Indian Readers discussion
READING PROGRESS 2022
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Girish's Booking Counter
Mod
20 Award Winners
1.
- Pilitzer Prize (2015) - 5 Stars2.
- booker Prize Nominee (2022) - 5 Stars3.
- Women's Prize for Fiction (2005) - 5 Stars4.
- DSC South Asian Award (2019) - 4 Stars5.
- Booker Prize Winner (2019) - 5 Stars6.
- Booker Prize Nominee (1989) - 3 Stars7.
- Pulitzer Prize Winner (2018) - 4 Stars8.
- Hindu Literary Prize Shortlist (2011) - 4 Stars9.
- JCB Literary Prize Nominee - 5 Stars10.
- Booker Prize Nominee (2022) - 4 Stars11.
- Women's Prize for fiction (2012)- 4 Stars20 Regional Books
1.
- Tamil - 2 Stars2.
- Malayalam - 5 Stars3.
- Tamil - 5 Stars4.
- Malayalam - 4 stars5.
- Tamil - 3 stars6.
- Tamil - 5 Stars7.
- Tamil - 4 Stars8.
- Tamil - 4 stars9.
- Tamil - 2 Stars 10 Non Fiction
1.
- 2 Stars2.
- 5 Stars3.
- 3 Stars4.
- 2 Stars5.
- 4 Stars6.
- 5 Stars7.
- 3 Stars8.
- 3 Stars9.
- 3 Stars10.
- 4 Stars
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: Jeffrey Archer is the perfect first book of the year. It is the warm, secure comfort of your grandmother's house - nothing flamboyant and you know the good guys will win. That's how I felt listening to the first William Warrick story - a spinoff from the Clifton chronicles.
As the author tells us it is not a detective story, it is a story about a detective. And hence you can have multiple plots in his favorite domain of art forgery/heist and the last part of the book is filled with court room scenes. Everyone, including his superiors, accept Wawrick will eventually become a commissioner even when he hasn't done anything to justify it. But that is ok - we accept a hero by just the introduction song.
The convenience of storytelling follows the usual tropes including a sister who cross questions him and a family team trying to get an innocent person out of jail. I could not help feeling the last few parts moved without the protagonist and maybe could have even existed as a short story in itself. It has got nothing to do with the life of a detective and so I can only imagine it is for taking the series forward - like in the Clifton chronicles.
The comfort of the usual.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: This is one of the La.Sa.Ra books that didn't work for me despite the beautiful Tamil and brilliant narration by Deepika on Storytel. This set of 5 stories about 5 women who embody the 5 elements - Water, Fire, Earth, Wind and the Space was a difficult read.
How does a woman who embodies the element's nature play out - from the point of view of a man in 1970s? In that sense the book is merciless and a lot sexist, but then the imagery it paints is haunting. For example a woman wakes up from her sleep and asks her husband who is smoking what is that which is burning far away - and he very cooly replies - it is your son and she begins screaming as she remembers.
There are some common tropes like an illness or trance states where the element speak through the protagonist of the story. After the first two stories - you find it repetitive. The Tamil as usual is extremely sonorous with words ringing much after the meaning is consumed. Lives that are exaggerated far beyond the pages make it seem unviable.
It's not a light read and as far as heavy reads go - a bit difficult too. Rating it low due to my competency.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: "I was no stranger to the dust-clogged air and muted darkness. Whenever this sort of thing happened, I just started counting in my head, not thinking of anything else."
“My pulse crunched in my ear, like wet sand … This was the first time I experienced panic as a sound.”
Mieko Kawakami's Heaven is anything but. Set in the middle school where two kids - the unnamed narrator with lazy eyes and a classmate Kojima come together as victims of brutal bullying. The graphic details of the bullying keep getting worse as the book progresses and through their conversations they try to make sense of why them.
Getting into the psychology of being bullied, the book takes on a very uncomfortable topics and owns it. Kojima believes the entire journey of torment is an essential part of the journey to Heaven. She accepts it with a fervor and wants the narrator to embrace his torment. Like when he gets kicked around as a football (with a ball over his head) and stopped only when he starts bleeding - Kojima calmly wipes the blood and cleans the floor and assures him he is stronger.
