pemberley

A Bear called Paddington - Michael Bond

2010-11-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

First of all, my many thanks to Priya Iyer. If she hadn't mentioned this book in one of her posts, I would have never gotten around to reading it. Although I hadn't read the book, Paddington Bear evokes lovely memories of a trip to Madras from Vellore (where I was living at the time). I was four, and it was a trip with my mom in a hot and stuffy Ambassador car to Pondy Bazaar. Memories of a broad and leafy avenue, bursting with shops of all manners and sizes. A gift of the Paddington Bear video cassette and memories of watching it till the tape got old and frayed.

It is funny how certain memories stay latent in the back of your head, ready to burst forth at a moment's notice and Priya's post on the list of books she wants did it for me! I am big on nostalgia and all of a sudden I HAD to read the book as soon as I could. So what a lovely surprise when I found a copy tucked in a corner shelf in Connexions Bookstore on Diwali eve! And it turned out the be THE perfect gift to myself :)

A Bear called Paddington: classic adventures of the bear from Darkest Peru - the story opens with The Browns spotting a chocolate browney, grubby looking bear sitting on a small trunk in a dark corner in Paddington station. He is wearing a funny dilapidated hat and has a tag around his neck that says, " PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR, THANK YOU."

Needless to say, the Browns adopt him and thus begins Paddington's delightful adventures. He is small, has dark ears, an uncanny stare and loves marmalade more than anything else. Paddington is resolute, his aunt Lucy had sent him all the way from Darkest Peru on a life boat with a jar of marmalade. Paddington is a magnet for scrapes. Trouble usually finds him. Not the other way around, at least, not intentionally.

The thing about Paddington Bear is that not for one moment do you feel, "I should have probably read this as a kid. I would have enjoyed it more." The writing is fresh and the humour is there all at the right places. I found myself laughing out loud at so many instances and genuinely looking forward to reading the other books in the series. Paddington reminds me a bit of myself. I used to get into a lot of trouble. The cricket ball would go and hit the window. And if I soiled my Monday's school uniform before school, nobody would believe that it was an accident; I was accused of wanting to skip school instead. To be told not to touch anything mostly meant that I had to touch it. The hand acted like a magnet. I regularly sneaked out of the house on weekend afternoons to try my brother's huge mountain bike (which was almost twice my size) only to come home with both knees bleeding. Doesn't everyone have (somewhat) similar stories of childhood like that?

I guess what this book does is (especially when you read it as an adult)that, it unleashes all of those memories. And you are a kid again in a minute: no job, no plastic cards, no yelling boss. Just the dread of school on Monday. I am pretty sure that at some point, I used Paddington Bear as a license to some of the things I did. I remember citing all kinds of examples, from Noddy to Paddington to George from Famous Five to the GI JOES.

When was the last time you read something that was pure FUN? When there are no subtexts and undertones, complex plots or cardboard romance? Even if you had read A Bear called Paddington as a kid, I suggest you take this weekend to kickback and gorge yourself on stories about this little brown bear.
Note: I have included pictures of Paddington's statue in Paddington Station in London, a picture of Michael Bond holding a stuffed toy replica of Paddington and a picture of my own grubby brown bear. His name is George and I have had him ever since I can remember. He is really old now and a little wobbly, but I will never part with him. That would absolutely break my heart. Have you any old toys like that, that you especially love?

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett

2010-11-09T08:29:00.001-08:00

The last time I enjoyed a book this big this much, I was in school and reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the very first time.

The Pillars of the Earth set in 12th century England, at a time when the country was caught in the throes of a civil war is the story of the building of a magnificent Cathedral in a little place called Kingsbridge. Tom Builder, a mason, has dreamed forever of building a cathedral. To build a place of worship of his own design. I suppose, in spite of the
many subplots, this is really Tom's story. And how he finally gets his dream. Kingsbridge becomes the epicenter for this story. There is Philip, the idealistic young prior, there is mysterious Ellen, Tom's second wife, there is Ellen's son Jack in love with the lovely Aliena, daughter of the deposed Earl of Shiring, Barthelomew. There is the slimy Bishop Waleran of Kingsbridge and the power hungry Hamleighs. Topping all this off, there is the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud, contesting for the throne of a country that is left without a clear successor after the death of the heir of old king Henry I, out at sea on a vessel called The White Ship.

The building of this cathedral touches each one of these lives and they all have their own designs for it, good or otherwise. There really is nothing more to say about the plot. This is above all else, a human story. Its plot, the triumph or pillage of human emotions. If I were to root for any one character from the book it would have to be Jack, Ellen's son. There was a quality about Jack that drew me in right from the start. With his carrot top hair and piercing blue eyes, Jack captures your heart more than any other. He is straight up and no nonsense but not quite so out of control as his mother Ellen and his love for Aliena was so beautiful to behold, especially for a romantic like me.

The strength of this book lies in the fact that there is no one hero, no one protagonist. It is the life of a village and of a county. While Prior Philip is not my favourite I could not help liking him. Philip worships God beautifully and shows us how. The growth of Kingsbridge, the prosperity of its people and this cathedral to serve as a means of further economy and prosperity for Kingsbridge is his way of serving God and you cheer Philip as he overcomes set back after set back.

Through this book, Ken Follett has thrown into stark relief the distinctions between a Man of God who seeks to serve Him and His people and a Man of God who is ruthless, ambitious and sees his piety as a means to power. Bishop Waleran of Kingsbridge along with the Hamleighs tries his best to sabotage every effort of Philip. The cathedral should not be built and Kingsbridge should be destroyed. I detested William Hamleigh from the bottom of my heart. At the same time, I pitied him as I would a disgusting creature that has lost the fight rather badly. William Hamleigh would spend his whole life bewitched by Aliena, the girl he was once to have married.

So what happens? Does Tom Builder finally get his dream? That is of course for the reader to find out. In this epic on 12th century England, there is one man who has in someway, something to do with the fate of England, and that is Prior Philip. He shares his dream with Tom. His triumph is Tom's; his defeat is also Tom's. Read The Pillars of the Earth and live every word of it. In this blog, I cannot do enough justice to this mammoth 1076 page book but I have tried my best. This is not a review; it is an earnest effort to try and convince anyone who happens to read this post to give this book a shot and be as awed as I was.

I am reminded of the lovely Christopher Morley quote you can find in my blog and that I will quote here: "Lord! when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book." This is one such book.

Note: I have included images sourced from Ken Follett's website. The sketches are present in the book and as you can see, they depict various stages of the building of the cathedral. I have included a picture of Ken Follett too. I was somewhat surprised. I didn't expect him to be so genial looking. Does that ever happen to you? Do you read a book, form an image of the author and then find out that in reality he/she is entirely different?

Diwali Bounty!!

2010-11-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

My Diwali gifts for myself :)

The lovely looking "The Book of Tomorrow"
by Cecelia Ahern:
Tamara Goodwin has always lived in the here and now, never giving a second thought to tomorrow. Until a travelling library arrives in her tiny village, bringing with it a mysterious, large leather-bound book locked with a gold clasp and padlock. What she discovers within the pages takes her breath away and shakes her world to its core....

Any Festival/Holiday staple: Nora Roberts. This time it is a lovely looking book called "The Right Path":
Midnight on an unspoilt Greek island. Returning from a peaceful moonlit swim, Morgan James has a shocking and frightening encounter. A dark, dangerous stranger threatens her with a knife, ordering her to keep quiet about his presence on the cliff-top. The next day, Morgan meets the same man, but this time he's visiting her hosts. Are they people she's staying with mixed up with a drug-smuggling ring? Answering this question turns into a matter of life and death when Morgan finds a body on the beach - and her sunny Greek paradise becomes a place of stark terror.

The much longed for "A Bear called Paddington" Michael Bond. Many thanks to Priya Iyer for reminding me to read this one :)
"A bear? On Paddington station?" Mrs.Brown looked at her husband in amazement. "Don't be silly, Henry. There can't be!" Paddington Bear had travelled all the way from darkest Peru when the Brown family first met him on Paddington station. Since then their lives have never been quite the same....for ordinary lives become quite extraordinary when a bear called Paddington is involved.

"The Compendium of nosh" by Jack McLean. Promises to be really interesting if like me, you love to cook:
From baked Alaska to blueberry grunt, capsicums to cardoons, fadge to fufu, it gives wickedly funny, informative insights into foods, flavours, produce, etiquette and observances. Jack McLean approaches the secrets of the kitchen in a hilariously irreverent and refreshingly down-to-earth style, and his extraordinary confection is a must-have for foodies.

And for good measure: I don't have patience with beauty and fashion magazines and except for the times when All Sports runs a football special, this is my favourite magazine and the November issue promises to be lovely!

So that's it. That's my Diwali bounty! Happy Diwali everyone, hope you have a lot of fun with family, food and fireworks. Stay safe :)

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

2010-10-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

It took The Secret Garden and TWO Narnia books to get me out of the...ahem...melancholy that I was plunged into after reading Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk.

I read (on a no-work-at-all day in the office) and read and reveled in the garden and in the robin and Mistress Mary Quite Contrary and Dickon and Colin and Martha and Ben Weatherstaff. There, I have given you almost the entire list of characters. The thing is, this is only the second time that I was reading The Secret Garden and it instantly transported me back to my eight year old self experiencing the first delicious high that this book gives. And, well, I am a fan.

Sallow skinned, ill tempered little Mary Lennox is sent from India to Misselthwaite Manor (her uncle's house) in Yorkshire, England, when her parents die of cholera. Mary is a dreadfully spoilt child who has grown up entirely in the care of her ayah and other servants. She does not know anything of a mother's love and in turn becomes cold, selfish and ill mannered. She arrives in Yorkshire and is put under the chief care of the housekeeper Mrs. Medlock and the housemaid Martha. Lonely, contrary little Mary initially feels lost in such a big house but the huge gardens and the Yorkshire moors soon draw her out. She slowly gains health and makes friends with the crusty gardener Ben and the in-house robin. But Misselthwaite Manor contains more than just servants and endless gardens. Why does Mr.Craven never live at home? Why is the house so shut up and gloomy? And what is that walled garden with the secret door that no one is supposed to go into?

In spite of herself Mary changes for the better and out of pure luck, one day the robin shows Mary where the key to the garden has been buried and where the secret door is. Mary is enchanted and hugs this secret all to herself except for Dickon (Martha's brother) who is a wonderful boy with an up-turned nose and round blue eyes. Dickon is friends with every animal and every plant and every bird and every tree and soon, Mary and Dickon start on a secret mission to revive this lovely Secret Garden that none should enter and none seem to talk about. But Misselthwaite Manor contains one secret yet: Whom does Mary hear crying at night?

The Secret Garden is pure magic. It is one of the most life affirming books that I have ever read; if I enjoyed it at eight, I know that I will enjoy it at eighty. It is delightful to read how fresh air, wholesome food and innocent frolic turns around the life of two miserable little children. The message that the book gives out is: it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor; just let love and magic grow. However impractical this thought might be in today's cynical world, it feels amazing to indulge oneself and just think of it really being true. And well, why not?

If I had a secret garden, I would retain many of the elements from the one in the book; mine would be walled and covered fully with ivy. It would have a little green door where one would have to bend to enter. It would be like a mad cottage garden with all manners of flowers in a riot of colour. I would have trailing vines and let squirrels and birds make friends with me and my garden. I would have trailing roses, a big shady mango or an apple tree (do they even grow in the same climate??) with a comfortable wicker chair below it. Oh, and I would have lots and lots of honeysuckle. If I had this garden, I would quit my job and just read there the whole day; because in my garden, time would stand still.

What about you? How would you like your Secret Garden to be?

Note: I have attached a picture of the author. I searched for a suitable picture of a secret garden in Google images but could not find any that really caught my fancy. Hence the verbal sketch. Feel free to give me your ideas :-) And do read this book if you already haven't. I went about with such a dopey grin on my face for the rest of the day.

Istanbul - Orhan Pamuk

2010-10-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

I can't make up my mind about this book. Do I like it? Do I not like it? Do I think it is the genuine article or do I think it has affectations that let it down?

I guess what I think of this book is sort of like an amalgamation of answers to all the questions above. To me this particular cover (my copy has the same) evokes a lovely image; not just of the book but Istanbul itself. The monument, the car and the raven in the foreground: all covered by a soft mantle of snow. And you remember this cover throughout; whether he is describing the city or the beautiful Bosphorus in its many moods; glinting, shimmering, dark or moody. Istanbul and Istanbullus are besotted with this body of water.

This book is a personal journey of a man and the city with which he firmly believes his destiny is tied up. Pamuk's Istanbul is complex, varied and has a dignity that speaks to the reader. His Istanbul is not just a city of yesterday or today or of the future, it is a black and white kaleidoscope of all three. The book opens with a chapter about the boy Orhan, his family, his boyhood and what Istanbul meant to him at that impressionable age. As the book progresses, Pamuk grows with it and tries to give the reader a sense of the city as seen through his eyes. He paints before you, a city that is still living in the bygone Ottoman era and the place of importance it enjoyed while trying to come to terms with the new Republic and become westernized. In this vast world where does Istanbul really stand? How do its citizens view it? Do they live in the past too? Do they take comfort in what Pamuk describes as its acceptance of defeat and are comfortable to live in memory of the great empire it once was?

Pamuk's Istanbul is eloquent and almost poetic at times. Drawing deeply from literature and history he attempts to show you the city exactly as he sees it. Magnificent as it is at times, the pace lags in many chapters and I found accounts of Pamuk's puberty and several other similar instances unnecessary.

According to Pamuk, his city's main characteristic is its hüzün (melancholy) and that is the book's biggest weak point; Pamuk tries to connect entirely too much in his own life and in others' to the city's melancholy and vice-versa. Every chapter contains some mention of hüzün and it irritated me so much that I cannot bear to read this word in any other book for a long while. He seems to take a sort of comfort in the poverty and despair and faint sense of ruin that surrounds the city's poor neighbourhoods. It makes the reader wonder just how troubled his childhood was; how much the city influenced it and more importantly: how much does he think the city influenced it.

Maybe I am being unduly harsh because my own expectations of the book were not fulfilled. There are some lovely chapters; his retelling of his first love brought tears my to eyes and many others gave me a glimpse of the wonderful writer that Pamuk is.

So taking all this into consideration, could the book have been better? Yes. Unequivocally.

This melancholy thing though, I have no idea what to make of it. I have felt it; in Chennai I have felt it. But is it the primary characteristic and driving force of Istanbul? Perhaps one has to go to Istanbul and see for oneself.

Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain

2010-10-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

I want to be a steamboat pilot. Or rather, I want to be a steamboat pilot every time I even look at the cover of this book. I want to stand inside the pilot room and grasp a wheel and be Lord (Lady??) of the river. I want to steer this grand, smelling of polished wood, gilt edged, all flags flying boat through the entire course of the river. And this river: I want to know it like Samuel Clemens a.k.a Mark Twain did.

That's what any good book, no, any spectacular book does to me: I immediately want to get into its pages and live it. And Life on the Mississippi was so spot on for me that after sixty chapters I was still sad that it had to end.

This is a loving memoir of the brilliant and jaw dropping relationship Mark Twain shared with the Mississippi river. Since it is non fiction, there isn't really anything to say in terms of a plot or a climax or characters.

All sixty chapters are reminiscent not just of his life on the river but of the river itself. With chapters that give you a small history lesson on the discovery of the Mississippi, its geopolitical importance, its influence on the people living along the thousands of miles of land through which it flows; life on a steamboat on the Mississippi, being a pilot and the enormous pressure, pleasure and responsibility that the job entails; the various experiences that go with it and to put it simply, the love affair one person has had with this river and his need to share it with the rest of the world - Mr.Twain just blows you away. And to think that this work preceded Huck Finn!

Among all the little nuggets of adventure, satire and insight there exists one precious extract from the then-in-progress Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain tells you of this little store that he has been writing and that he thinks it should be done in a few years time; not knowing the place of importance this book would enjoy even after more than a century of his writing it.

Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi is long and delightfully so. With his trademark sarcasm and his disgust for anything ostentatious or pretentious, he gives you an honest account of exactly what the title says: his life on the Mississippi.

I can't recommend this book highly enough for anyone who loves the kind of refreshing writing Mark Twain provides. He leaves you pining for what he calls the "lost art of steamboat piloting" and almost hating (however foolishly) the advent of the railways.

A Town Called Dehra - Ruskin Bond

2010-10-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

What attracted me straight away was the lovely cover. So I was already sold by the time I turned it around to read what was written in the back: " There was a wild flower, a weed, that grew all over Dehra and still does. We called it Blue Mint. It grows in ditches, in neglected gardens, anywhere there's a bit of open land....I have known it since I was a boy, and as long as it's there I shall know that a part of me still lives in Dehra."

This charming book delivers exactly what it promises: an indulgent account of the Dehradun that Ruskin Bond knew and grew up in. This is a small collection of short stories and essays that are mainly divided into his childhood memories and those of his youth. Through them you learn about the life of the boy Ruskin; the aftermath of his father's death and the mostly lonely life of a boy who was at odds with his mother and stepfather. For Ruskin, his true friends live in the big Banyan tree: the squirrels and the birds and the white rat and the lady squirrel and their white squirrel babies! You learn to smile at the image of the boy Ruskin lounging up on the tree with an apple and a book in his hand on hazy afternoons, keeping an eye on the road below. He writes with fond memories of his various friends: Somi, Dipi, Dal and Bansi the tonga driver.

Reading this book it was possible even for me, a person who's never been to Dehra to picture the beautiful, sleepy town that it was towards the end of the British Raj. Ruskin Bond has so wonderfully described a town and a people that did not quite know what to make of themselves when the rest of the country was caught in the throes of the independence. Dehra in the late 1940s was full of English expats who were caught between worlds: they had nothing to go back to in England and they couldn't remain in India. As you read you get the sense that in this magical, Ruskin Bondy place, time has frozen and you can see the lichi trees and blue mint, lush woods and deep pools with clear pebbled beds.

There are stories that made me laugh and some so heartbreakingly longing that they made me quite weepy. There were funny ones; poignant ones that give you glimpses into the life of a man, who, even know lives within striking distance of his beloved Dehra. Some stories that I think deserve special mention are: "Dehradun - Winter of '45", "The Old Gramaphone", "The Photograph", "As time goes by", "Meena", "In search of a winter garden" and "The Dilaram Bazaar".

This is a book to be savoured slowly; in bed at night with the monsoon raging outside or on a long bus ride to while away time. The writing might lack finesse at times but it is more than compensated in the beauty of the pictures he paints and the emotions he evokes.

As I was reading, I asked myself about the Dehradun of today. What is Dehra like? Has it become like that other heartbreak story from down south - Ooty? I long to go to Dehra but I am scared because you see, I want to go to Ruskin Bond's Dehra. That place with the empty roads and lichi trees; when the pace of life was not so frenetic and when people were more forgiving.

I am in love with this book. With all its faults, yes, I am so in love with this book.

Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger

2010-10-14T01:27:00.000-07:00

I loved Franny and Zooey. I LOVED Franny and Zooey. There were many moments in the book when I wasn't really sure what Franny or for that matter, what Zooey were getting at but they left me feeling pretty good about everything. I feel like speaking in Italics too. And Zooey, you have got a lifelong fan here.

Franny and Zooey are the two youngest members of the Glass family. The plot is not much really, it is basically a sort of meandering, reflective (discourse?) thing on the self. Whether that self is Franny or Zooey or Mrs. Glass. The plot opens with Franny meeting her boyfriend Lane for a weekend. What gets off to a seemingly perfect start complete with Lane's studied nonchalance and stymied eagerness and Franny's sheared Racoon overcoat, quickly degenerates. There is something wrong with Franny. She keeps picking on Lane; the fact that Lane is a pompous ass aside. Franny finally dead faints away at the restaurant.

Enter Zooey. Franny has come home and she seems to be having a nervous breakdown. Is she so disillusioned with the world? She is after some kind of religious fulfillment but what exactly does she want? She incessantly chants the Lord's prayer under her breath but does she understand the whole point behind it? The Glass family is worried about Franny; and Zooey with a little help from Mrs. Glass sets out to try and talk her out of what he believes is a self-imposed funk. Throughout the story, various other members of the family pop in and out. Especially the eldest two: Seymour (killed himself long ago) and Buddy (a somewhat reclusive writer/professor living in the country). Seymour peppers their thoughts and conversations almost constantly and the disquiet and the perplexity the family feel about his death is palpable.

So that is basically all there is to this really small (novella?) story. Now for the writing. This is my first Salinger and it has been a lovely introduction and getting-to-know. Salinger writes with an almost uncomfortable clarity of thought and cuts right down to the bone of things. Neither Franny nor Zooey are particularly likeable nor unlikeable. They are, if you think about it, just an ordinary guy and girl. It is Salinger's depth of writing, his getting under their skins and the stunning imagery he provides that makes one (and themselves) look much closer than is normally comfortable.

The message quite simply seems to be: disillusioned or not, do not feed your ego. Keep playing because that is all you can really do. Do it for the Fat Lady.

And me? I love that. Zooey gave me a sense of quiet towards the end just like he gave Franny.

The Hundred Foot Journey - Richard C. Morais

2010-10-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend I armchair-traveled to Bombay, London, flitted through most of Europe and finally landed in France courtesy of The Hundred Foot Journey. It could have been great too but somewhere between reading about the Mutton Korma at the family restaurant on Napean Sea Road and sewage smelling hair and finally, pretentious French food at his Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, Hassan Haji' story left me floundering.

The narration is by Hassan and the story opens with a recounting of how Hassan's grandfather came to Mumbai as a young man and became a dabba-wallah. He makes something of himself enough to build a tiny eatery in an abandoned plot of land on Napean Sea Road. The Haji family expands slowly into dad, mom and finally Hassan and his numerous siblings. They lead satisfied and full lives revolving around the food they prepare and their restaurant but tragedy strikes and the family forsakes Bombay and its terrible memories for London. From then on, Hassan and his family roam all over Europe before settling down, somewhat arbitrarily in Lumière, France. The Hajis buy a mansion and plan to open an Indian restaurant but they have formidable opposition from a renowned chef who owns a hotel just across the road from them. Madame Mallory views the gifted Hassan as her competitor and is out to do all she can to oust the Hajis from her town.

This story is basically the life journey of Hassan Haji and how he finds his destiny. In the course of his life the one constant is food. He and his family over come the odds and he finally establishes himself as one of the leading chefs in Paris with his restaurant Le Chien Mechant.

Sounds good doesn't it? Unfortunately the plot is not executed well enough. Many parts of the story are just plain unbelievable: for instance, the way the family goes traipsing all over Europe with a seemingly never ending flow of cash. Hassan Haji's attempt at insight and philosophy is a bit ridiculous and what are obviously meant to be deep soul stirring moments, fall flat.

The author has tried very hard to bring in all flavours Indian and that is precisely what doesn't work. They are not Indian. Describing in minute detail about pink sarees and gold lame sandals; hair smelling of sewage and the poor of Mumbai's slums does not mean it is authentic. In this case, the author has fallen into the pit all authors must try to avoid: don't present India, or any place for that matter in such cliched forms. It does not your story, hold. Some of the descriptive passages left me bewildered (like the above mentioned sewage smelling hair. Hassan and his family are about to board the flight to London and the lines that tell you that are something along the lines of, "There we were with our sewage smelling hair...." You see what I mean? It seems silly and nonsensical because nowhere in the book are Hassan and his siblings portrayed as so poor they don't have money for shampoo and soap) and I couldn't make out till the very last, what precisely was the point of this story.

Don't get me wrong: The Hundred Foot Journey is by no means a wholly unreadable book. I finished it quite comfortably all things considered. I loved Hassan's father Abbas's character as well as Ammi and Uncle Mayur and Madame Mallory. Just like how some descriptions are unacceptable, some others, especially about the food and the scenery were quite stunning. All the more is the pity because perhaps with a little more work this could have been a wonderful book.

The Hundred Foot Journey is in short, somewhat of a badly written fairytale. It's got all the elements but they inexplicably go missing every now and then.

Godiva - Nerys Jones

2010-10-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Note: Hey all, I am back after a long while, this time for good.Mom has been sick, I have been sick and I have had a hectic few months of it but now I am resolved to continue blogging here regularly. Wish me luck!

I love all Godiva chocolates. Especially their chocolate covered pretzels. And the figure of the lady atop her horse that is their logo has always intrigued me. Who was Godiva? Did she really ride naked and bareback on a horse in Coventry in Anglo-Saxon England? If that is the case, what is the reason? Wikipedia gives you the answers, as I am sure, do numerous other websites or books if one was to search for them. But from what little I have read, I decidedly prefer Nerys Jones's Godiva.

England, AD 1045. Edward the Confessor, the childless, half-Norman, Virgin King is holding England by the sinew of her neck. He is the puppet master. The Normans are closing in and the three powerful Anglo-Saxon Earls of England: Siward of Northumbria, Godwin of Wessex and Lovric of Mercia have to do all they can to prevent their country from falling into the hands of the Normans; even if it means going to war against the king.

Into this hotbed is thrown Lady Godiva, the beautiful wife of the Earl of Mercia. King Edward has targeted the Lordship of Merica for reasons known only to him and Lovric and Godiva are fast falling from the favour of the court. Godiva's sons are captured under various false charges and leaving behind an earldom that is falling into famine and cattle plague, Lovric and Godiva must fly to Winchester to try and placate the king. In 1045 AD England, there are powerful manipulators abroad, the influence of the church is immense and the King continues to play games with his earls, his people and the future of his country. What does the king want with Godiva? Why have her family and her people been singled out? The machinations of the court go on forever and Godiva finds herself on shaky ground as her hitherto solid marriage is undermined, her children are in danger, her lands and her people in misery. The king is playing games and if she has to survive, if she has to win, so must she.

Nerys Jones's Godiva makes a wonderful read. Her style of writing is lucid and one cannot help but be fascinated at the threads of history that were woven a thousand years ago. I loved Nerys Jones's interpretation of the legendary horse ride and to me at least it seems more plausible than the explanation that Wikipedia has to offer. Godiva might not be a particularly great mother to her daughter Millie, she might be blind and heedless, she may not realize the true worth of her husband most of the time, but she is a fighter. She has pluck and courage and never gives up on her people as she tries to beat the king at his own game and for her, I can read this book again and again. Fans of historical novels will love this one.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

2010-09-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I have finished it. This book that has been making headlines for quite some time now and this book that I have been resolutely keeping away from. I usually tend to hesitate reading books that have a lot of hype (I sort of feel bad for the writers when the books fall short as they sometimes do) surrounding them but this one was a gift from my cousin. He made it pretty clear: read it or else...

Mikael Blomkvist is an unlikely protagonist: he is a financial journalist and part owner of the Millenium magazine convicted for libel; he is a middle-aged divorcee who has a very fleeting relationship with his daughter and he is into a totally weird romantic entanglement with Erika Berger, his married colleague. Mikael Blomkvist does not elicit strong reactions of like or hate from the reader, the reader mostly feels neutral about him. He isn't a Rabbit Angstrom. On the other hand Lisbeth Salander, the second protagonist is all fire and ice. She is twenty four years old, distrustful, socially inept and declared incompetent by the local authorites and she is an expert hacker and security consultant.

Mikael Blomkvist is convicted for libel against a corrupt industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. His credibility as a journalist has plummeted and the magazine he co-owns with Erika Berger and Christer Malm has taken a huge hit. In the midst of this crisis he receives a call from Dirch Frode, lawyer of Henrik Vanger, former CEO of Vanger Corporation. Vanger offers Blomkvist a freelance job: to find out what happened to his grand niece Harriet Vanger who vanished forty years ago without a trace. Blomkvist leaves Stockholm and moves to the island of Hedeby for a year where he later joins forces with Lisbeth Salander. As the months progress, Blomkvist and Salander begin to unravel the mystery of Harriet Vanger's disappearance. There is a web of deceit, violence and perversity among the Vanger clan and nobody can be trusted. There is someone out there who will go to any lengths to stop Blomkvist and Salander from unravelling the mystery of what happened on Hedeby Island in the 1960s. Can they find out what happened to Harriet Vanger?

I loved reading the exploits of Blomkvist and Salander; the two are as different as chalk and cheese but together they make a terrific team. I am not a big fan of crime fiction but this one kept me up for the better part of last night. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo makes for a riveting read but that is not all it offers the reader. The reader is taken into a world where things like family, security and normalcy are hard to come by. Each person in the book has a story; one more horrible than the other and makes you realize there exist in our soceity some very real ills that just cannot be ignored. In my opinion Lisbeth Salander was the hero, she was such fun to read about! You might not like her but you have got to admire her guts.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a complex psychological thriller ( I am not sure if this is everyone's cup of tea; some parts are decidedly technical) written in rich prose and I am sorry that Stieg Larsson is not around to witness its success. Thank you for the book Mr. Larsson.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

2010-08-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening on the bus I fulfilled a long ago wish. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was one of those books that I just missed out on reading while growing up. Amidst all the Enid Blytons and the Arabian Nights and Puffin's Children's Classics, this one remained a book "that I should definitely read at least this year." Probably for the first time in a while I wasn't grumpy or irritated when I stepped off the bus after a two hour journey through an absolutely smog filled city. No. I was in chocolate land. And I am guilty of buying a bar of twix on my way home. Or two.

