Mood Reads - June 30, 2020

Stressed: Who isn't these days ?! For the mind weighed down by washing face masks, schooling children at home, and also earning a living, I give you The Tales of Beedle The Bard. A go-to for nearly every millennial, most of J.K. Rowling's works (with the exception of Casual Vacancy and the Cormoran series), seem to have been designed like sweets with pills hidden in them; you consume them in rapture and feel quite nice actually, and only later realise that the pill was there and is beginning to take action. The Tales are snugly ensconced in the magical realm and narrated crisply so as to sound like the Aesop's Fables, only more fun. And of course, there is always the famous story of the Deathly Hallows to look out for!

Attention span of a sneeze: Anything by Lee Child. Really, nearly anything will do. His work, for all means and purposes, is a movie script (I haven't read any movie scripts, but if someone told me to make a screen adaptation of one of his stories, I feel like I wouldn't have to bother with a scriptwriter). You will be hooked, lined and sunk with the first paragraph. You may skip meals, work and bedtimes. The endings are usually thrilling potboilers, so you will generally emerge from a Lee Child as a disheveled fighter, a book wiser.

Bored of Netflixing and chilling: The pandemic surely must have brought down this on so many of us. American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a perfect cure. Pretty much anything by Neil Gaiman is a hundred times as potent than Netflix itself. This book has all the trappings of a 3-season series (it is actually, a 2-season adaptation on Amazon Prime; a third is on the way, it seems). It never bores, and the book, like The Game of Thrones, makes you feel a little appalled and attracted at the same time.

On a rainy day: Shut the windows, get under the covers and pick up 'Shob Bhutude' by Lila Mojumdar. This is a delight for Bengalis world over and its timeless. It is essentially a collection of ghost stories, which can be heart-warming, hilarious and downright scary. They are tautly narrated, although a little archaic, considering our present conditions. If you can't read the script and don't get an English version, hit one of Ruskin Bond's.

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These are a few of my least favourite things ...

I have been feeling pretty mad lately; its the end of the fiscal year (which is synonymous with doomsday for everyone - the one in the job and the one tackling the one in the job) and though I have had a lot of 'free' time, most of it has been going into making time for me to be able to read anything besides corporate papers in the weekdays. Either way, I am touchy right now and little things set me off. Little things like... 1. There was a not-so-battered copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire lying in the heap at the foot of a second-hand bookseller. Really ?? You had the heart to give away the book where Cedric died ? And Voldemort returned ? I am astounded (disgusted ?) at your emotional strength. 2. An acquaintance said she found Hurt Locker so boring, she walked off the theatre at interval. I am sorry the movie wasn't a musical. 3. Another acquaintance refused to come to Les Miserables. Oh I am so sorry, there are no guns blazing in this one.

My favourite book-reading corners

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

Man-Eaters of Kumaon - Jim Corbett

Genre: Non-fiction Rating: 5/5 This one is decidedly a classic, so there is little point in reviewing this book. It is a beautiful one, without doubt. Personally, I avoid any form of entertainment (books, movies, plays, anything) which features cruelty - either directly or tacitly - towards animals (I have not yet seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies, Ant Man was uncomfortable too). So deciding to read this book took a certain degree of convincing. Much credit goes to the beautiful cover of the book. This one is an Aleph Classics (co-founded by David Davidar of The House of Blue Mangoes fame, and Rupa Publication) edition. In terms of sheer elegance, the cover design is unmatched. The palette concept of jungle green coupled with the late afternoon sun creates an ambiance even before you delve into the pages. I picked out the book from a thin pile on a shelf in the little HigginBothams book-store near Charing Cross in Ooty, one biting winter evening (more

The Pile of Books

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