In one of the chilling scenes he comes across his bully at a clinic and decides to confront him. The coolness with which his tormentor answers is also everything that isn't said out loud. The narrator asks him what if he commits suicide and writes their names to which the bully just shrugs and says "We are just kids".
Extremely hard hitting and brutal, Kawakami's writing (and the translation) relies only on the simple words of a child to express the complex layers of emotions.
Disturbing and an accomplishment!
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: What is the role of walls (Mathilukal)? What role do they play in keeping someone in or out and do they at all play a role in how you feel?
Basheer's book is a genius of a book that is more than a love story. We meet the political prisoner Basheer talking his way into good books of the warden and political prisoners. In the company of people the walls do not scare him and he is happy to make tea, play cards or discuss Kapital with his fellow prisoners. When an announcement comes to release the political prisoners everyone is ready to leave in neatly pressed dresses. Due to a clerical error, Basheer remains.
The same walls that housed him now becomes a confinement and he feels depressed. He wishes for a prison break and soon he joins some prisoners in gardening near the boundary wall between men's and women's jail. There he listens to the voice of Narayani a female prisoner. What starts off as a leery flirting soon becomes something he looks forward to. There is hope and he gifts her rose plants and she food.
Just when the lovers decide to meet at the hospital, the warden releases him. In his confusion, he asks "What do i need freedom for?".
A lovely book that is marred only by a brief episode of lecherousness that I found creepy.
PS: Loved the fact that I could listen to this in Malayalam and the narrator deserves a special mention!
Wow ! Girish, I'm jealous U read in 4 regional languages. I'm over the moon , I've started reading Hindi again. (:
Girish wrote: "And I hope to read books that I enjoy "I wish you a 2022 full of books you will enjoy and what a start! Already 4 books! I still have to complete the first I started.
Great start Girish!You read voraciously last year, hoping to get to read more reviews this year too!!
Best wishes!!
Mod
Thanks Leena. It is more a wishful thinking so far :D I can understand 3. Will have to figure out a fourth by the end of the year..
Mod
I wish you a 2022 full of books you will enjoy and what a start! Already 4 books! I still have to complete the first I started."
Thanks Dely. The power of audiobooks I guess :)
Mod
You read voraciously last year, hoping to get to read more reviews this year too!!
Best wishes!!"
Thanks Mac! Hope for the same!
Mod
Rating: 1/5
Review: I am sort of ok with not letting facts getting in the way of good fiction. But the same does not hold good for logic and mystery. This book is one irrepairable mess when it comes to logic and human behaviour.
Paris Apartment is about Jess who comes to Paris only to find her brother living in an apartment complex is missing. She decides to find the truth of what happened to her brother. The characters in the apartment complex have their POV stories that hold all the cards and often inconsistent with what has already happened. The point of multiple POV in a mystery where most of them know what happened and yet act with dialogues like "I remember the first time I met him.." is lazy narrative.
Also, immaterial of the nationality the basic logic of how people react to a certain situations should be common sensical. When you catch a person eaves dropping on a critical conversation the host does not say "Ok. Do you want to join us for a drink?" or when your guest is snooping around and you catch them you don't think to yourself "Damn, this person knows how to be charming". That is the level of absurd reactions you get from the different characters. Oh, not to mention the meaningless sex scenes between any 2 random characters.
The author's premise of the mystery is flawed since what she is trying to do is keep you in the dark of what happened. Every character tries to mislead and remember total pointless memories that are not logical. The only intelligent premise is that of the business operation - which btw is rendered moot by all the alpha aggression.
I am disappointed with the book. But then, I am guessing someone who doesn't mind being a windy yarn may like it. Did not work for me.
Note: I would like to thank Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC of the book. The book releases on 22nd Feb.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: Not impressed.
Way back in 2008 when Lehman Brothers had just folded and I was preparing for CAT exams, this book got added to my TBR as the book that will explain it all. Finally in 2022, I read the book. A lot had changed including my outlook on financial instruments (I don't understand), investment bankers (have money don't have a life) and even the concept of money (an illusion).
The book starts out as an earnest effort to explain the disillusionment of investment banking, expose corporate greed and then the inevitable politics when it comes to power. The complexity of the instruments themselves and the cluelessness of the customers who trade in them making huge money - though true, is something I despised. So all through the downward spiral of the author's experience and the organisation's fortunes - I could not wait for it to come down. By that logic it was long drawn.
