The Pile of Books

Remember our school days? Remember those dreary passages we had to read and read again - between the lines and over and under them? Remember wondering how could the study of language be so dry? Well, it turns out, what we were served was high in protein, but pretty much devoid of spice and juice. Let me set the record straight. Essays are fun. Read A Book of English Essays to see if I'm right.  As the name says, it is a collection of small essays on a multitude of topics by the who's-who of English literature - Francis Bacon, Joseph Addison, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, A.A. Milne, R.L. Stevenson - honestly the list is quite scary. But once you pull your head out of the table of contents, it's a treasure mine. Most essays are short, possibly the length of a newspaper article (which is how they must have been originally published I think). What is interesting though, is the topics they are on. So there are absolutely gorgeous ones like 'Getting Up on Cold Morni...

There are potboilers. And then there are potboilers. Personal is a potboiler. Lee Child's leading alpha male (minus the toxicity) Jack Reacher has always been a source of intense, vicarious adventure. Stories starring Reacher are by habit, captivating from the first paragraph, down to the last page. There is rarely anything cerebral about him or his settings, but that is the allure of a Jack Reacher story. If you are a serious reader, this is your detox.  Personal  starts with a suspicious summons of our man. He ends up in pursuit of a suspected deadly, unfailing sniper, who might just tip the world balance in favour of the worst. He has for company and assistance a smart, young Casey Nice (a very Bond Girl-ish surname, which is, more or less, a giveaway). The two sift through clues and dodgy elements to a fitting, action-packed climax. Jack Reacher benefits from being a recurring character, which means, he comes with the baggage of an unapologetic aura. It is...

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 st...

The innocence of childhood is one of the spoils of war; perhaps even the most tragic of them all. As a race, we still see no end to strife of such unimaginable proportions all around us. With each strife, we blindly go on adding more and more youth robbed of something precious and irreplaceable. As wartime stories go, All The Light You Cannot See  is a gem. This is not the first book to focus on children growing amidst a battle. Nor is it a pioneer in shining a light on survival during times of extreme duress. But, somewhere, along those well-trodden lines, the story just lights up with hope. The title is ambiguous, and at first glance, appears to pertain to a particular aspect only. Actually, it is a wider epiphany.  All The Light chronicles the parallel lives of two young children from warring factions. Both are deprived of a perfect life in a way (aren't we all, really?) and get sucked into the maelstrom of the Second World War. As they push their way through ...

We always leave ourselves behind. If not all of it, definitely some parts. It's not that that bit was messy, but mostly because something better or worse demanded more attention. In the end, it boils down to the power of the dramatic. Admittedly, reading - for the fun of it, that is, is one of those less dramatic, quiet parts of our lives that we flit in and out of. Till a few years back, this used to bother me a bit. After all, reading is what makes us; that, and our childhood. And what am I, if not an avid reader? Turns out, I'm just fine.  I may not have created world records in books consumed, but I haven't turned to dust either! Rather, I'm here, a slightly newer version of me, that bit different (because let's accept it, the old world is - perhaps, fortunately - no more) and an appetite built over the last three months of somehow being very worried and very relaxed at the same time. Mind, it wasn't easy, plugging back in. And again, it to...

Books are handy weapons to stave off blues - be it the dregs of the Sunday evening or a nasty bout of flu. When you are depressed, it takes herculean efforts to shake off the feeling. And I'm not even talking about the more severe, clinical form of depression. I can't get myself to pour myself a glass of water the day after Diwali; on Fridays on the other hand, I am the epitome of eternal sunshine. For such moody, dull days, these top 10 books are the surest way to dust a little sparkle in your life. 1) Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) : This is Jerome K. Jerome at his absolute best. It was published some 130 years back and is still capable of eliciting raucous laughter. It is the honest journal of three young, bumbling flatmates and their dog on a river cruise. Look out for some meandering, pedantic pages, but they offer some relief from the relentless humour.  2) James Herriot's   Dog Stories : If you love animals (and dogs, in particular),...

Genre: Fiction Sub-genre: Spy-thriller Rating: 4.5/5 Sometimes, I really do feel that an intelligence organisation must be very much like any other workplace. What is at balance is certainly much more valuable and capable of altering the course of history. All the same, it is a workplace, an office with employees and clients.  John Le Carre's Circus is thus a workplace. It behaves as drudgingly as one, and there lies the connect that every single book about this agency elicits in its readers. A Legacy of Spies is fittingly another installment in the legacy of the Circus. The murky past catches up with my beloved Peter Guillam in his retirement years; it unlocks suppressed corners of his heart and makes him revisit the morality of his life's work. I say his, but I really do mean in the plural.  Le Carre's stories have always been remarkably steeped in cynicism, and part of me believes that we still love them because, in some dark way, they resonate with o...

