The Pile of Books

I'm in a heady mood today and the weather is egging me on. Its been raining intermittently over the last week, and I've been dying to find the time to sit by the window, the rain lashing at it, while I sip my tea and turn the pages of the book at hand. Also, this weekend comes after numerous ones when both S and me have been extremely busy, so that relaxation seemed a distant luxury. Its nearing 6 in the evening now, the breeze is soothing and the sun is getting hazier behind the cottony grey clouds. I am thinking of all the nice little spots where I have managed to curl up and read, and then some more which I wish to come across eventually. 1. This is where I first dipped into the world of books; by the double-paned wooden windows was my single bed, where I lounged after school (back when additional tuition classes had not begun ruining my life). I remember reading my first Hardy Boys there there.To this day, the greenish, glittering beams of sunlight filtering through t...

Typically I've never been a recent-author person. I have survived (been overwhelmed rather) by writers gone by, with the exception of J.K. Rowling obviously, who, unfortunately, has dimmed everyone else's sheen who came after her. So, when my colleague expounded the benefits of keeping up with the times - particularly along the literary lines - I was forced to think of climbing out of my shell. So he lent me The Girl on the Train. This happened possibly a month back; it took me a couple of weeks to read the book, and my verdict is an uh-huh (or as Sheldon would put it as colon dash). I'll say upfront what I didn't like about the book. It seemed too cinematic in its veins - right from the plot to the way it unfolded. While being cinematic is what draws me to a lot of books, The Girl on the Train  also dabbles effusively into the deepest, scariest, ugliest parts of our minds, which caught my fancy in a macabre way. Somehow as the book was progressing - trying to ke...