The home mortgage instruments origin (thrift instruments) was a trivia of sorts and the German bonds episode an anecdote for pettiness. The last part of the company takeover and layoffs I sort of speed read skipping a few pages (something I dont do normally). I felt bored and desperate to get the book over with and it is never a good sign.
Skip it and you won't miss a thing.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: “We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.”
“...the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it.”
“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
And so you wonder about the book how it throws so much light on the beauty in the world in the background of a war. Evocatively written painting pictures that stay with you long after you read the book.
A man and a woman sharing a can of peaches in the backdrop of sirens and bombs and Anthony Doerr describes it "like a warm sunshine in their throats" - bought a smile to my face! Many books on war and this one stuck to the human angle (the entire spectrum from altruism to selfish) in the backdrop of the war.
The book follows the life of two individuals from their childhood to the war weaving the timelines in a pattern that builds the tension of the now in 1944. Marie-Laure loses her sight when she is a child and her father, a museum locksmith, makes her a model of the Paris neighborhood and trains her to make her independent. When the war starts and the Germans occupy, they flee to her grand uncle's place carrying a valuable/cursed gem. We also meet our other protagonist Werner who is growing up with his sister at an orphanage discovering his mastery with radio and secretly listening to foreign broadcast. When the war starts he joins the army as a radio engineer.
Their destinies are bound to cross but that isn't the point of the book. Each of their life and the people in it - in contrast of the war - amplifies the resilience of the human spirit. You feel goosebumps at times when you read the way an idea is conveyed or a sight described. The POV of the blind protagonist is an amplification of the world.
Extraordinary story telling!
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: "Perhaps the boundaries of narrow patriotism need to be broken all over the world. If the Nazi philosophy spreads, minorities in every country will be tortured. They will be ruined. The next generation will not know where they belong. The world will begin to belong to those who believe that in numbers lie strength, that might is right."
If someone told you the book was written in 1939 in India, you would be surprised. But such is the nature of truth that it becomes timeless.
Ranaangan paints the world just as Germany was in ascension. The borders were being redefined and the book captures the complex emotions of the war on people. Told through a tragic love story abord a ship that is carrying German refugees (Jews) and Indian nationals returning back, the book throws in stories that capture the dichotomy of the situation.
Herta, a German Jew is on the ship with her 75 year old mother with other Germans who are in search of a new nation that will accept them. Meanwhile Chakradhar, spurned by an ex-lover, is skeptical about love and is torn apart by his feelings towards Herta. The other characters like the German boy and his bond with Dr.Shinde and the German trying to pick up English words - the book is filled with vulnerable characters.
The fact that in the first chapter we know how this is going to end makes it more hard hitting. I loved the book's translation which tried to keep it simple.
A worthy book for the times.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: “He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
Beautiful narration and a well imagined retelling of the story of Achilles through the eyes of his beloved Petroclus. Greek mythology has the advantage of having a very low bar on decency expected from characters and hence the noble Achilles and the good hearted Petroclus stand tall among the scheming Greeks of Agemmenon in search of glory.
The book is very different from the varying versions around Trojan war which was as much about the Trojans as it was of the Greek. A prophesy foretold, a protective god for a mother and a love that is seen inappropriate for a Hero - the book does not take too much time in pointless exercises. The book rushes in the ten year war period covering only critical incidents and the inebriation of glory is the pointless driver.
I loved the portrayal of the relationship with each holding their own in the face of the chaos. The initial part around the training with the centaur and the warnings of the mother seemed a lot like an Indian story.
An authoritative author for history retold.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: This is a fun book, a performance actually, of a folklore retold in verse. The book reminded me of watching a "Therukoothu" or "Villupattu" - with the singing and the music.
The original print version of this legend, dating back to the nineteenth century, is composed in a Bengali verse meter known as dwipodi poyar. As an appreciation it tells the moral story of the cunning Dokkhin Rai of Sunderbans and the benevolent goddess Bob Bibi.
The simplicity of the story is perfect for the tone adopted.
Best enjoyed as an audiobook
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: “When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.”