There is nothing new that I can say about Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that hasn't already been said. Everyone knows that he is a master story spinner and that this book is his best loved, probably ahead even of Matilda or the Fantastic Mr.Fox. I do not claim to review his book here nor am I going to analyze the storyline. I am simply going to gape slack-jawed and open mouthed at the fact that something he wrote years and years ago for children has that power to keep an adult (or semi-adult as the case may be :-]) agog till the last line. I have never believed in grown-ups phoo-phooing children's stories on the grounds that they have outgrown them long ago. Because no matter how many Sidney Sheldons or Dan Browns you might read, how big a fan of literary fiction or the classics you might be, what's the point if you are not able to appreciate a little Velveteen Rabbit or Scheherazade or Charlie Bucket every now and then?

I loved everything; I loved Grandpa Joe and Grandma Joe ( I found Grandpa and Grandma Geroge a little wimpy); I adored the huge bedstead that all the four grandparents shared; poor tired Mrs.Bucket who tries to slip her share of the meal to Charlie and poor tired Mr.Bucket with his "Cripes!" And then there is Willy Wonka and the Oompa-Loompas and the chocolate river and the snozzberries and the rainbow drops and the wriggle toffees and a million other chocolates (all that I want to list but won't in fear of irritating my readers further). And most of all there is Charlie; Charlie wins you over completely even before the story begins. I blame it on Mr.Dhal. How can you not love Charlie with an introduction like this one?

There are five children in this book:
Augustus Gloop - A greedy boy
Veruca Salt - A girl who is spoiled by her parents
Violet Beauregarde - A girl who chews gum all day long
Michael Teavee - A boy who does nothing but watch television
and
Charlie Bucket - The Hero

See what I mean? You stand no chance. It's a simple world, Mr.Wonka's. In his world, the good get rewarded, the bad get punished, the Oompa-Loompas sing songs about it and everything turns out alright in the end. "They all just come out of the wash in the end; they always do." I used to love Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree stories and Hogsmeade and the Weasley Twins' goodies from Harry Potter but this book took the chocolate/sweet fantasy to a whole new level. Mr.Dahl has influenced and taught generations of children how to dream and to imagine and that is no simple thing. A word for Quentin Blake: his illustrations brought the book alive and I enjoyed the story twice as much because of them. I am going to save the epithets beecause Mr.Dahl has received them all. Instead, I am just going to say that yesterday he gave me a gift that I don't come by too often. He made me feel five years old again.

Remembrance of things Paris - (Edited by) Ruth Reichl

2010-08-25T01:02:00.001-07:00

Remembrance of things Paris is a collection of essays from the past sixty years from Gourmet magazine. Let me just come right out and say that this is going to be one of those books on my bedside table; I will beam at it every night and every now and then, when it is raining and I need something besides my faded flannel quilt, I will open its pages and take a fanciful flight right into the Parisian rooftops. That's the sort of foolish reaction any such cosy patchwork quilt of a book that is part food shrine, part travel memoir should elicit and in recent times, this collection has been among the very best.

The book opens with an adorable piece from Irene Corbally Kuhn; the year was 1921 and the month was May. In her own words: "The world had passed through the long darkness of the 'war to end all wars' and was more than ready for the frenzied gaiety and brief brilliance of the roaring twenties." And at the end of the essay: "Paris is also today - and tomorrow. Despite the encroachments of the startlingly new as in the Centre Pompidou or the ring of towering skyscrapers that seem to be closing in on all that has made Paris a place of unique beauty, it remains after two thousand years, more immutable than any other capital city in the world. Perhaps this is because so many of us left our youth there. And gladly."

There are essays that describe so eloquently of Paris coming to life after the second world war and about a shopper who bit into a baguette and cried out in pleasure because it was made of pure white flour and not the "coarse dark one" Parisians were forced to stomach during the occupation. There are vivid essays of the old flower market, Marche aux Fluers and Les Halles; having never been to that iconic market place, nevertheless, I ached along with the rest of them when I read about it being torn down. There are several pieces by turns charming, by turns satirical, by turns so lovely that you are almost dizzy and by turns down right contrary like Chicken Demi-Deuil by George Bijur, Paris One Step at a Time by Joseph Wechsberg, A Night at Les Halles by Alaire Johnston, An Insincere Cassoulet by Michael Lewis and my favourite in the entire book, She did not look like an actress to me by Hilaire du Berrier to name just a few.

There are several delightful write-ups on Paris's famed restaurant and bistro scene and there is one touching piece called The Three Musketeers by Patrick Kuh. Being as it is about Paris and more importantly, from Gourmet Magazine, the focus is on food but there several other eclectic pieces that are so absolutely Paris. The recipes given in this book are a treasure trove and I can't wait to try out some of the chocolate recipes but like Michael Lewis, I am something of a hypocritical non-vegetarian and found the descriptions of Sheep's Trotters and Calf's Bladder and tripe and giblets a little um, yucky.

This is the sort a book that will delight readers who love to read up on faraway places (even one that may be as overrated as Paris) and the million and one things that make up their soul. Readers who love a generous shot of the quaint and the whimsical in their reading will adore this book. This is the sort of a book that makes for a great holiday gift; one that sits by your kitchen counter as you try out one of the dozens of delicious recipes in it; the sort of a book that can grace any coffee table with aplomb. Read it on a train or plane or keep it by your night lamp like me. Beneath its covers Paris is spread out in splendid panoramic view; it pulls you in, drenches you and leaves you longing for the Paris of years gone by.

In the one week that I took to finish this book, it didn't take me too long to realize that I was being throughly seduced one page at a time by Paris. Read it and enjoy. I did. It was such fun to unravel so much about a city I know and love.

If you think you might be interested do read a similar article on my other blog There'sh a Moshkeeto in my Foog :)

The Einstein Girl - Philip Sington

2010-08-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Note: Hey all, I am back after a long absence. My mother has not been keeping well and she has just recovered. It feels great to write here again. I will visit all your blogs soon! :)

There is a line at the top of the book: "At the heart of truth lies madness.." and reading this book, you realize that it is so true. It is a web of deceit, intrigue, passion and utter loss of hope and as you delve into the book, it unravels before you and leaves you by turns aghast and spellbound at the turn of events.

The book opens in Berlin, May 1933: a woman named Alma haunts the local police station everyday in search of her missing fiance, Martin Kirch. And so Sington begins to tell us Martin Kirch's story and we are taken back to October 1932 when Martin's world changes irretrievably.

Psychiatrist Martin Kirch is a man who lives in the shadows of his past. He cannot get over the horrors of the great war where he had been an army doctor and contracts syphilis as a result. With Martin, engaged to be married into high society Berlin, one gets the sense that his life has been made but Sington lets you slip into the man's mind and you realize that they are still waters and that they run very deep. Martin Kirch is a man tormented with tertiary stage syphillis and the unenviable task of having to hide it from the public in fear of stigma. One thing remains for him to do: he must break his engagement. At this point, into Martin's life comes the case of a girl simply dubbed as The Einstein Girl. She is found half naked and near death in the woods outside the city and when she recovers from her coma, she can remember nothing. The only clue to her identity is a pamphlet found near her, advertising a lecture by Albert Einstein on Quantum Theory. Martin is struck by this girl and takes on the case and soon consumed with a reckless passion for the girl, he embarks on a quest for her identity that takes him Zurich, Serbia and a psychiatric hospital in Zurich to visit Einstein's son Eduard. Who is this girl and how is she connected with Albert Einstein? What will happen to Martin Kirch?

The Einstein Girl offers staggering foray into the mind and life of one of the greatest geniuses this world has seen. Sington has woven in the rise of the Nazi regime and the immediate effect it had on the medical world with amazing subtlety. In the hectic political climate of 1930s Berlin, power was everything and the Nazi's covert T-4 operation ( a euthanasia program odered in an effort to rid the German race of any "bad blood". Millions of special needs and psychiatric patients were put to death.) was already underway. You read the novel with a sense of foreboding and urgency because you, the reader, has some sense of the abyss into which Germany and the rest of Europe was about to be plunged. In the end, Sington leaves you with your heart breaking a little for Kirch, for the girl, for Alma, for Eduard and even for Einsten and you wonder at what might have been. Philip Sington's Einstein Girl may not be a book I might read a second time but I am glad I read it the first time around. The Einstein Girl's greatest strength might be the way it is written: fiction based on skeletal fact at its most chilling.

Under the Tuscan Sun - Frances Mayes

2010-07-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

La bella Italia. I will never tire of reading about Italy. And reading this book, I need not close my eyes and concentrate hard enough for me to visualize anything. Italy is everywhere, on a vast canvas. On the stark white desk top at work, the cubicle walls, at home out on the porch, I have been seeing the Tuscan rooftops, the sun-mellowed walls and pretty faded blue and green shutters; olive groves and vineyards, a limonaia here, a bright bowl of clementines there; all parade in front of my eyes, they do not mock, they allure.

Under the Tuscan Sun is the journey of author Frances Mayes and her husband Ed in buying and restoring an old stone stone house, Bramasole (yearning for the sun), in the heart of Cortona, Tuscany. Bramasole, with a facade the colour of faded apricots and pretty green shutters enchants its way into your heart. Ms.Mayes comes to Bramasole at a crossroads in her life. In her own words, any arbitary turning along the way and she would be elsewhere; she would be different. Under the Tuscan Sun is not just the quintessential travelogue; unravel all the wonderous sights, people and food described till you can actually see all of it in front of you in glorious technicolour, and you will find a vein of seriousness, a rediscovering of the self, slowly, lovingly. This is what Bramasole nay, Italy itself becomes to her. Italy and Mayes come together not with flamboyance and pomp, but with a soft tread, a gradual understanding that deepens into an intense bond. The more she unravels the cultural layers of Italy, the deeper the bond becomes. This, I suppose is all that I am going to tell you about this book. The rest you will have to find out for yourself. Rest assured that it contains a magnificent account of life in rural Italy - the people, the place, Bramasole, the olive groves, the roses and the wildflowers, the vineyards and the food, always the food. These are the shades with which Mayes has painted her canvas but to me, what makes Under the Tuscan Sun such a winner is that it offers much more.

Read the book and revel in the delight that is Mayes's Italy. I can think of few better ways to spend my time. This is a particularly lovely section of the prologue that I just can't help copying:
"My reader, I hope, is like a friend who comes to visit, learns to mound flour on the thick marble counter and work in the egg, a friend who wakes to the four calls of the cuckoo in the linden and walks down the terrace paths singing to the grapes; who picks jars of plums, drives with me to hill towns of round towers and spilling geraniums, who wants to see olives the first day they are olives. A guest on holiday is intent on pleasure. Feel the breeze rushing around those hot marble statues? Like old peasants, we could sit by the fireplace, grilling slabs of bread and oil, pour a young chianti. Under the fig where two cats curl, we're cool. I've counted: the dove coos sixty times per minute. The Etruscan wall above the house dates from the eighth century B.C. We can talk. We have time."

I know that there are gazillions of travel books on Italy, books done, dusted and shelved but every once in a while you come across such gems as Living in a Foreign Language and Under the Tuscan Sun. What sets these books apart is their souls, which, I like to think is a direct extension of the writers'. In the case of Under the Tuscan sun, the soul is deep and reflective with flashes of humour here and there, but most of all, with an immense love for the land and the simple life. The kind of soul that rejoices in simple pleasures such as fireflies dancing in the night or chestnuts roasted by the fire. How can you not love that?

In Xanadu - William Dalrymple

2010-07-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

I didn't know much about Kubla Khan, except that he built this beautiful palace in Xanadu (from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem). I didn't care much either ways. Now I do. I care as much about the ruins of that "pleasure dome" in Xanadu as I do about the fact that Dalrymple could take that small vial of oil all the way there.

In a journey that takes him across holy land, hostile territory, prohibited high-security zones, William Dalrymple makes a fantastic, unbelievable journey to the remains of Kubla Khan's palace in Xanadu. He has a mission: to deposit in Xanadu, a vial of the oil he carries from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerasulem, thus fulfilling some semblance of the mission Marco Polo undertook in the eleventh century to spread Christianity in the court of Kubla Khan.

A book that tells of a heavy journey to be undertaken as this, a book that is a recording of the author's love for history, a book that has copious recordings of architectural details, multitude historical references that support the journey in reality from London, but for all intents and purposes from the Holy City to Xanadu: you don't expect it to be a light read. Amazingly, In Xanadu by William Dalrymple is ironic, light, witty and extremely funny on occasions.

This is Dalrymple's first book at the age of twenty-two and what a flowing debut! It begins somewhat ironically, with the Irish Franciscan complaining about the nuisance of maintaining the holy lamps that are supposed to burn eternally:
"I thought these lamps were miraculous. They are supposed to be eternal flames."
"That's what they say, but, you try changing the oil without getting them out. Damn it! This wick's finished. Pass me up the string."

"And who is this Italian you were looking for?"
Polo?"
"That's the one. He told you this oil was miraculous?"
"I suppose he did, indirectly."
"Well you can tell him from me it's quite ordinary."

And so he takes you, on this bewildering, magnificent, sometimes dangerous, sometimes downright scary, intense journey across Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally, China. The route is hazardous: many nights are spent in coal trucks and filthy caravanserais. Dalrymple and his travel partners will spend much time getting disgruntled, trying to dodge officials, the maximum comfort they will face is a small seat on the floor with their rucksacks in the third-class compartment on a train to Peking. They will also meet people warm and friendly, people who help them along various stages of the journey, people who share what little they might have wholeheartedly with these strangers. They will drive across the Karakoram Highway in a truck full of chattering Afghans. They will brave the desert of Taklamakan in the back of a coal truck with a lone Uigur for company. They will meet dubious businessmen and vendors who try to fleece them. They will meet young Muslim men who are caught in the throes of confusion an in two minds about which world they really belong to. And they will have the time of their lives. It is true. They have a very smug "after" photo taken in the courtyard of Trinity College, Cambridge, to prove it.

