The Pile of Books

This was pure guilty pleasure ! And given a chance, I would plop myself down with a Hardy Boys right now and try to finish two at one go... I got introduced to The Hardy Boys when I was at school and as far as I remember, that is how I got hooked to reading in the first place. I mean, there were conscious efforts by well-wishers to induct me into the bookworm's club but as a kid, I was more annoyed than pleased when I found that about eighty percent of my birthdays gifts were books (I sound like Dudley Dursley). How the times have changed ! My high school library was a real gem. It was always choc-a-block with all kinds of books and besides my parents, I owe my reading interests entirely to the apparently glum-faced librarian, who often let me in during lunch breaks and suggested titles to me and kept aside a particular edition if she saw that I was distraught about not getting it next week (we were permitted to issue two books at a time). Well into my plus two levels...

Well, Stroud sure has a very endearing way of treating his characters. I finished The Golem's Eye  a little before lunch today and though there were times in the book when I felt like things were slacking a bit, in the end, I was filled with the same warmth and snorting-smile-to-self as had happened at the end of The Amulet of Samarkand . It was a good story and even better story-telling.  Perhaps the latter supersedes the former.  The plot isn't exactly genius, if you discount the use of detailed mythology and historical facts, which, on the other hand, is spot on. I like the way Stroud weaves through his characters and actions, more than trying to build up unnecessary potboiler-suspense. The book benefits from the firmly established characters of Nathaniel and Bartimaeus and some other side characters, and the add-ons to their existing layers of personalities appear well-thought of and disconcertingly real. The opening pages of the book were absolutely ...

Its a week into November already, and I am rolling over October's due The Golem's Eye into this month. (Yes, I never manage to meet my targets!). Besides, that I have a feeling, its going to be a well-balanced month, considering that there is one of each of the boisterous, the light and presumably the nerve-racking. 1.  James Herriot's Dog Stories: Reading James Herriot is one of the surest ways of uplifting the spirits. While I have read most of his other collections of stories, I never really got round to this collection, as my mother wisely thought it would exclude the cows, the pigs, the cats and the horses. But my last library book was The Night Watch , so I decided to take up Dog Stories anyway (and especially since I'm a dog-person!). I've read a few chapters and, though I had already read quite a few of them in his earlier collections, it isn't dimming the sparkle one bit. Its absolutely delightful! What's more fun is that this omnibus also inc...

Trying to pass off my opinions on HMS Ulysses would be a grave error of judgement. So I shall not. I hardly get the time to read as much as I want to, and so I try to pick books which I am fairly sure I'll enjoy. A lot depends on the mood that I am in at that point in time, which enables me to stick to the end.  And then there are stories like the HMS Ulysses . They create their own mood. They shove you, face first, into an unimaginable world which is so unfathomably different from the your own environment that you almost forget to breathe. There is an attraction, like a fly-trap; I knew all along what would happen and that it would break my heart, and yet I couldn't stop myself from hurtling towards it. HMS Ulysses  is an aggregation of numerous complicated stories, which consolidates into a fairly simple one. There are no usual twists and clifffhangers, for the simple reason that the entire premise of the story is itself one giant cliffhanger. The shock factor ...

"If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moment count, you're setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time." - Commander Chris Hadfield This line appears in the ending section of An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth , and in my opinion, this concept is the nucleus around which Commander Chris Hadfield - the first Canadian to walk in space - has beautifully woven the fabric of his days at NASA. I am not particularly inclined towards non-fiction in general, and had picked this book mainly because I had just finished reading Jim Lovell's and Jeffrey Kluger's high-octane  Apollo 13 - another work of pure non-fiction, which felt anything but - and going through the brilliant photos and videos tweeted by astronaut Karen Nyberg during her stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a part of Expedition 36/37 in 2013. In short, I had something of a grounding on what to expect, but as I began and finished the b...

OK, so this is my excuse for not having been on top of my September target. The book was lying on the shelf, cosily fitted between two severely tattered editions of a monthly that my mom reads, and I was still recovering from the disappointment of San Andreas . Its times like these, that I get weak-kneed, and despite the voice in my head speaking words of wisdom, I decide that I should live in the moment and make a grab for the book; to hell with targets! I may not be saying this too often, but I'm glad about my impetuousness.  When Eight Bells Toll is apparently the only MacLean to have been set in the waters around his native Scotland (the rest of his sea-faring stories are based further north, near the Arctic Seas). The story is a very typical MacLean; the sea, the vessels, the gales, the stealth, the nerve-racking danger... It had all the trappings for a James Bond movie (minus the tux, maybe). The story begins almost in an instructive mode, the topic of discuss...

Well, October began 12 days back, and I have to admit to some lack of discipline in my reading challenge for September. I finished The Night Watch and San Andreas in time, though An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth is still very much a work-in-progress. Besides, a week-long trip to home culminated in further digression, as I picked up some other works too (which I shall report on in due time). So, I'll be rolling forward the last month's dues and fix my targets for October, some of which I have already embarked on.  1. The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 2: The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud: The trilogy came highly recommended to me by a colleague and Book 1: The Amulet of Samarkand did manage to hold my attention rather well. Given that everything magical pales in comparison to Harry Potter, I was wary of embarking on The Amulet , reminding myself of how I had been disappointed in Artemis Fowl. But its been quite some time since Harry saw off his sons on the Hogwarts...

I never thought I will live to say this, but I was disappointed with this one. I finished with San Andreas a couple of weeks back, and I can still feel like I have a few pages left. The story was a typical MacLean - set aboard a maimed ship in a wicked sea, infested with the enemy. There was the stoic bo'sun Archie McKinnon and the usual Scots stereotypes, the incapacitated captain, the strong, intelligent but naive nurse Janet, and several other members of the crew, a number of whom get eliminated quite early on. The suspense however remains, as the ship is crippled by saboteur/(s) and time is running out as the incredibly clairvoyant bo'sun scrambles desperately to remain ahead of the mysterious moves of the nasty Germans. Unlike some of the last few novels of MacLean, this one did not disappoint in terms of action. There was quite enough (but not too much) of leaping about and swimming in cold waters and battling the blizzard, punctuated by lengthy, sardonic...

It seemed quite improbable that I would be able to finish any book this week, but I held my ground and wrapped up The Night Watch last evening. I've been thinking about the book ever since and have realised that the more I brood on it, the clearer it gets to me.  Source: notesofanidealist.wordpress.com This was my first novel of Sarah Waters' and I can see why she is such a popular author. The Night Watch is set in the period between 1941 and 1947, effectively straddling the WW II. As I read through the pages, I was astounded at how the author went about from one incident to another, which were all set in a vast range of circumstances - both ordinary and extreme - and noted them almost factually, but still did not undermine the shock factor and imagery. Perhaps, it was the richness of details - which Waters has gone to extreme lengths to describe meticulously - which cushioned the jarring notes the incidents could otherwise have rung. A wealth of research work h...

I am one of those readers who likes to have a balanced diet, unless it is something like Harry Potter, which will have my whole, undivided attention at all times of the day (bad news for my academic endeavours in the past and my professional engagements now). Since I am not very picky about what I read, I have, on an average at least three books in my WIP list. This month, these three are on my bedside: 1.    The Night Watch by Sarah Waters: This was the result of my random browsing through the booklist of the British Council Library, and I was caught by the synopsis… “ This is the story of four Londoners – three women and a young man with a past – drawn with absolute truth and intimacy… Their lives and their secrets connect in sometimes startling way.  Wars lead to strange alliances… ”. The book is partitioned in three sections and I have just finished the first one. So far it has captivated me well enough. 2. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Ch...