Cleopatra and Frankenstein is one of the books that starts at the point where most romance movies/books end. And then instead of happily-ever-after we get the moth-to-the-flame all consuming romance that breaks their world down.
There is a not so subtle commentary on the American lifestyle centered around parties, sex and drugs. The fact that Frank is into advertising opens avenues for the author to show off some wit. The initial cute exchanges and the later painful exchanges between Cleo and Frank keeps you invested. The other characters around them - not all their stories were as engaging.
I loved the writing style which was light even in the most serious chapters. The dark humor and the slow frame by frame breakdown of the marriage is well observed. It is never the one big thing and therein the book also stumbles. You do not need to know every interaction of the other characters and I lost my concentration a bit when they were casually doing weed to coke to meth and having sex.
It's a modern bad marriage with a zoom lens. Well written and confident debut no doubt.
Note: Thank you 4th Estate Books and Netgalley for the ARC. The book releases on 22nd Feb.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: “But obviously if there was no concept of ownership there’d be no concept of stealing, would there? As long as there’s one starving child in the world, all property is theft.”
A surprisingly deep book that has a deceptively simple plotline and is in the format of a crime novel. The narrator is a pickpocket with a past and highly skilled in his 'profession'. So much so that he can take out a wallet, take only the money and keep back the wallet if required.
When an old friend contacts him for a one-off job, he crosses path with a sociopathic don with a God complex. They go on a job in which they are the dispensable fall guys and soon the thief finds himself in an impossible position. He has to finish a critical job or else he gets a prostitute and her son killed. The latter is someone he develops a warm bond with and taken under his wings.
The story is not the point. The point is the noir type narrative for existential fiction. The author does not try to tie up loose ends - just like in real life and leaves some questions unanswered. It's as if the book is a philosophical sojourn and forgets the reader what it was saying.
Sample this: “Why does the subconscious mind make people steal? Why does it have to be stealing? Don’t you think it’s something deep-rooted in our nature?”
“Taste everything in the whole world. Even if you should fail at these tasks, taste the emotion that comes with failure.”
Loved the off-beat existentialism of this Japanese translation.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: Ashokamitran's Thanneer is that book which deeply reflects the happenings in a life of the 70s-80s water starved Chennai. Centered around Jamuna and her sister Chaya with support from a strong Teacheramma character, the book interlaces the water struggle with the personal life struggle of the women.
The human emotions of despair, anger and resilience in day to day life comes to the fore in this narrative. A simple narrative of a negotiating with the pwd worker on the bribe for doing his work is placed on the same pedestal as one of the characters contemplating suicide. In a sense the book removes the dramatism of characters and all judgments.
In a defining exchange between Teacheramma and Jamuna, they talk about the problems women have to contend with and how it was pointless to accept defeat. It has a silent seething tone and the book still never feels beyond hope. And it does not mind crashing the hopes every 2 pages - like when suddenly uninterrupted water comes in the pipe only to realize it is linked to the drainage water.
It is filled with the dryness and it makes it seem attractive. A great accomplishment.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: "Do not be afraid of ghosts, it is the living we should fear. Human horrors trump anything that Hollywood or the afterlife can conjure"
"Karma is worse than any bullshit god. It tells us to do nothing about the suffering of others"
What a haunting yarn (excuse the pun) this book is! The author does it again - the subtext standing out loud and clear in a seemingly crazy story - almost Hellerish. Talk about tangential!
Malinda Albert Kabalana - Photographer, Gambler and Slut - finds himself in the bureaucratic lounge of afterlife where unresponsive executives give confusing directions. As his ghost wanders wherever his name is mentioned or his body is getting disposed off - Mali is trying to find his murderer. One small complication - in life, he was a war photographer who worked with all merchants of horror and murderers. He was also a compulsive gambler and an unfaithful partner to both his boyfriend and his best friend.
The book is graphic in it's treatment sparing no details of the human cruelty of genocide and war - all slipped in between dark humor and leaps of imagination of the afterlife inspired by scriptures. In one of the short chapters he creates a cheat-sheet for an outsider to make sense of the political scenario to an American journalist - "Don't try to look for the good guys cause there ain't none"
The subtle twists towards the end is just an appeaser and a lot of wishful thinking. The book is no joyride but a not-so-subtle hardhitting piece that happens to be clever and witty.