In Xanadu is one of those rare historical travelogues that fulfill you without getting heavy. Just when you begin to think that the numerous historical recordings are getting monotonous, Dalrymple turns around and gives you a wry account of something very common place. And there, I think, lies the strength on this book. It doesn't bore. It educates but more than anything, it entertains. The balance is hard to find but William Dalrymple perfected it in his very first book. I loved the fact that Dalrymple doesn't fawn over the legendary Polo. His account of Polo is sometimes awed, sometimes exasperated but most of all, indulgent.

If you read In Xanadu, you would have done the unthinkable of being among the very first people to attempt a re-trace of Marco Polo's route to Xanadu, all from your armchair. It is a journey that you will not forget and at the very end, when you look upon the remains of Xanadu, you too will see the pleasure dome, the gardens, the splendor and the glory. You too will feel something profound when that soft earth at last absorbs the oil in that vial that became the ultimate reason for this journey. And you too will recite Coleridge's unforgettable Kubla Khan. And if you don't know it, you will definitely google it.

Emma - Jane Austen

2010-06-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." So says Mr.Knightley to Emma. If anyone were to ask me, I would say that this one line more than equals Mr. Darcy's impassioned proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. Yet, Emma is different from Pride and Prejudice in that, the protagonist comes in for a lot more censure than Lizzy Bennet ever did. Nor is Mr.Knightley's love so full of struggle like Mr.Darcy's. He too loves with a constancy, but with a touch of the benefactor, the concern of a father, the wisdom of a brother. Here, though, I must stop: this after all is not a comparison between these two superior creations of Ms.Austen, and I am rambling.

In the very first chapter, the diametrically opposite characters of Emma Woodhouse and her father Mr.Woodhouse are thrown into sharp relief. After many years with the family, first as Emma's governess and then as her companion, the family's beloved Miss Taylor marries! Emma, although regretting the loss of a companion that she has grown to love, rejoices in the fact that (according to herself) she has brought about the match between Miss Taylor and Mr.Weston. Her father on the other hand, a man who hates to leave his own fireside for anything, hates change of any sort and lives in the state of most pitiable agitation over the health of simply everyone he knows cannot find any comfort in Miss Taylor marrying and going away. Into this glum cheerless of an evening in the first chapter, Mr.Knightley infuses much good sense, warmth and cheer by taking a cheerful view of things. I have always felt that Ms.Austen has done a brilliant job in introducing all three characters at the outset. These three have much to do with each other, and once you have become acquainted with them, it is fun to sit back and enjoy their interactions as the story progresses. Emma, young, rich, beautiful, clever and slightly spoilt loves a project and her favourites are usually of the matchmaking variety. With this in mind, she takes under her wing a certain Harriet Smith, a girl that boards at Mrs.Goddard's. Harriet although beautiful, is a timid shy girl of seventeen, the daughter of "nobody", her parentage is unknown and she has neither money nor prospects. Emma's aim is to get her married favourably and establish her forever in good society. What follows is a series of sometimes comic, sometimes distressing errors involving a certain Mr.Martin (a respectable, though "poor" farmer and therefore deemed not "good enough" for Harriet) a Mr.Elton (who ends up proposing to Emma instead), a certain Frank Churchill (whom does he really like? Emma? Harriet? Or is there a third girl?) and incredibly Mr.Knightley himself! What really happens? Whom does Harriet finally end up with? And what about Emma, in her folly about rank and aristocracy does she get to know her own heart before it is too late?

This book is for and about only Emma Woodhouse. Many faults she may have, yet, you can't help loving her. Emma has none of the tempestuousness of Pride and Prejudice. It is gentler, it lets us examine the events in Emma's life at a leisurely pace and in its very portrayal of the protagonist as one for whom rank and birth are important, exposes the folly of such thoughts. Mr.Knightley provides the perfect foil for Emma Woodhouse and this is where the book scores.

Visit Highbury and Hartfield, get drawn into all the joys, sorrows, petty fights, the good people and the bad. Jane Austen is at her sparkling best and she absolutely does not disappoint.

Award - Premio Dardos

2010-06-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Kate from Kate's Library for this lovely award! According to Kate's blog, "The Premio Dardos is a way to acknowledge the importance of bloggers committed to spreading cultural, ethical, literary and personal values, showing their letters and words."
I am passing this award to:
1. Kals
2. Whitney
3. Hannah
4. Shweta
5. Kate (back to you!)
6. Life Wordsmith

Thanks a lot for this lovely award Kate! I really appreciate it :)

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2010-06-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." These lines, which stand for everything Mrs.Bennet believes in, nay, depends upon, set the tone superbly for what is one of those most beloved novels of the English language. I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was fourteen and I have re-read it many times since but was always hesitant of posting anything about it on my blog: there was this fear that I might not do justice enough. Jane in June hosted by Misty at Book Rat has given me the perfect impetus to reading this book again and plucking up the courage to write about it. So, this post is in homage to a most beloved book and a most beloved author.

From the very first line Ms.Austen leaves us with no doubts as to the plot of the book. Indolent Mr.Bennet Esq. of Longbourne Estate has a wife and five daughters. Mrs.Bennet is of poor understanding and restraint and the daughters display varying degrees of foolishness. Of this the elder two Ms. Bennets Jane and Elizabeth are an exemption: they are young ladies in whom sense and delicacy of mind are combined. The purpose of Mrs.Bennet's life is to get all her five daughters married. Into their little society in Hertfordshire comes Mr.Bingley (who is intended for Jane by Mrs.Bennet) with five thousand a year and rents the neighbouring estate of Netherfield. With Mr.Bingley's party there comes to Hertfordshire Mr.Fitzwilliam Darcy of Derbyshire, with ten thousand a year. Mr.Darcy though rich and dignified is thought to be arrogant and haughty. It is with him that our protagonist Elizabeth is soon caught in a sparring of words, manners and feelings that has made this novel one of the greatest in the English language.

Pride and Prejudice is on of those books that you can go to again and again and may never tire. Ms. Austen creates such a vivid and fantastic world, such unforgettable characters be it the protagonists or the dastardly Mr.Wickham or that perennially foolish man, Mr.Collins. Pride and Prejudice is gloriously indulgent, sharp as a razor and makes such a mockery of the aristocracy of Regency England. Mr.Darcy is all that one might hate only to desperately love later on. It is amazing, the kind of staying power with which Jane Austen has written Lizzy Bennet's character; even at those times when she is wrong, when she lets pride over power her, there is absolutely no resisting the magnetic force that she has and you are simply swept along on a tidal wave: you are Lizzy. So with Lizzy, you hate Mr.Darcy, hold him in the utmost contempt and then with Lizzy, you start admiring him, fall heads over heels in love with Pemberley and with him. One of Ms.Austen's greatest strengths is that she did not try to create characters that are above reproach. Her's are gloriously human and you love Lizzy and Darcy all the more for their owning of their faults and their attempts to remedy them. So, the question is, who has the pride and who has the prejudice? Or do they contain both in equal and confusing measures? Whichever the case maybe, Lizzy Bennet and Mr.Darcy will always remain one of the most powerful couples that grace the pages of any book for all time and Pride and Prejudice, a book that can never be read or loved too much. One thing though, I shall envy Lizzy Bennet Darcy on the strength of Pemberley alone all my life. Sigh!

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict - Laurie Viera Rigler

2010-06-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

This book was lying in an obscure corner of a shelf containing among other books a collection of plays by Sophocles. "Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict" seemed to beam up at me in its curly reds begging me to pick it up.

Courtney Stone, present day LA city girl wakes up one fine day in Regency England or more clearly Jane Austen's England in the body of Jane Mansfield and Courtney is instantly thrown headlong into the life of the gentry circa 1813. Jane Mansfield, thirty years old and in grave danger of going permanently "on the shelf" has an icy, over-bearing mother Mrs. M who is hell bent on getting her married to Charles Edgeworth, a wealthy widower who has just moved into the neighborhood. Into this life, Courtney finds herself involuntarily thrust into and she must learn the ways of a lady in Regency England or pay the price of being declared insane and committed to an asylum as Mrs. M threatens her. How does Courtney cope with Jane's life and Charles's attentions? Is Charles really as honorable as he seems? Like the book's synopsis says, is he Darcy, Wickham or a merely confusing distraction? Courtney finds herself in a dilemma, having left behind in her real life a cheating fiance that she has just dumped and her best friend Wes who has betrayed her by covering up for the cheating fiance. How does Courtney deal with Jane's life when her own is in increasing disorder? And more importantly where is the real Jane? Courtney desperately wants to get back to her old life but as she navigates 1813 England in the body of Jane Mansfield, she must ask herself, does she even want to? Fortunately or unfortunately, the destinies of Courtney and Jane seem connected and one has to fulfill it for the other.

I enjoyed Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict but in spite of it being a fun page turner, it didn't sit as well with me as I hoped it would. There were too many loose ends and the romance between Jane and Charles seemed too circumspect and just did not strike a chord with me. Whatever happened to James, the servant in Jane's house with whom Jane seems to have shared a strong albeit fleeting passion? I found the chemistry between Jane and James electric but there was hardly anything between Jane and Charles except about how she keeps extolling about his good looks. Also, I felt there was too much of retrospection and introspection on why Courtney was stuck in Jane's body. The references to Austen's England, Courtney's sarcasm on the out-dated anti-feminist world she finds herself in, the slapstick humor and the laugh-out-loud references to plumbing and personal hygiene in Regency England left me enjoying immensely, but for all that, I found the book somewhat lacking. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict is not wanting in wit or humor but what it perhaps lacks is that X-factor. Nevertheless, it was a highly enjoyable read and I am hoping I get some satisfactory answers in the sequel which I will definitely be reading! Jane Austen enthusiasts will lap this one up.

You can read a wonderful review on this book at Kals's blog At Pemberley

Love Letters - Katie Fforde

2010-06-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

Laura Horsely lives a contented if drab life and would rather read a good book than do anything else. I could understand that about Laura; while I am nowhere near as people shy as Laura is, I frequently have moments when I happily forego the company of anyone in favour of a good book. Laura's life is an ordered one and she prefers to keep it that way, but she is thrown for a loop when Henry, the owner of the bookstore where she works decides to close. What will Laura do for a living? Enter Eleanora, super-agent and a giant of the literary world whom Laura meets at a book lauch at the store. Eleanora is taken with Laura and her vast knowledge of books and ropes her in as a volunteer for a literary festival hosted by her niece, deep in the English country side. Laura arrives there with bag, baggage and trepedition only to find herself among people who will become fast friends and with whom she feels terrific kinship. But Laura's ordered life is about to disrupted by Dermot Flynn, considered to be the greatest living Irish author (and Laura's favourite) who is as prickly and eccentric as they come. Laura is charged with the responsibility of hot-footing it to Ireland and bringing him to the festival: Dermot Flynn who has has had the worst case of writer's block for previous fifteen years, who has barricaded himself up in his village ready to bite anyone who dares to draw him out and Dermot Flynn who looks devilishly handsome. And when Dermot sees Laura, he is hell bent on having her. What does Laura do? Especially when she herself has an almighty crush on him?

Katie Fforde's Love Letters has everything I look for in a good chick lit. and I loved this book for many reasons: it was first and foremost about books and I enjoyed the bits about the literary festival immensely and descriptions of the Irish country side, I devoured because I have longed to go to Ireland for years now. I loved how Laura went from shy and colourless to fun and full of life and Dermot Flynn, well, hottie extraordinaire! I loved how Eleanora describes him: "When I saw him for the first time I thought, Darcy eat your heart out!" Dermot proved to be the perfect foil for Laura and theirs is a romance I had a riot reading about and so will you. Katie Fforde's Love Letters could be the perfect pick-me-up on a bad day, a book to while away your time with when you are bored, or simply just because.

Jane in June

2010-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks a bunch to Whitney on whose blog I came across this event/challenge:

Misty at Book Rat is hosting the Jane in June event where you watch/read all things Jane. She is without a doubt my favourite author (except for the little matter of Little Women and one Louisa May Alcott) so this is the first ever event I am joining! For the next thirty days I am going to forget my TBR pile, Nora Roberts and re-read all of Austen's books!

I thought I would read them in the order of my preference:

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Emma
3. Persuasion
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Mansfield Park
6. Northanger Abbey

As to whether I would do anything else, I am undecided though I would love to work schedule permitting. So, let's see..

Happy reading to me! Thanks a bunch Whitney and Misty :-)

Frenchman's Creek - Daphne Du Maurier

2010-05-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

In her haunting style, Du Maurier opens Frenchman's Creek with a meandering description of a particular part of the Cornish coast. "When the east wind blows up the Helford river the shining waters become troubled and disturbed and the little waves beat angrily upon the sandy shores." And so we are drawn to this particular era, this particular place: this secluded part of the river, the tiny village near it, and the grounds of Navron House. As Du Maurier talks of the place in present day terms, we hear an echo of what that place once was, the things that happened there and the hearts that met there..

Lady Dona St.Columb is stuck in an unhappy marriage with a man who can barely understand her try as he may. Her London life, a constant swirl of parties, concerts, flirtations with her husband's friend Rockingham seems to consume her life till one day she is disgusted by it all, and desperately wanting some distance from her husband Harry, takes her children and flees to Navron House on the remote Cornish Coast to live happily in seclusion, away from the tedium and duplicity of London. Navron House, uninhabited for many years, where Dona herself has been only once, is thrown up for the arrival of its mistress devoid of all servants but the butler, William, an odd fellow who seems to hide a secret. By and by Dona stumbles upon a creek on her grounds, the mooring place of a pirate ship that is the fear and disgust of all the gentry around. Before she knows it Dona is embroiled deep in the affairs of La Mouette and befriends the pirate himself, the elusive handsome Frenchman whom everyone seems to hate. To Dona, the creek becomes a magical place where she goes to escape her life and it isn't long before she, Lady Dona St.Columb, mother of two, finds herself falling in love with the Frenchman Pirate.

Frenchman's Creek, read during the two amazing days of thundershowers in Chennai was a welcome distraction from the rain: it was the perfect book to curl up with while the rain lashed outside. Du Maurier, rarely goes wrong and certainly not with this one. It spins such a vivid tale of love, passion, duty and most of all, of the simple life. A life where one need not be Lady Dona St.Columb with appearances to keep up, but can sit barelegged in the creek, eat freshly fried fish over the campfire, listen to a night jar. In Dona there is the yearning to be someone completely different from whom she really is and while you might not necessarily like her, you find yourself sympathizing with her.