It took us some time to decipher that the name of the crossroad was Charing Cross. After all, it is an unexpected name for an Indian crossroad in Tamil Nadu, and the mildly opinionated chap driving us to our hotel had a heavy accent. Charing Cross turned out to be a triangular enclosure, with an imposing fountain (we later discovered that it was named the Adam's Fountain; it is three-tiered, the second one topped by four very colourful cherubs). Since we had arrived in the middle of the afternoon in the thick of winter, the roads were thronging with people and vehicles. Shops were bustling and business appeared brisk. Our driver skilfully negotiated the traffic as we passed woollens shops, gift houses, eateries, groceries and mobile-phone shops.  We returned to the market later in the evening, after having deposited our luggage. Both my husband and I had been fending off a nasty bout of flu and needed to restock our now near-empty medicine pouch. Charing Cross in the ...

Genre: Fiction Sub-genre: Autobiographical narration/mystery Rating: 4.5/5 It won the Man Booker in 2011 for good reason. As I have mentioned in this post of mine, the number of pages is hardly the yardstick of the intensity of a story. I can safely club The Sense of An Ending with the likes of Of Mice and Men or Animal Farm ; their slender spines pack a whopping punch.  Middle-aged Antony 'Tony' Webster mirrors the common folk. His demeanour and personality are not uncommon. The story centres on a particular episode in his life, described in his own self-flattering, borderline-pitying tone. What began as a perplexing letter, ends in the unlidding of the Pandora's box.  The genius of the story rests on the author's ability to turn the tide - not once,  but repeatedly - for and against the narrator. This is like an extended diary entry not meant for anyone's eyes. save the author himself. The recordings are true, but then truth is so qualitative,...

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 wi...

As a child, I was pretty indifferent to rugs or carpets. Back at home, they always existed. They were scrubbed and vacuumed and dirtied and dribbled upon and I didn't quite imagine life without it. Till I moved out.  Basic amenities do not cover rugs, far less, carpets. The first few days I didn't mind, basking in my new-fangled independence, traipsing over bare floors with un-socked feet. Eventually though, the irremovable stains on the bathroom floors made it clear that, in the absence of carpetting, a near-permanent use of slippers is a must. Then came the winters. It brought the chill from all possible directions, including and especially, the floor. The soles of my feet must have been frostbitten on a regular basis and I yearned for the luxury of a nice woolly carpet to sink my feet in. As a conscientious student out making her life (not very successfully), I chose to brave the chilblains (they were not, really).  It wasn't until I was married that ...

Image courtesy: www.durrell.org Genre: Autobiography (may be a bit fictionalised, but who cares!) Rating: 4.5/5 When you are down and out and in need of some form of strong restorative, My Family and Other Animals is the medicine to resort to. Contrary to popular belief, you need not be in love with animals (though it certainly helps if you are) to read this book. It is a slap on the face of turmoil and a reminder that when life is down in the dumps, there are always a few cicadas around to marvel at (or whatever catches your fancy).  My Family and Other Animals is not the first of Gerald Durrell's writing expeditions, but it sure is his masterpiece. By the time he had begun writing this book, he was a reasonably seasoned hand at mounting expeditions and collecting animals all over the globe. In 1956, recovering from a bout of jaundice, Durrell penned this sweet little piece of work about his life as a child on the Greek island of Corfu.  My Fami...

Image courtesy: www.amazon.com Genre: Thriller Rating: 5/5 ' Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. ' The epic opening line to Rebecca  ushers the unsuspecting readers into the docile, slightly sad life of a young girl, who shall remain nameless throughout. Rebecca is one of the crowning works of Daphne Du Maurier, the others being The Scapegoat , My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica . It can be safely proclaimed that nothing really comes close to Rebecca .  Rebecca starts as a meek little story, like its protagonist. It seems as timid as Little Women , wherein a young girl is swept off her feet by the taciturn, kind gentleman Monsieur Maxim de Winter. It ends in the two getting married within a fortnight of their meeting. The marital life of the girl starts like any other, filled with trepidation, doubt and a lot of love. As days pass, she finds cues in her magnificent marital home - Manderley - and gets acquainted with the household. Not everyon...

The Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. This is proving to be a very empowering read, which I believe was the whole point of the book anyway. For those judge a book by its cover (which is also pretty badass), it really doesn't seem to even skirt the edges of feminism. At its crudest, it is a collection of stories and their analyses to help rediscover what it means to be a woman. If it sounds redundant, then it goes to show howo much we need this book.  I must say, books of this kind are not up my alley. It feels too verbose (even by my standards) and the bluntness induced by my utter worldly view of things makes it really difficult for me to penetrate the exuberance of being a woman, as noted in the book. I am just three chapters down, so it wouldn't possibly be wise to quote a favourite right now, but La Loba seems very ethereal. The whole concept of some force (our own, presumably) that can join broken, littered pieces, is deeply appealing.  ...

Image courtesy: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com Genre : Classic, Drama Rating : 5/5 There is no arguing the sheer brilliance of John Steinbeck. The long list of accolades and the controversy he had courted in his days (some of which still continues) is proof of his influence in the current society. Some deem him (astoundingly) mediocre, partly on account if his opinionated take on events; others, consider his work as American classic. Neither argument is completely false, though I, personally, align myself with the latter. If it would be possible to keep aside for a moment, the political ramifications of Steinbeck's work, one cannot deny the strength of his writings. He does not waste words; his economy only accentuates the somewhat lean personality of the settings and the characters. Everything is stripped unappealingy bare and covered flimsily with sardonic humour. A bit like J.D. Salinger, in some ways, but with a bigger lens on the society.     ...

The tedious march that began on Monday is coming to a halt by today evening... the week is wrapping up and I am unwrapping myself from the cocoon of drudgery to welcome, with open arms, the onset of the weekend.  I know my weekend won't amount to much (the more the the anticipation, the more I sleep). Here's the plan, anyway. I shall compare on Monday on a wistful note.  Will read :   The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Manfred . I can't possibly deal with the views of Clarissa Estes in Women Who Run With The Wolves against the backdrop of those of the megalomaniac Hitler. Manfred keeps reminding me of Montreux and is so my happy place.  Will bake : Egg muffins. I just learnt that they are super easy and non-messy. And the husband loves it. So.  Will visit : The aquarium store! Yay! I have been circulating the water in my aquarium this past week and it is sitting pretty and petite, churning water and bubbles, waiting for its inhabitants....

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. This is a heavy read and a very big one (I am only at 7% on my Kindle and I began a week back).  My interest in this book was piqued by a colleague who is in the habit of picking up and tackling esoteric volumes that leave me feeling markedly inferior. Of course, I had let the complex slide, until a couple of weeks back, when I was at the theatre watching Dunkirk  (what an amazing movie!), and realised that I am an ignorant fool. That night, I downloaded the book on my Kindle.  So far I have reached only upto the parts where the young Adolf Hitler has just completed the Munich Beerhall Putsch. The chapter ends with snippets of Mein Kampf.  Those parts were probably the hardest and I had to reread each paragraph twice to get through the convoluted language and the horribly twisted ideology (I mean, how did people fall for this in the first place ?). That, right there, is slowing me down too....

Image courtesy: https://www.amazon.com/Namesake-Novel-Jhumpa-Lahiri/dp/0618485228 Genre : Contemporary Rating : 5/5 Stories about expats make for a very touching read. As a Bengali myself, I have revelled in reading about the idiosyncrasies of my community. But somewhere, they touch a bittersweet chord. I may not have stayed long enough to be a pure-bred Bengali, but snippets from my culture still fill me with a sense of love and belonging.  The Namesake was all about the prodigal son. Set in Massachusetts, the story chronicles the life of one Nikhil Gogol Ganguli, starting from the time his parents met and set shop in the city and ending in him finding his way back. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli lead a very docile life in Massachusetts; Ashoke as a professor with the MIT and Ashima, as a new bride, coming to terms with a whole new kind of life, both as a married woman and in an alien country. Baby Gogol, named after the Russian dramatist Nikolai Gogol, journey...

Image courtesy: amazon.co.uk Genre: Biography Rating: 4/5 There is something romantic about the English way of living; it has perhaps become more so now. Even the English themselves no longer stay the same way as during the wide span of time of Sebastian Faulks' work. It certainly wasn't romantic back then. The English have had their share of the good and the bad; they have been hated and revered. And through all of this, like in every other civilisation, the society and its principles have ruled the overarching impression we have created of and about them. But really, we are all humans; how different can we be after all ? Not much it seems.  The Fatal Englishman  is set over seven odd decades, and chronicles the prodigy (in more ways , referring to things beyond just talent) of three remarkable British citizens. The common tie is the fact that they all died terribly young, barely having touched the thirties. They all hailed from different aspects of life - C...