Funny and heartbreaking at the same time.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: "we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we're not seeing it as the people we were, we're seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.”
A slice of life book that touched the right chord with me. Narrated by Tom Hanks - Danny came to life along with Maeve, May, Andrea and Celeste.
In life, objects become symbols and grow so much more in importance that it changes the lives of people. The author takes that premise to spin a beautiful melancholic tale of growing up and old - revisiting history through the prism of the dutch house.
Danny and Maeve view the Dutch house as their happy place from which they were displaced by their stepmother Andrea. The Hansel and Gretel reference does not go unnoticed in the way they keep picking the breadcrumbs of memory to keep coming back to it at different stages of their lives. Their mother who abandoned them found the house an indulgence that was against her values and their dad saw it as a symbol of love. Andrea, the stepmother, viewed the house as a possession and what she wanted for her children.
The relationships are close to reality and it feels as if the brother-sister bond makes everything else a side story. Nothing wrong, but then the other characters don't stand a chance to shine through.
Felt connected to the story and hence loved it.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: "People rarely think of themselves as immigrants. That is something others describe you as.”
“Maybe it isn’t to do with our faces, but with our wish for everyone to be like us. We want the stranger to be one of our own, someone we can understand.”
What a fantastic little book of essays on what roots are supposed to mean. What it means to be an immigrant and how over time each generation tries to readjust the past for the children and create a gap. Tash Aw - with his neutral face could "fit in" in any country east of India but then he finds himself an alien even to his own family.
Every generation had their own set of challenges to overcome and hence in over compensating for their underachievement, they do much more for their children. And that very fact becomes a gap. This is explained beautifully in the authors section addressed to his grandmother. The hardworking immigrant grandparents and parents are described to have adopted "the normality of separation that produces pain so deep that it can't be spoken in any way other than perfunctorily".
Resonates very well for every set where you are minority and you mend your ways to fit in - in this book quite literally through nationality and dialect. The identity crisis is magnified for the author, but then everyone goes through that in some way or the other. And hence the book makes you think and wonder about your place, your differences from your parents.
These are important conversations and you wish families read it together - to reflect back on the permanance of change.
A meditative short book that is beautifully evocative.
PS: Now the entire Harmony Silk Factory books makes sense in a new light!
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: My Dark Vanessa is a painful intense book that is unrelenting and tough to read. Exploring the abuse of a 15 year old girl at the hands of her teacher - the book explores the psychology of an abusive relationship where she is protecting her abuser by taking the blame.
“Jailbait means having the power to turn a man into a criminal with just one touch”
Vanessa is revisiting her childhood episode and the subsequent impact on her when she is 32 years old when one of the other students comes out with the allegation as part of #metoo. And so do multiple other students. The initial chapters where the predator lures the prey is painful to read and you feel utter revulsion when he devours her and makes her feel the guilty party. The complex working of her brain still tries to protect him as she is sure it was her darkness that enticed him.
At 32 during her therapy sessions she slowly sees that she has let her entire life be defined by that "darkness". Her subsequent relationships, her contact with Strane even later in her life and her parent's guilt are heartbreaking. But the book still treads the intelligent path - in the voice of the victim who refuses to believe she is one thereby seeing things from her POV. That way, the book does not crave for sympathy and keeps it open ended.
The book also uses multiple pop references that were prevalent in 1990s that encourage the Lolita complex like Britney Spears. An adolescent who was made into a sex object - the reflections of our society that has lead us to where we are today.
An unsettling book that is damn intelligent.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: ".. under all those layers of the artist's pencil and paint are wild, blazing hearts, longing to be known."
Egon Schieles, the Artist's life, is a biographer's dream! Disciple of Gustave Klimt, his painting was often dubbed as pornographic and insulting in the early days. At the turn of the century, with the war around the corner, the book is set primarily around Vienna, the cultural capital. Sophie Haydock relooks at his entire life through the stories of 4 women who were models for his paintings - Adele(his sister in law), Edith(his wife), Vally(his muse) and Gerti(his sister). The book is a mix of fact and fiction.
Each of the women tell a compelling story which pieces together the artists life from birth to his end. Pushed into obscurity, the women tell their stories to be known, to not be limited to sketches.