Read the Frenchman's Creek, you will feel your heart moving in strange, beautifully sad ways and in the present day ruin that is left of Navron House, you too will see loyal button-mouthed William, poor blundering Harry, Dona and her pirate in their little creek, frozen in time, frying the fish that they just caught, for dinner.

The Forget-Me-Not Sonata - Santa Montefiore

2010-05-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

This is for my Grandma who passed away on the 22nd of this month: I miss you.

She has done it again. Whoever likes Santa Montefiore or not, I am her fan. She has this way of taking the reader on a wild goose chase and just when you think that neither book nor the characters are redeemable, she finishes the whole thing off so beautifully that you simply don't have the heart to complain. The Forget-Me-Not Sonata was all this and more.

The place is post second world war Argentina, a small community of English expats just outside of Beunos Aires and the time is summer: golden and filled with life, at least for sisters Audrey and Isla growing up in the leafy suburb of Hurlingham, with days of wild horse rides across the pampa, tennis matches at the club and picnics galore with their mother and aunts. Audrey and Isla are English without ever having set foot in England. Isla, the younger one who simply wants to gobbles up life has a mischievous spirit whereas Audrey, quieter, dreams about love nearly all the time. Things affect Audrey on a much keener level. Into their peaceable life blows a tempest in the form of the Forrester brothers, Cecil and Louis. While Cecil, the dashing war hero is admired by everyone and considered a prize catch, his troubled brother Louis the gifted pianist and shirker from the war is rather looked down upon as unstable and unsuitable as a suitor. Audrey's parents harbor a hope that she and Cecil would fall in love and make a match of it and Cecil himself begins to form an attachment to the girl. But for Audrey, from the moment she lay eyes on him, there can ever be one man and one love: Louis. The two are drawn into the intensity of their emotions for each other and apprehensive of what the unforgiving expat community would say of their love, they embark upon a secret affair that consumes their very souls. Louis writes for Audrey a haunting melody that she calls the Forget-Me-Not-Sonata, a tune which will haunt her for the rest of her life. Time and things are running out of Audrey's hands, Cecil's attentions are getting more marked everyday and she needs to come out into the open about Louis and fast. Things reach a crescendo with the sudden tragic death of Isla: Audrey is seized by a wavering of thought. How can she cause her grieving parents more sorrow by marrying a man they would not approve of? Is marrying Cecil the right choice after all? But can she ever forget Louis?

The Forget-Me-Not-Sonata is a tale that is melancholic and exasperating but I enjoyed it immensely, for it made me look beyond the small imperfections and flaws and realize with a sort of regret, that characters just don't behave the way you want them to, but it doesn't make their story any less compelling. Audrey makes for an irritating protagonist, but, in spite of it all I found myself asking if she wasn't totally justified in her actions. Love like Audrey's and Louis's is rare, something that a romantic dreams about but it is also tempestuous and self centered. What is love after all? An all consuming passion that makes you blind to everything else, that sets you heart on fire or a gentle stealing upon your heart and soul, a love that is truly unconditional and forgives you your trespasses with nobility of character? There are two men in Audrey's life but it is up to the reader to decide who was the better man between them. Although this story is for Audrey and Louis, it is really about Cecil Forrester and it is Cecil Forrester, with all his little idiosyncrasies that I have come to feel an affection for.

The Forget-Me-Not Sonata is a book to be enjoyed without over analysis. It takes you on a blind and erratic journey but in the end leaves you with a profound sense of satisfaction. I cannot wait to get my hands on another one of Montefiore's books!

Of Love and other Demons - Gabriel Gracia Marquez

2010-05-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

I am in two minds about this book: either loved it or I hated it and I just can't figure out which. Of love and other demons is funny that way. It draws you in: into this bewildering, resplendent fable till you can hardly make out what is going to happen and just when you get all heated up and start rooting for the protagonists that for some reason you simply can't seem to like, it all ends. Well, I guess I loved the book but for the life of me I do not know why.

Of love and other demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a novella about Sierva Maria, the daughter of Ygnacio, the Marquiz of a little town in what is now Columbia. Born to indifferent parents who hate each other, Sierva is left largely to the mercy of Ygnacio's slaves and with them she grows up, absorbing their tongues and their practices, indifferent to the white man. On her twelfth birthday, Sierva Maria goes to the market with one of the slave women, where she is bitten by a rabid dog. The dog bites many people and soon the entire town is gripped in a frenzy: the slaves who have been bit have been spirited away by their kin to be treated with the medicines passed down to them. Sierva seems to be the only person who hasn't been affected by the dog bite. Day after day he father watches her closely for some sign of madness but she is much the same: spending all her days in the slave quarter, ignoring a timid, tremulous father and a mother addicted to cacao and fermented honey. Soon the town is convinced that she is possessed by the demon and she is locked away in the convent to be exorcised. The only person who believes in her sanity is priest who is sent to cure her but how will he prove that? What will happen to Sierva Maria and what will happen to Father Cayetano who has fallen in love with Sierva, the girl with the copper bright hair that brushes the soles of her feet?

This is one of those books that you will read, at first for the sake of the story itself: it is uncomfortable and blinding. Once you are done with the book however, you begin to appreciate the master that Marquez is with his words; so many themes have been explored in this book and all of them are many layered. I personally did not like Father Cateyano or Sierva Maria but I wanted them to have a happy ending with all my heart. That is the power of Marquez's writing. The people in this book ride a fine line between love and passion, life and death itself and who is to say what wins? In Marquez's New Grenada, anything is possible.

Gentlemen and Players - Joanne Harris

2010-05-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

I finished this book this afternoon and since then it has stayed with me rather strongly. I imagine among other things, for this book to smell like chalk, Gauloise, of old boys and new, strict form masters, pranks and pranksters, sarcasm, of all those things that belong to a prestigious grammar school and of a thin, reedy under current of deceit and violence. Joanne Harris has created a compelling portrait of a prestigious school, now poised at the brink of ruin. And on that canvas are all of those things that I have described above.

St. Oswald's Grammar school for boys is a school steeped in tradition and principle. For the boys that study there, St. Oswald's gives them that veneer, that edge. For the staff, men and women who have been with the school for decades and who have seen class after class of boys come and go, St. Oswald's is more than just a work place. It is all they know. It is home, and they are fiercely proud of it. None more so than Roy Straitley, sixty-five, the eccentric Latin master at the School who has spent his whole life at Oswald's. The staff at Oswald's is a patchwork bunch: There is Pat Bishop, the popular second master who is the very heart of the school, the less popular head, the newbies, forgetful Pearman, helpful Kitty Teague, the sanctimonious Geoff and Penny Nations. Over the years, the school has seen its share of successes and scandals, hush-ups, triumphs, it is protected by a powerful and dedicated old boy network; The great machination of St. Oswald's waits for none. The school it self matters more than anything and anyone else.

Into this place, one Michaelmas term, blows a sinister wind: there is a Jonah at the school. Someone with a grudge, someone who has come after fourteen years to exact a terrible revenge, someone who will not stop until St. Oswald's has been torn apart and brought to its knees. Slowly, pranks are played with a deeper intention; pranks no ordinary fun loving school boy would attempt, scandals brew and one by one things at the school start to go wrong and its loyal staff picked apart and framed wrongly for a series of shocking crimes. The culprit will stop at nothing: even murder. Who is this person? Why is there such a compulsive rage, recklessness and hatred in the revenge that the culprit has scripted for Oswald's? More importantly, can Oswald's seemingly inevitable hurtle towards ruin be stopped?

Without giving away anything, I will add this for the culprit: that a human being could act so destructively, for reasons small and big sent chills down my spine and Joanne Harris has done a splendid job at leaving things the way she did. In my opinion, the ending could not have been more perfect. No languid read this, there will still be some unease when you have closed the book, which is after all, natural. Things go on. Sometimes there is a satisfactory finish to things, sometimes there isn't. You don't stop living. More importantly, Oswald's will not stop. There will still be generations and generations of boys to be taught, come what may even after the worst of scandals.

Joanne Harris is better known for her Chocolat. Although I enjoyed Chocolat, I will call this book superior in the way she has handled the plot, the fantastic way she has described the life of a school and the luscious prose. Read the Gentlemen and Players on a long train journey, bus ride, an interminably long afternoon, a sleepless night. With the narration alternating interestingly between the perspectives of Roy Straitley and the culprit, it will leave you turning page after page. Joanne Harris has truly come into her own with this one.

Great Blog Neighbour Award

2010-05-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

I got a new award! Thanks to Whitney and Kals for this one!

The Great Blog Neighbour Award is a new award created by Felicia at Geeky Blogger's Book Blog.

Appreciate it guys!

I pass this on to some great neighbours I have been fortunate to have :)

1. Whitney at She's too fond of books
2. Kals at Pemberley
3. Shweta at Book Journal
4. Hannah at her Book Blog
5. Avi and Pavi - even if you don't have blogs. I love you guys!

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

2010-05-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again," narrates the nameless girl whom Maxim De Winter marries, who becomes apparently, the rather colorless successor to his dead wife Rebecca and becomes the new mistress of the lovely Manderley. And so we are instantly swept, up the twisting gravel drive, through the eerily slim beech trees, past the rhododendrons, till we come in front of the once handsome gray house that was, is Manderley. As Du Maurier sets the scene for a gripping novel, you find yourself already rather intensely involved in the lives of Maxim De Winter and his wife in that small nameless hotel in Monte Carlo. There is this sense of hard fought for peace, a tiredness of the mind that welcomes the mundanity that life is now. There is a certain fragility about the couple and when you begin to wonder why, the narrator sweeps you along for the breathtaking ride that is Rebecca.

Our girl, the protagonist lives the drab life of a ladies companion to a tiresome, tedious widow, Mrs.Edythe Van Hopper in glamorous Monte Carlo. The city itself has nothing to offer to this twenty one year old who knows nothing about the high life. One day, while at lunch, they see Maxim De Winter of Manderley dining alone at a nearby table and Mrs. Van Hopper with her love for high society resolves to make an acquaintance with the illustrious Manderely and its enigmatic Master. Maxim treats Mrs. Van Hopper with the contempt that she deserves but our girl, her companion is quite another matter. A unlikely friendship develops between the two that turns into an all consuming adoration on the girl's part and a "sort-of-love" on Maxim's part. After a whirlwind affair, they get married. Maxim's life is complicated, his first wife Rebecca dies the previous year and it is rumoured that he can't get over her death. His naive, young, new wife tries to convince herself that Maxim really does love her.

When the couple return to Manderley, the bride is over-awed with the splendor in front of her and completely over shadowed by the present, yet never present Rebecca De Winter. Manderley is filled with curious servants, the county is teeming with people who are itching to have a look at the new Mrs. De Winter, the scheming housekeeper Mrs. Danvers absolutely hates her, Maxim himself has become ever increasingly absent with her and she is overwhelmed, trapped in a marriage that seems to be a mistake, unloved by her husband and looked upon as a curio by everyone else. Can she ever overcome the increasingly weighty presence of Rebecca in her life and win Maxim's heart? More importantly, what about the secrets Maxim and Manderley seem to be hiding? Can she ever win her husband's confidence enough for him to open his heart to her?

Rebecca is a tale of first love, adoration, despair and treachery set in stunning Cornwall. The narration was so racy and gripping that it proved to be the perfect antidote to this nasty bout of flu I have been having. Rebecca is my favourite of Du Maurier's novels and so it will be with anyone who reads it. I would recommend this book to everyone: it is easy to lose yourself in the wilderness that is Manderley, so do. You will enjoy it.

P.S - There is a wonderful write up on Rebecca at Hannah Stoneham's book blog...you can catch it here

The Septembers of Shiraz - Dalia Sofer

2010-05-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time believing that this was Dalia Sofer's first ever novel. What must it feel like to create something so beautiful and poignant the very first time you write, knowing that you have written something that will resonate with the reader long after they have put it down? The Septembers of Shiraz is a beautiful beautiful book about the repercussions of dissipated rule, revolution and blood lust on an entire nation.

Isaac Amin, a Jewish jeweller in Tehran finds his world thrown upside down all in one afternoon when he is arrested by the revolutionary guards, wrongly accused of being a spy. He leaves behind in Tehran, his wife Farnaz and his nine year old daughter Shirin. His son Parviz is stuck in New York studying architecture, cut off from his family. The book alternates among the perspectives of all four in the Amin family: how they deal with the arrest of Isaac, how the revolution has affected their lives, their past, their present, the stigma of having lived well under the Shah's rule.

For Isaac, there is the soul debilitating experience of prison, reflections of his past, worries about his family, his regrets for having allowed his marriage to get into a rut, his rediscovered, almost desperate love for his wife and longing for his children. For Farnaz, there is her missing husband, the empty house with the huge gardens and pool that suddenly seize to mean anything, a young daughter in the house with haunted eyes and her son struggling without money in another country. Farnaz doesn't touch the cognac anymore, what she is going through now is not loneliness, but fear for the man that had let herself forget how to love. For Parviz, there is the alienation from the only land he's ever known and an as yet ever present feeling of alienation in the land he is in. Parviz is lonely, hungry, cold, living in a basement, cannot pay rent or the grocery bill and misses his family to distraction. He is unhappy, unsure of his place in the world. And finally, there is little Shirin: what does Shirin know about the seriousness of what has happened to her father? Maybe everything. Children observe way much more than they sometimes let on. Shirin misses the normalcy in her life, her mother is distracted with worry, her little world has become topsy-turvy and to top everything off, what about the illicit activities Shirin has been engaging herself in without any realization whatsoever about the magnitude of it all? The four of them, though separated physically find their thoughts circling each other constantly and in that, rediscover the love and bond that their family, any family for that matter, must share. It was wonderful to read the book through the eyes of four different characters at once. Underlying everything, is one strong emotion: a sense of bewilderment at the fast disappearance of the only Iran they have known and loved, a sense of fear for the unknown.

The Septembers of Shiraz is one of those quietly moving books that showcase civil strife purely from a domesticated perspective. The ultimate victim after all, in any difficulty, is the human spirit. How does it recover? Recover it must, for all of them. The Amins must leave Iran and their lives behind, escape to Turkey and eventually make their way to New York to their son. What of the land they leave behind? If you read the book, in the end, you will also be able to picture them sitting somewhere in Turkey, smell the grilled fish with lemons and see snapshots of the Caspian Sea in Isaac's head. Homeland. And he must leave it, perhaps forever. The book however, ends on a positive note: they can rebuild a future anywhere, as long as they are together.