Adele who first meet as a old woman chasing the ghosts of her past is the spoilt firstborn of a well to do family. When Egon moves into their neighborhood, she instantly claims him as hers and develops a strong infatuation. When it is not reciprocated, she broods and sulks and estranges herself from her sister. The books leaves the story hanging and moves on to the story of Vally his muse and then his sister Gerti with whom he seems to have shared an unhealthy attachment. And then we come back to Edith, the demure wife with whom Egon shares a warm loving relationship.
The intersections of the stories explains a bit more of the depth in emotions of the women. What is a passing event in one story is earth shattering turning point in the other. The flames in the title is the all consuming nature of art that touches their lives. The book gives a different voice to the 4 women and succeeds in capturing the environment of the time. You become non-judgmental and even put up with Egon Schiele's sexism.
"You should make all of them bold. For what good is any woman if she doesn't have the power to surprise you?"
The author seems invested in her subjects with an instagram page called @EgonSchielesWomen dedicated to the women who posed for the artist.
Note: Thank you Netgalley and Randomhouse UK for the ARC of this book.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Compassion is a word that is tough to visualise when it is applied to a city. IAS officer Prashanth Nair's Collector Bro talks of the story behind Comapssionate Kozhikode - the public welfare initiatives that turned around a district on basic premise of compassion.
Narrated with wit, humour and lot of pop references to malayalam films - this book was a fun listen (since I can't read malayalam). For someone in the field of implementation - this book is a lesson in idea to execution. There were several parts of the book that made me introspect on the importance of doing without publicity. The author tries to hide himself in these by underplaying his role which was a nice gesture.
The Kozhikode mental health centre forms an important core of the book. There is a logical flow of thought process from reaching out to public to crowdfund the restoration to launching the compassionate kozhikode program. Operation Sulaimani is one more of the ventures that appealed to me and surprised by the uptake of the initiative in Kerala.
Few years in business across industries - and Kerala is seen as a tough market (and people) to crack. The book's take is a refreshing look at the way to approach execution. I did miss many of the movie references since I have very limited exposure to mollybood.
This book I truly loved. Inspirational.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: I loved the "Lost Children's Archive" - the fictional extrapolation of the same plot by Valeria Luiselli. The non-fictional mother story is set against the refugee questionnaire for children who have been picked up by the border forces in US in the wake of Trump's election as president.
An immigrant herself, the book tries to paint the painful story of most kids who have made a dangerous journey across the borders accompanied by 'çoyotes' escaping from gangs and genocide with the sole aim of escaping. The questions are heartless in their efficiency and makes the story of the kids seems insufficient. So the author's exploration of the dangers of each of the 40 questions becomes the much needed subtitle that narrates the full picture.
While the topic in itself has two sides, the book's plea is more of giving a full hearing before deciding. To relook at the laws that have their fundamentals in xenophobia and economic policy. To have to treat them on humanitarian grounds and give them a fair trial - the kids have to pay a lawyer to represent them and can be removed in-absentia. Children who come from Mexico can just be deported without any trial.
The book stresses that they be called as refugees without documents than taint them as illegal immigrants. A subtle enough difference, but a world apart in meaning.
A meaningful and impactful good book that ends on a hopeful note.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: Hannah Kent - known for her atmospheric writing around a historical footnote - this time experiments and fails. The first part of the book sticks to her strengths - historical resettlement of Australian Lutheran community in 1830s. Their faiths different from the majority and wary of "witches" the families undertake an arduous voyage to America. In this background Hanne and Thea find each other.
Young Hanne hears the natural world sing to her and trees calling out to her. She is a loner in the community and is constantly rebuked by her mother. Her only company is her brother who is now too old for closeness ever since she started bleeding. When she meets young Thea, a new immigrant family, her life changes. Slowly through well orchestrated scenes they strike a friendship that slowly turns into a deep desire for love and companionship. Just on their journey to America the book suddenly takes a turn that I did not expect.
Suddenly there is a Lutheran Ghost speaking to us and there is a question of faith and queer love, of longing and patriarchy. The book, in the process, squanders beautiful prose to paint a predictable sterotypical story. The politics of race, of genders and of faith gets subsumed in a love story that borrows elements of magical realism.