P.S - Hey all! It's good to be back here. I have been crazy busy at work and I apologize for the lack of time I have given this blog and also for the lapse of visits to blogs I read. Sorry! I shall get to it as soon as I can! In this time, I read a ton of books though, and shall put up posts as quickly as I can :)

The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens

2010-05-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

G.K. Chesterton called this book, "The great example of everything that made Dickens great." Very rarely, you will come across a set of characters that you will grow to love in that absolute way that will not change and when that happens, that particular book becomes your friend for life. By the time I had turned the last page of Charles Dicken's Pickwick Papers, I was well and truly crying because I did not want the book to end and I wanted to be a Pickwickian and own a waistcoat, complete with big brass buttons that said PC on them.

The Pickwick Papers give us a wonderfully refreshing peep into the mind of one Charles Dickens Esquire and whether you have read any of his other works or not, I have no doubt that the readers of the blog are well aware of the list of works of one of the greatest novelists in the English language. The Pickwick Papers, Dickens' first novel would leave even a Dickens beginner gasping in anticipation of what his later works would be like. One noteworthy observation on this book: although it is a lighthearted read for the most part, there are anecdotes that depict the sufferings of the deprived that are an indication of what I consider Mr.Dickens to have been: a sort of literary champion of the masses.

The Pickwick papers is an account put together by the recorders of the adventures of the Pickwick Club. The founder of this honorable club, that rare and amiable gentleman, Mr.Pickwick might be middle-aged but his heart is still that of a twenty year old and among the other followers of his club, his three particularly close friends Mr.Tupman, Mr.Winkle and Mr.Snodgrass provide an amusing foil to our founder. Together, these four excellent Gentlemen leave the safety of their London homes to embark upon an adventure in other parts of England with the intent of making observations and recordings on human nature, history and basically anything else that might be worthy enough of being entered in their notebooks. Along the way, they get to meet wastrels and weasels like Mr.Jingles and the lawyers Dodson and Fogg, laugh and shake their heads over the extraordinary capacity for sleep and eats of The Fat Boy, watch one or the other of their group fall hopelessly in love and generally get into all manner of delightful scrapes.

In the midst of all this is Mr.Pickwick, who is later joined by his newly appointed valet, the priceless and irreplaceable Samuel Weller. Mr.Pickwick is a soul who cannot but extend a hand to anyone who needs his help and with Sam for ballast, Mr.Pickwick has some wonderful adventures and relatively few scrapes along with his friends. Mr.Pickwick (I will consider him as something more than a character in a book) is one of those people that you love instantly: a touch of the father, the kindly uncle who slips shiny coins and toffees into your hand.

The Pickwick Papers is an unforgettable journey into the world into the world of Mr.Pickwick and the genius of the mind that created him. Do read the book and come away feeling like you have actually made fast friends with this wonderfully sanguine man in black tights and gaiters who goes by the name of Mr.Pickwick. You won't regret it and even if you don't cry like I did, you will hate to turn the last page.

Out of the Blue - Belinda Jones

2010-04-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

"Home sweet Crete." Such a nice way to finish off a romantic comedy don't you think? I have always been fascinated with Greece and 'am usually on the look out for books that are set there and Belinda Jones's Out of the Blue didn't disappoint. Largely.

Selena Harper is a thirty something Brit working on a luxury cruise ship. Her job has taken her everywhere: from Alaska, to Africa to New Zealand and she has seen it all, so to speak. Working on the ship with her is ladies man Officer Alekos from Crete with a reputation of breaking hearts. Alekos is taken with Selena and pursues her with a doggedness that has the entire ship watching amusedly. Selena does NOT want to be taken with Alekos and avoids him with the same doggedness. Does she like him? Is she attracted to him? Most probably, which is exactly why she wants him out of her way because she doesn't want her heart broken. In a nice twist of fate, when she leaves the ship for a two month vacation, instead of winding her way through rainy England to her friend's apartment, she finds herself on her way to sunny Crete with Alekos who has fractured his arm and enlists her to help him out with the family business. Selena tells herself that it is only for ten days and that she is doing a favour for a friend but what follows is the beautiful island that Alekos calls home, their neighbours, friends, the Agean Sea, Raki, Greek food and finally Alekos himself, whom Selena sees in a whole new dimension away from the ship and the adoring eyes of every female on board. Inevitably she falls for him; Alekos has always wanted her and ever since he clapped his eyes on Selena, only her. So what stops them both from embarking on a great Greek love story that will make the reader sigh in satisfaction? Enter Jules. Selena's (ex) (best) (friend). Is she a friend or a relationship wrecker? How does Selena get over the fact that Jules is hell bent on having a fling with Alekos? How does she feel when Alekos finally succumbs? And most importantly why does he succumb?

Predictably, the book has a happy ending. While it was enjoyable, I felt that the tangles were not sorted out believingly enough, the characters were not fleshed out as well as the reader would like them to be and certain aspects of the book have a very abrupt end without a satisfactory explanation. I will mostly not read it a second time but nevertheless it made for an engaging first read, if I ignored some of its faults. I would recommend this one for those who don't mind leaving their brains out for a few hours of sunny Greece.

PS - Hey all! Do visit my other blog There'sh a Moskeeto in my Foog if you have the time. I shall be grateful for any reader over there :)

Witnesses of War - Nicholas Stargardt

2010-04-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

Not that I have read that many, but I doubt I will find another book that will curdle my blood and fill me with impotent rage the way this one did. Nicholas Stargardt, a historian from Oxford has given such a chilling account about the lives of children under Nazi dominance - German or Jewish, able-bodied or not. I knew going into this that it would not be an easy read, nevertheless I was unprepared for the kind of horror that lives within its pages: a window to an unspeakable past.

Witnesses of War is a non-fictional account of how children's lives got disrupted in the Europe of the Nazis. With the help of journal entries, drawings and anecdotes, Stargardt traces the origins of the Third Reich and follows the entire duration of the war and the final destruction of Nazism and denazification - all through the eyes of Children. Stargardt's voice is clear and the narration does not falter anywhere in the book: whether it is about the Jewish children in the ghettos or a young girl dying in one of the gas chambers, whether it is the death march, the final solution, the millions of children whose parents were inexorably made to board a train to a concentration camp and death, whether they are horrifying accounts of how the Nazis treated their own children who refused to conform, how the wounded and the disabled in Germany were gassed to death in asylums in a blind bid to "rid the Third Reich of bad blood", the words flow with almost a vehemence. He wants you to see things for what they actually were, he makes you view drawings of children, heartbreaking ones that will make you sob, pieces of verse, photographs, and he quotes a small Jewish boy in a ghetto who screamed,"I want to eat! I want to be German!" You might be sitting on the most comfortable couch in the house but in your mind, you are travelling all over Europe horror-struck at the destruction a few blinded, psychotic men unleashed upon millions of innocents.

There is nothing more to say perhaps about the contents of the book: the title and whatever little description I have given here will give those who want to read this book, a fair idea. There is however, one noteworthy point: Stargardt has given a completely impartial and unbiased account. His focus has been on children throughout the book and he has beautifully shown how the villains were the Nazis, how Germany suffered because of them, the kind of a response it evoked in all those who were affected by it. Neither does he wholly blame Germany itself, nor does he try to smooth over the atrocities committed by the Red Army and other Allied soldiers in occupied Berlin. An entire generation of children grew up in Nazi Germany, what of their confusion, their struggle with what they thought was morally right? The last common man, fought the war against the Allies - was he a Nazi who inherently believed that it was his right to oppress and destroy or was he just a pawn in a cruel game? What the Nazis ultimately did was to leave behind a maimed, belligerent nation. The author repeatedly states that post-war, many Germans were uncomfortable talking of their past and tried to blot it out altogether, many German children having been brought up in a certain way suddenly found themselves alienated from the only world they ever knew. As for the survivors of Himmler's "solution", Jewish or German, one can only wonder at the immensity of the nightmare they carried in their hearts.

Nicholas Stargardt has succeeded in explaining how this wasn't Germany's war, it was the Nazis'. These men were responsible for the genocide of millions of people among other forms of destruction because they saw fit. Witnesses of War is not for the weak-hearted and I would say it is most definitely not for children. It might leave you disturbed and helpless, then why read it? Because we need to know. We owe it to every single one of those victims and survivors, they need witnesses to their lives, to their history and it is ultimately the responsibility of all of us to never let the world forget how extremism can only wreak havoc and destroy, especially in these degenerate times.

PS - Hey all! Do visit my other blog There'sh a Moskeeto in my Foog if you have the time. I shall be grateful for any reader over there :)

The Secret Countess - Eva Ibbotson

2010-04-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

So. The Secret Countess. This was my first time reading Eva Ibbotson and it was very easy to lose myself in the story in just a few pages. Her writing is enchanting; all her books seem to have this touch of the fantastic and it is that very element that has made me her fan. And why not? We read books on dystopia, books that are so real that they leave us reeling, books that are high on intellect, books that increase and expand the dimensions of our minds. So why not a riches-to rags-to riches love story set in a beautiful mansion in post World War One England, between a young earl and a Russian refugee?

Rupert and Anna make such delightful protagonists that you can't help loving them both. Eva Ibbotson has a gift of making her characters do exactly what she wants them to do and more importantly, making her readers like or hate a character at her bidding. The book overflows with such lovely and horrid people alike.

The story is simple enough: Rupert, a pilot from WW1 is the new Earl of Mersham and during the war he meets and gets engaged to Muriel Hardwicke, a rich and beautiful heiress. Anna, a Russian countess is driven penniless along with her family and they flee to England for safety. Rupert never wanted to be an earl but with the death of his elder brother, this duty has been thrust upon him; Anna must seek work to support her poverty-stricken family and the employment agency sends her to Mersham as an under-house maid. So what happens when Anna and Rupert meet and become acquainted with each other? Whom does Rupert really love? The blindingly beautiful Muriel who barely fits into his life and looks upon everything and everyone he holds dear with contempt or Anna, thin Anna in her simple brown dress with the work hardened hands? Anna with her long dark hair and huge dark eyes that Rupert suddenly can't get out of his head? Although new, Anna is Mersham; her love for the house, the various eccentrics she comes to meet, all of it hurtle towards a heady climax when she falls in love with the newly-engaged Earl of Mersham. And you can't help loving her. Anna with the earnestness, her Russian, her sensitivity, her love for St.Petersburg and her italics.

The Secret Countess is a sumptuous novel with such wonderful descriptions of St.Peter's fabled city and of generally all things Russian that I perfectly agree with Ollie Byrne when she says that she wants to be Russian! I love this book for what it is, whatever imperfections it might have, it is such an engaging story that I never really noticed them. The Secret Countess is a book for weekends and vacations; for lazy afternoons when you have nothing to do and you are in the mood to read a story about Anna and Rupert and how they loved each other. Once upon a time, in London......

Living in a Foreign Language - Michael Tucker

2010-04-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

"You may have the universe, if I may have Italy," says Giuseppe Verdi, the 19th century Italian composer. I have never been to Italy but I have loved everything about it ever since childhood (enough to try and learn the language) and now, having read among a number of things, this particular book, I can only assume Signor Verdi to be correct.

Micheal and Jill Tucker, a middle-aged actor couple from California sell their home and on a whim, move to Italy. In the hill town of Spoleto, Umbria, there is an old stone house called Rustico. It has a small hill of olive trees hugging it, orchards, woods and mountains. And it has their name on it. The Tuckers buy the place, pack up their Californian life and become, for all intents and purposes, Italians.

Much like Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, this book chronicles one year in the life of the Tuckers and it is engaging to read about their experiences with the weird, wonderful, addictive thing that is rural Italy. Along with them you learn to bake pizzas in a three hundred year old oven, love grappa, slow roast a piglet, fall into the habit of afternoon siestas, break your head over the renovation of the Rustico, make friends with the villagers and a jolly group of ex-patriots and generally endeavour to the good life the Italian way.

Perhaps in matter or form, Living in a Foreign Language does not differ all that much from the other memoirs and travelogues that are out there but Michael Tucker's style of narration makes all the difference. The man simply exudes vigour and zest for good friends, good food and all things Italian. Presiding over every line of his book, the one constant thing that is present from the dedication page to the last is his love for his wife Jill and it is a beautiful thing to behold. Not fictional, not dramatic but something very real existing about two very ordinary people. Many people have moved to Italy or France or some other equally fantastic part of Europe and have written about their experiences, but for me, there is something about Michael Tucker's book that draws me in and makes me read it over and over again. Mine is a well-thumbed copy. This man is so non-condescending, excited and thankful for his experiences and all of it has translated so well on to the pages. I sincerely believe that more than Peter Mayle's more famous book, this one has that spark, that X factor that makes travelogues and memoirs so enjoyable.

Do read the book, you will make two wonderful friends, Michael and Jill and take away a piece of that beautiful country with you.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

2010-04-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

"Reader, I married him." Has love ever been expressed better? Seldom do I come across lines that are so satisfying in any book that I read. Having begun at the end, I nevertheless feel that this line in the last chapter of Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece is an embodiment of everything her irrepressible heroine has stood for since the moment she came into being. Jane Eyre is so universally beloved that I shall not presume to write a review. There is no need: I love it and I shall only gush so let this be a note in tribute to a timeless classic.

When I first read Jane Eyre, the storyline in some way was already familiar; there is an old Tamil classic with a mostly similar plot in glorious technicolor. But the book of course was something else and the experience: part gothic, part warming-my-heart, part chuckles, part horror was pure Brontë. While the other sister wrote the much despaired-for Cathy Linton, Charlotte Brontë's Jane is a young woman of such wit, inherent charm and good sense and is so self-deprecating that it is almost a relief to read about her. From chapter one, when you see her tackling the hateful Mrs. Reed and through the consequent chapters at the Lowood School, with Mr.Rochester, with the Rivers, you are Team Jane. All the other characters complement the plot beautifully. Among everybody, the two principal men in Jane's life deserve special mention: Mr.Rochester and St.John Rivers are both as different as can be; one has made mistakes galore, lives with a terrible secret but knows to love with a passion that breaks and excites your heart at the same time. The other has set a path for himself and deviate he will not, no matter what the temptation. His intentions are noble but the recesses of his heart are stone cold; he has no place in it for anyone but the Lord nor anything but service to the poor. You can't help loving Mr.Rochester while somewhat vaguely fearing St.John.

Charlotte Brontë has written not just a novel; much like the wonderful writers of her times, she has dreamt up Jane's character and fed it life and blood to make it as human as possible and then she has spun her life's story and she has chronicled it. So real is the plot and so real are the characters. Whether you are Lowood, at Thornfield or with the Rivers, every character you come across excites strong emotions like love, hate or pity or even apathy. Only after reading the Brontë sisters did I realise that apathy for a character can also be a strong emotion. So for those of you who have read Jane Eyre, aren't you glad you did? And for those of you who haven't, hurry! Please meet Mr.Rochester along with Jane and fall in love with him too. Through all the joy, much drama and some heartache, you will have a wonderful time.

Awards

2010-04-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

Kals, Priya and Sathej have given me two awesome awards. One is the Honest Scrap Award and the other is the Beautiful Blogger award. To accept the Honest Scrap award, I need to list ten facts about myself and pass this on to ten other bloggers, so here goes:

1. I am addicted to books
2. I am addicted to the movie Speed but my favourite movie is actually The Sound of Music
3. I love love love coffee mugs. I am ferociously protective of my AC Milan mug
4. I love to cook and I love anything with blueberries in it
5. My favourite ever book is L.M Alcott's Little Women
6. The only genre I avoid is horror. Can't take 'em
7. I need at least three cups of green tea a day
8. I can't live in a house that doesn't have dogs
9. I name all my stuff toys
10. This is actually harder than I thought it would be

Ah. Now, I pass both these awards to some bloggers whose blogs I absolutely love to read:

1.Kals
2.Shweta
3.Hannah
4.Whitney
5.Priya
6.Nishita
7.Sathej
8.Bookish in a Box
9.Mrs. B
10.Laya

The Italian Matchmaker - Santa Montefiore

2010-04-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Do you believe in love after death?" Asks the cover of Santa Montefiore's The Italian Matchmaker and whether you are a believer or a skeptic, the magic of Incantellaria will weave itself around you to make you believe. Santa Montefiore has got that special thing which takes her readers right inside the pages of the book and if possible, get you so involved that you can feel the pulse of the book, how she must have felt while writing it. You can almost feel and smell the wet ink. I have only read two of Montefiore's books: The Italian Matchmaker and The Sea of Lost Love and both left my quench for romance completely satisfied. Her books will satiate even the most die hard of romantics.

The Italian Matchmaker revolves around Luca, an English Italian who sensationally quits The City and over night turns from one of London's most profilic bankers to a forty-something, divorced father of two ,who doesn't quite know where his life went. He decides to hie himself off to the sleepy little village of Incantellaria on Italy's Amalfi coast where his parents have recently bought and renovated an old palace, for some reflection and self-study. When he arrives at the village, he sees on the beach, a young woman and a little boy who instantly tug at his heart; consequently he sees them in and around Incantellaria and unable to get them out of his head, he sets about trying to befriend them. If only it were so simple; Incantellaria hides a few secrets and Luca's parents' Palazzo Montelimone is right in the thick of it. Darting, weaving and dancing in and around the town's morbid and fascinating past is the family of the woman Luca saw on the beach. Who are they all? What are their lives about? Most importantly who is this woman with the sad eyes and the solemn little boy who is with her all the time?

You might form some impressions of the ending while reading the book and they may or may not be true; but this doesn't spoil the pleasure of reading The Italian Matchmaker. This book is first and last about the beauty of life and of love. Both have been celebrated tremendously in a delicious plot, well-fleshed out characters and a setting so mesmerizing that it is all you can do not to catch the next flight to Italy. Whatever minor glitches or complaints the readers may have, they pale beneath the beauty of the book. The Italian Matchmaker is a beautiful, beautiful read. The villagers say that once you come to Incantellaria, it is hard to leave; it is the same thing with Montefiore's books: you can't put them down.

Rabbit, Run - John Updike

2010-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Run Rabbit, run. If I were to meet Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom in the street I would give him a black eye but the way things are, well, I can't stop reading about him. Of all the protagonists I have loved to hate I haven't hated anyone more than Harry Angstrom and therein lies John Updike's genius. He has created such a fantastic world of self-indulgence and you find yourself recognizing bits and pieces of your own world in the book.

At twenty six, Rabbit is caught in the throes of "mid-life" crisis with a meager job selling kitchen gadgets, an alcoholic wife and a second-rate existence. And Rabbit, the high school basketball star, who knows what being first-rate is like, cannot do second-rate. One evening his claustrophobic life finally propels him to abandon his pregnant wife and just flee with his car. What follows are the next five months of Harry's life and the events that unfold as a result of his extremely bad choices. Rabbit's life seems to be on some sort of constant overload and from the beginning, one wonders if Rabbit himself knows who or what he is running from. Rabbit's relationship with his wife, his sometimes loving, sometimes aloof relationship with his son, his affair with Ruth, a part-time hooker whom he meets through his old basketball coach when he leaves his wife and eventually abandons, his friendship with the Reverend Eccles, his parents, his in-laws all suggest that he shows a degree of selfishness that shock the senses.

Rabbit perhaps lives the so-called "ordinary" life of a straying man who abandons his family only to come crawling back and then leave again, but it is the getting inside his head that makes Rabbit Angstrom so fascinating and John Updike has presented the inside of Rabbit's head with crystal clear clarity. Rabbit, Run or any of its sequels for that matter do not seem to guarantee a happy ending, in fact they don't seem to guarantee a happy anything, but if you give this book a shot and stick with it till the end, you will come away having made reluctant friends with a man intensely dislikeable and you will want to go on reading about his life. So Rabbit runs, run with him.

The Food of Love - Anthony Capella

2010-03-25T22:34:00.000-07:00

Nobody does food better than Anthony Capella. At least in a book. I am no gourmand but I did consider myself to be having a sufficiently succinct palette. The Food of Love changed all that and now I know that to appreciate food on such a level that it uplifts you, you have to belong in a different league entirely. Or you have to be Italian.

I have read two of Capella's books and the similarity is that he weaves his story around the food. The food is the protagonist and all the different ways he assaults your senses and leaves you craving is the plot. Italy's tourism department hardly needs extra publicity to promote their country but adding the Food of Love as a must-read in the brochures won't hurt.

The plot is simple enough: Laura is a twenty-something American Art History student who is Italy for a year on an exchange program. Enter Tomasso who sees her in a cafe and wants her. To impress Laura he pretends to be a chef but in reality he is a busboy who can't cook if his life depends on it. So how does he impress Laura? Especially when he tells her that he is a chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant? Enter Bruno, pastry chef at Templi and Tomasso's roommate. Bruno cooks and Tomasso passes it off as his own, he seduces Laura, they have fun and everyone goes home happy. At least that is the plan but Bruno complicates things when falls in love with Laura. So with every meal he makes her, he throws his soul into it and in turn Laura's expectation of Tomasso goes up and soon they all find themselves in a pickle. What happens next is the rest of the story.

The Food of Love is a joy for the true foodie. Along with Laura, Tomasso and Bruno you get intimate with Rome and Roman food. Through Bruno, Capella teaches you how to truly appreciate food, teaches you the power of it. The book conveys the message that food can do anything: it can make you fall in love, seduce you, break hearts, resolve differences and quite simply dazzle you.

Do read the book. Some recipes might make you queasy but it is important to remember that the story is much more than ingredients. Because they are just that, ingredients. You can add your own if you want but the end product should be a feast to your taste buds and that's what matters. Just have some fresh pasta at hand. You WILL feel hungry :)

Folktales of the British Isles - (Edited By) James Riordan

2010-03-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

I love folktales. Well, who doesn't? They are such windows to the minds and hearts of people who lived long ago, in parts of the world you might not be familiar with. A good collection of folktales is a perfect mixture of the myths, the men and the legends and James Riordan's Folktales of the British Isles is right up my alley.

The book looks beautiful, it is a nice chocolate brown hardbound with yellow lettering. It belonged to mom but she gave it to me last month and that in itself makes the book special. It is more than twenty years old. Maybe because of the gesture behind it, opening the book was like opening a musty old treasure chest, a little rickety but good enough and sound enough to preserve all those stories within its covers. I ran my hand over the pages, breathed in deeply, that particular smell that only old books have and settled down to devour it.

The book contains a collection of tales from The west country, The south east, Wales, The midlands, East Anglia, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, The north east, Scotland, Isle of Man, Ireland and a couple of Gypsy tales. The tales range from whimsy to superstitious to cute to horrific. The collection of stories from each region resonates with the voices and lives of its people in that obscure yet insightful way that only folktales can.

So you read about demons and dragons, elves and pixies and fairies, boggarts and banshees. Some of the stories warm your heart, some make you laugh and some might make the hairs on the back of your neck stand stiff. But they are all immensely entertaining and you are swept along effortlessly till there is no barrier between you and these people who profess to have experienced or witnessed or heard of these things.

Perhaps to really like it, you need to have a taste for such stories but it is that very thing, the incredulity quotient that folktales have that make them so beguiling. So read away. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

One last thing - The one jarring note was perhaps how elves, fairies and pixies were considered to be dangerous and not to be trifled with, rather than cute and fun and so on. It went against how I have considered these magical creatures to be and that worries me. I love to believe. In Santa, in fairies, in angel food, in elves, in Rudolph. And I want them to be the good guys so if I ever come across a teeny tiny leprechaun, all green and beard I will be sure to ask him :)

I could not find the image for this book anywhere, but if anyone is able to get hold of it I shall be grateful.

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

2010-03-18T00:12:00.000-07:00

The Little Prince was like a many tiered cake or some such dessert like that. There were all these little nuggets of wisdom hidden deep within the simple lines and pictures that exploded in the brain only a good while after I had finished the book.

The Little Prince is at first deceptively simple, it is such a childlike book with words and drawings that will endear themselves to you and lacing this seeming childishness is an undercurrent of pure insight that few readers will be hard pressed to understand. This is not so much a review as a sort of note on the book. Of all the books I have ever read, it is The Little Prince that baffles me. I can't seem to grasp it's soul quick enough or strong enough to write a nice meaty review. I have read it over half dozen times and each time some new aspect of it strikes me. And I take that idea to examine it only to find it blurring away to be replaced by another one, the next time I read the book.

The little prince and the unlikely friend he makes of the pilot stranded in the desert are a kindred pair. They hit it off immediately, from the moment the prince recognizes the pilot's boa constrictor, you know that there is something special about this little boy, and about the book. Through them both, you learn to hate baobabs, learn wisdom from a fox, learn to handle the vanities of the prince's rose and to fall in love with it too and most of all, learn about the idiosyncrasies of man.

It is a strange, slightly disturbing nevertheless enjoyable journey and as you travel with them, you will learn valuable lessons on love, passion and loyalty. The end might bewilder you and break your heart just a little bit, but that is only because like the pilot, you have grown to love the little boy who has come such a long way from his home planet.

Read The Little Prince and enjoy it in your own way. In the end, you will also be on the lookout for the little boy with golden hair.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

2010-03-11T00:10:00.000-08:00

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is my first Thomas Hardy. Having put it on my list a long time ago I finally borrowed it from the library and knuckled down to read the huge book. I am an ardent fan of classics, nevertheless, I had no clue about Thomas Hardy's style of writing; I did not know how much I would be able to connect with the book or how far the writing would take me. I needn't have worried; Thomas Hardy wastes no time in setting the pace of the plot from the very first chapter onwards and what followed was more a heartrending memoir of Tess's life than just a novel to enjoy.

Through circumstances under her control or otherwise, Tess Durbeyfield is sent by her foolhardy parents on a mission to visit a rich old lady in the neighbouring village. The lady's name is D'Urberville (an ancient noble family's name) and the impoverished Durbeyfields are led to believe that they themselves are descendants of the family of D'Urberville. Fueled partly by penury and partly by greed, Tess's parents (somewhat incorrectly - the reasons for which, I shall not reveal here) assume the rich lady from Tantridge to be their relation and corner Tess into making the journey to Tantridge to "claim next of kin". On her way to Tantridge Tess meets perchance, the old lady's son Alec D'Urberville and therewith lies her downfall.

The direction of Tess's life is completely decided by two men: Alec D'Urberville and Angel Clare. The first one is the nemesis who causes her life to careen off track. The second is the husband with whom she is desperately in love and who spurs her for the past that was quite out of her control.

Of the two men, both of whom are enamored with Tess Durbeyfield, there comes a time when you wonder which one really is the villain of Tess's life.

Thomas Hardy's attempt to question the prejudices of an iron-fettered society works on target. While you read the book you forced to ponder over one question: Is illiteracy a deterrent to shun the evils of a society that gloried in crucifying women for the fault of immoral men or is education? The line is fine and you may have to figure out that one for yourself. Tess was a country bumpkin who ate her bitter bread without question or complaint. Tess loved her husband in spite of his inability to "love" his wife when she finally plucks up the courage to tell him of her past. She loved him even as she suffered and never thought to blame anybody but herself for the ills that befell her. But the readers are persuaded otherwise.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles will sit comfortably on the truly unprejudiced but for those of us who are, it will make us take out our little prejudices and examine their sense or their folly while forcing us to answer this question with absolute honesty: Should the past ever matter when you truly love someone?

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

2010-03-09T04:29:00.000-08:00

I love the word "Faerie". I suppose the whimsical part of me would love "faerie" instead of "fairy", "elven" instead of "elfin" and Neil Gaiman's Stardust satisfies that inner need for whimsy so thoroughly.

Stardust is a precious find. Every book I buy is a treasure and a friend, but it is when I come across a long coveted book quite by accident that it become absolutely special. I stood for a few seconds inhaling the heady smell that all new books have and as I rustled the pages, whispers seemed to leak through the book and right into my ear. These tiny, feather-like voices were telling me to go home. To go home fast and curl up with Stardust. Which is exactly what I did.

Along with Neil, I travelled in the time machine to Victorian England and visited the deceptively sleepy village of Wall. Having visited Wall, how could I possibly come back without making friends with Tristran Thorn? How could I not sympathize with him when stupid, cruel Victoria challenges him to cross the wall into faerie and go after a fallen star of all things as proof of his love for her? When I could not stop myself from doing these things, there was absolutely no way that I could not accompany Tristran into Faerie. Read Stardust and the same fate awaits you.

Faerie promises a bizarre ride for anyone who dares to cross the wall. You will be dazzled and not a little afraid.

In a world dominated by Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Neil Gaiman has given us a new gem in the fantasy genre. Stardust is more about Tristran's journey than about what happens in the "end". He has created a world that is at once in harmony with the normal world and at once not. Tristran Thorn goes on a wild, magical journey in search of a star and in the process learns much about himself and about life. I won't divulge anymore. Even though it is highly likely that you have already watched the movie version, Stardust is best read without my giving away anything here. To really enjoy Stardust, be bold, cross the wall into Faerie and prepare to be enchanted, all from the comforts of your armchair. You will have a hard time coming back.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows

2010-03-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

"Step back! We have a winner!" Joey Tribbiani's words (however out of context they may be here) never ran truer. I struck gold with this book. When I finished reading it, I could not help thanking God for my mad browsing habit, if I hadn't browsed quite like mad the other day, I would have never stumbled upon this book, would have never fallen in love with the book's title then and there.

Books on WWII never fail to attract me and the more different, the better. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society scores perfect points in this department. Written in epistolary form entirely, TGLAPPPS takes you on a delightful journey to Guernsey Island on the Channel as the silent and invisible guest of Juliet Ashton. Juliet Ashton is a writer living in post-war London, Juliet Ashton like millions of women survived the war, Juliet Ashton will never be able to forget it for as long as she lives, it will shadow her all the days of her life, Juliet Ashton of post-war London is utterly and unquestionably adorable.

Through Juliet, we come to love the brother-sister duo of Sidney and Sophia, we meet and befriend the lovely people of Guernsey, learn about their lives, make friends with Kit, hear stories about Elizabeth McKenna and finally settle down in Guernsey for the rest of our lives. Nobody who has taken this extraordinary journey with Juliet can blame us either, for they will be wandering around the tiny island themselves. You might even meet them for tea at one of the society members' houses.

TGLAPPPS is one of those rare books that completely satisfies the reader. This is a book for the bedside table as the reader will often want to read a letter here or a letter there; such is the quality of this book. Books based on the war have made me weep, cringe in horror, laugh even (with catch 22). But I have always wondered what it must have been like to live the war, to live through it and come out with the ability to smile; what it must have been like for the person next door: the writer, the pig farmer, the squire's wife, the hippy. This book has taught me that; through Juliet and her friends I have lived in 1946 and faced the immediate aftermath of the war, have watched them pick up the threads of their lives; through their memories, I have faced occupation, bombed houses, deceased friends, witnessed extraordinary strength of character, have learnt that not all Germans living in Nazi Germany were "bad".

Buy it, borrow it, please don't steal it but read it, you MUST read it. I can guarantee that you will love it, you will come away with fond memories, know exactly how Guernsey looks at sunset, know how delightfully peaceful it might be to be a pig farmer, how heady it must be to a writer.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is a collection of fondly written letters among true kindred souls. Once you have read it, keep it at your bedside, read one or two letters now and then, fondly, like revisiting an old friend and then go to sleep with visions of potato peel pie floating in your head.

The Gathering - Anne Enright

2010-02-26T08:58:00.000-08:00

What is the truth? Where does it lead you? Can truth that has been buried for years turn into a lie or a figment of imagination? Does it stay as it is, ignored as it has been for years? Or does it turn into this large unwieldy thing inside you, bloating, disfiguring, till you have to let it out?

Veronica Hagerty loved her brother Liam. Events in their lives not withstanding, she loved him perhaps more than any of her other siblings. When her brother dies, grief, guilt, midlife crisis, a dwindling marriage - one, some or all of these reasons force her to review her entire life in minute detail. In someway, hers and Liam's lives are always entwined and interconnected, whether they can stand each other or not. Veronica knows her brother's secret. She knows what happened in their grandmother's house the winter of 1968. All these years she has kept it to herself, as long as Liam was alive, it was his secret, his past, his responsibility. Drunkard or not, Liam was alive, blood flowed in his veins and so did the responsibility of the truth.

When Liam dies, the truth pops out of him like a bubble and it is the unbridgeable gap between her and peace. Suddenly it becomes her responsibility. The truth. To tell or not to tell, to forget or to not forget. Does she even really remember it?

So Veronica, unconsciously or by design, sets about trying to get to the crux of this truth. In the end, what threatens to undo her? Is it the way she grew up? Is it her grandmother's house? Her own tottering marriage? Does she feel purposeless and unloved? Is it midlife crisis or simply the guilt? The guilt that seems to tell her over and over again that she knew, she knew and she didn't do anything about it. And now Liam is dead.

Whatever it is, even as Veronica traces the history and experiences of her family back from the days of her grandmother's youth, it is all for Liam. Real or imagined, she struggles to make sense of the life she has lead, they have all lead, for Liam's sake. She loved Liam, even while she hated him, she loved him. She cannot run away now, no matter how much she might try to let herself go, the truth ought to be faced.

The Gathering is like a jigsaw puzzle. It begins all over the place, that is to say, the narrator Veronica Hegarty does. How it is finally perceived in the end is up to the reader I suppose. To those who can withstand the direct and sometimes terrible way that Veronica Hagerty looks at everything around her, this book might remain with them long after they have put it down. It doesn't wear comfortably, no fairytale this, but through Veronica, Anne Enright has pushed the truth of things out bit by bit till you can no longer ignore it. It is there to be considered and you have to consider it. The Gathering is a wrenching tale about how neither Veronica nor Liam are able to forget what happened to him in her grandmother's house the winter of 1968 and how the rest of their lives were shaped around and over it.

Chocolat - Joanne Harris

2010-02-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

The winter wind brings them to Lansquenet-sous-Tannes one cold February - Vianne Rocher, her little daughter Anouk and Anouk's imaginary rabbit friend Pantoufle.

Welcome to the wonderful, magical world of Chocolat, it will leave you reaching out trying to grasp the magic that laces the book long after you have turned the last page. From the very first pages of the book, conflicts are portrayed - internal conflicts, conflicts with outsiders, conflicts with the dead, conflicts with the sick, with fate, destiny..over beliefs. Lansquenet, a tiny blip on the French map is a village of little change, little magic, old traditions and prejudices, a little drab, a little colourless. Into this village of dreary routines, Vianne Rocher infuses scarlet, crimson and gold in the form of La Celeste Praline, her little chocolaterie.

Little by little, the villagers either take to Vianne or join the opposing group led by the priest, Francis Reynaud.

Father Reynaud, unsatisfied with the petty daily concerns of his little flock: Father Reynaud, who sets a path for himself but finds temptation right under his nostrils during the period of Lent. Is it just the chocolates or Vianne Rocher herself? We don't know. Fancis Reynaud carries dark secrets in his bosom and in his mad and blind devotion to what he calls "conventions of the church" shows a remarkable lack of empathy. Suddenly, ousting Vianne Rocher and her chocolates becomes his life's purpose.

Finally, there is Vianne herself. Vianne has spent her whole life running from The Black Man - priest, law, man, woman, conventions, customs, prejudices: anything that threatens to disrupt her life. Vianne has unresolved issues herself, she is not as self assured as she seems to be, she has grown up a certain way and has lived her life a certain way but what she ultimately wants is to stop running, to be accepted.

Chocolat is not just a book about the struggle between Vianne Rocher and Francis Reynaud or chocolate and the Church, the book subtly brings out a million prejudices and notions, forces you into acceptance or rebellion. Joanne Harris has created a master portrait of people whose inner most thoughts are retold in magical prose so that you feel as if you were a part of them. I will not call Chocolat a feel-good book. What Chocolat does, is tell you a story of how to let things be, let things go. Like it or hate it, you cannot ignore Chocolat once you have taken it up.

Go into La Celeste Praline, have a cup of hot chocolate and tell Vianne a little about yourself, you might even enjoy it.

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

2010-02-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

[I have not read the analysis of the play or seen a theatrical or movie reproduction as I wanted to form my own inferences the first time]

Love and lives torn asunder by circumstance: this is not new. I have heard many people say that Romeo and Juliet were basically luckless. It may have been so, but I wonder, just how much of human mistakes, human prejudices and anger can you blame on luck?

On one hand you have the bitter feud between the Montagues and the Capulets that has already twice threatened the peace of Verona. On the other hand, shouldn't the Prince, as the sovereign of Verona, have tried to govern the Montagues and the Capulets into a less violent path? Contempt breeds contempt, this is evident in the way even the servants of the respective houses regard each other and spoil for a fight. What was the reason for the Prince's initial leniency? Was it indulgence or negligence? If Romeo and Juliet had indeed been fated to love, maybe timely interference in the feud could have prevented much?

There are the Montagues and the Capulets themselves: at the drop of a stone, words are crossed, swords are drawn and lives are lost. Thus Mercutio (Kinsman of the prince and friend of Romeo) lost his and Tybalt (Juliet's cousin) lost his. Hot blooded Mercutio and Tybalt smarting under his uncle Capulet's criticism goad each other into death and Romeo into murder. What about Benvolio, Romeo's cousin and friend, who seems to be passive at best whenever he appears? Shakespeare seems to have made out Benvolio as a troubled man, one who loves peace yet lacks the impetus to intervene confrontations and preserve that peace. Is self-preservation Benvolio's only interest?

Was Mercutio's and Tybalt's fight the fountainhead of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet's woes or did they begin when he wanted to be 'a glove upon her hand so that he might touch her cheek?' Romeo, foolish, hot blooded, impulsive, impetuous Romeo, how well and how much did he love Rosaline if one look at Juliet was enough change him? Romeo by turn produces mad agony and a dead sense of calm. In his lady's presence, Romeo seems unable to control his excesses, be it the first time they meet, at the proclamation of their love or towards the end, just before he dies. Romeo as well as Juliet emphasize through out the play that to each, the other means much more than life itself. Romeo is seen many times as being entirely ruled by his emotions. When he goes to the apothecary to procure poison after hearing of Juliet's supposed death, the words and the punctuations used there belie that sense of dead calm that comes out of sheer weariness of spirit and detachment with his "world wearied flesh." Indeed, he who shows no consistency of temper or consistency of loyalty to his first love but shows consistency to death, in that, he does what he always said he would do, nothing will be well, cannot live, does not live if Juliet is taken from him. What was it about Juliet that caught his heart that way? Love at first sight might be overrated but was that what Romeo felt? Was love at first sight, excesses of emotions for beauty more common in Elizabethan England? Was Romeo shallow in his treatment of Rosaline? Who is to say? Shakespeare does not tell us Romeo's and Rosaline's story, in fact it may be inferred that the only reason for Rosaline being mentioned at all is to show the unevenness of disposition that causes Romeo ultimate harm. Juliet on the other hand, present a foil, she is quick with her words, quick with her wits and till the time of the actual wedding is not sure of Romeo's love. Her mind wavers with Tybalt's death (Romeo being the murderer) but her loyalty to her love overrides everything else and she is dispassionate enough to chide herself for showing even a glimmer of disloyalty to Romeo. But here too, one vein runs common: violence of emotion. From the time that they meet, both are blind to everything else.

Every character in the play seems to have played a part in writing the destiny of the two. The prince with his punishment, the families with their prejudices: they love their children, as long as the children do their bidding, Mercutio and Tybalt with their misplaced rivalry, Benvolio with his passiveness, Paris simply because he wants to marry Juliet and Friar Lawrence, the third most important character, with his self preservation instincts when he hastens out of the tomb leaving Juliet to follow, Juliet who is clearly suicidal after seeing the dead Romeo. If Friar Lawrence had dragged Juliet away with him could he have prevented her death? Or would he have just delayed it? What if Friar John had not been held in quarantine and if Friar Lawrence's letter had reached Romeo on time?

Romeo and Juliet were ordinary people who fell in love and tried to move heaven and earth to be together. Shakespeare hasn't attempted to romanticize either of them - he lays open their flaws for all to see. Foolish excesses? Maybe so, but who is to say foolish? Shakespeare had always placed the utmost importance on love's consistency, this is apparent through his sonnets, so maybe writing this he really believed that when some people love their only other alternative is death. Romeo and Juliet have not attracted people for centuries because their story ends in tragedy, they are famed because of the love, the intensity, the blindness, that may very well exist only in an imaginary world - when you see that you want to believe and you want a happy ending which makes you empathize with the lovers more.

Out of an ordinary love story, Shakespeare has created an extraordinary play that subtly showcases the inconsistencies of human nature from start to finish.

The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies

2010-02-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

The Welsh Girl has been first and foremost, a surprise. Of the few books that I have read on the wars, Catch 22 included, this one dished up the unexpected in every turn. Peter Ho Davies' remarkable eye for detail conjures up wartime Wales so powerfully that one lives and breathes that tiny village, feels the empty hopelessness of Karsten's bunker in Normandy on D day, suffers along with Rotheram when he hurtles in that old car along those long winding roads and connects with Esther, the female protagonist on a completely different level.

Nothing is as it seems. True words aren't they? Reading The Welsh Girl this thought attacked my mind more than once. Even though the backdrop of the story is World War II, the author achieves his goal of almost making the reader forget about the war at times. As if it were a far removed thing. So Rotheram felt. So Karsten felt. So Esther felt. The book focuses first and last about relationships forged and broken as a result of war. As the book progresses, the principal characters cease to exist in real wartime Europe. To them, the war seems like a distant pantomime, something they are not consciously connected to but at the same time, there is a sense of unease about the unknown. What will peace bring? What will defeat mean for Karsten, the frustrated Nazi prisoner of war? What does the war itself mean for Rotheram, the man who continually struggles for identity? Is he German? Is he Jewish? Or an exiled German Jew who became British? How does he deal with that sense of shame that clings to him that makes him deny vehemently his ancestry? How is the presence or absence of war going to change the disruption in Esther's life? What does it mean to her, when she is living in her own personal hell? What does she care? These are some of the questions the author deals with panache and helps you connect to what one might feel is the silly defensiveness of Rotheram, Karsten's eventual horror at having fought for that, Nazi Germany. And Esther, compromised Esther's struggle between necessity and conscience.

Inevitably, they care. The war directly or indirectly is the puppet master of their lives. Try as they may, through reason, choice or circumstance they circle back to it in a myriad subtle ways.

The Welsh Girl is not a heroic book. Great deeds are not done, great words are not spoken. Three very ordinary people who are miles apart are drawn together to one tiny village as the consequence of a far off war, one they fought for, fought against or simply stood by and watched. Their conflicts are no lesser than anyone else's. Their lives change forever, active participant or passive stander-by. And it all begins with the war.

A wonderfully direct take on just how the human heart knows to break barriers and feel and do things it could not have conceived before.

A new start

2010-02-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

I do not remember a time when I have not loved to read. It is one of the central things to my happiness, one of those very important things I do that help me maintain a sense of equilibrium. So after nearly two decades of loving and reading and cherishing books, I have plucked up the courage to write about them to the best of my abilities. I fervently hope that what I might lack in terms of true reviewing capability or insight I can make up with my love for the written word. As always, trying to improve while remembering to have fun. Here's to a long life for Dust Jacket :)