Somehow the book made me feel cheated without a real life crime/incident at the core that tethered the writing. Not all experiments succeed.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: "I swear to love all the women you'll be.To accompany them wherever they go"
What a devastatingly good book! Narrated by a young boy about his madcap family - a family where the letters are unopened, the TV wears a dunce cap, a pet crane called "Miss superfluous", there are parties every night and the Senator is their family friend. At the centre of this is his mother - who advices him to make a fabulous story when reality is banal and sad.
The book is written in rhymes in some parts narrated by the father which reveal a lot more about the appearances that have been maintained. How far would a man go for love - to keep up the absurdity to protect his wife's sanity. Told from the boy's point of view - these parts in the diary are revealing and hard hitting.
I was reminded of Jerry Pinto's awesome Em and the Big Hoom reading this book. The similarity ends at the family construct - the authors own their tone and this book is a brave attempt. I loved the parts of the Dad journals that were touching and explained the conundrum when he discovered his wife was not kidding him. The book parts quite a bit of punch and the parts in the asylum were really a study in contrast - the funny tone in a grim setting.
Some books give you that surprise you look for reading an unheard of book. Glad that I picked it up.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: “Mouths don't empty themselves unless ears are sympathetic and knowing.”
The narratives and stories of any culture tell you a lot more about the influences and values of the people. Got to know Ms.Hurston was an anthropologist and it shows in this collection of oral stories, tall lies, anecdotes and voodoo stories of the Black people of America.
The tone of the first part of the book is palyful with the author visiting her hometown and hanging out with her friends who are swapping stories. They compete and narrate stories that are funny, scary and in some ways explain their belief system. The slave angles are inevitable with many "Massa" stories told in the tone. The advantage of the audiobook is you hear it in the same slang as well!
The second half of the book on Voodoo stories were a little bit tough to handle. Not the stories themselves but the expectation from the reader to suspend beliefs. It still works since the author does not want you to judge them and understand what drives their faith.
An indulgent and revealing piece of writing.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: “Virtue is too passive, too narrow. Virtue can motivate individuals, but for groups, societies, a whole civilisation, it’s a weak force. Nations are never virtuous, though they might sometimes think they are.”
“He no longer cared much what others thought of him. There were few benefits in growing older, and this was one.”
Ian Mcewan's satirical take with a misanthropic/misogynistic protagonist was a boring read for me. There were humor in parts - an almost sly British humor - but that could not make up for the tastelessness of the book.
Michael Beard other than being a nobel prize winning scientist is a dick. He thinks he is a casanova and from his POV is doing a favour to his wives/affairs by being with them. Since the book is from his POV, he ends up justifying his every actions and moves. When his fifth wife is cheating on him, he becomes possessive and gets heartbroken. To cope with the breakdown he takes over a chair role of alternate energy centre.
Working with scientists, one young man takes him as a mentor and sounds his big idea of making energy from Solar. And needlessly enough, he goes on a art-global warming trek to Artic circle. By a sequence of events that are as pointless as muddled, he ends up stealing the idea and becoming a celebrity and the book decides to jump timelines and introduce newer characters.
The humour is forced and the protagonist is not likeable enough for you to invest in his fortunes. Even as a satire, the author does to the women in the book what the character does in fiction - reduce them to stereotypes.
The book did not work for me. Lines of humor do not undo a luke warm plot.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: "I felt like I had discovered what I was passionate about. And for me, that thing was nothing more than the gun. There was nothing wrong with me. That’s what I realized. And I started to relax--I lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair"
One of the unwritten rules in plays is if you are shown a gun in scene 1 it needs to go off by scene 4. This book makes a normal person without malice find a gun and then lets it roll. The Gun is a symbol of power and soon it gets an existence of it's own in this fascinating book.
An introverted student who hesitates to ask out a girl, finds the courage once he stumbles of a gun beside a suicide victim. By taking the gun, he realises he will be considered a suspect but then the Gun takes over. Much like Gollum and the ring, the Gun becomes his precious and takes over his life. He does not want it to let go. And then he gets the urge to try it once and then a policeman gets sniffing.
The thrill of a man-made item making one feel like God is one insightful observation. Nakamura makes a really compelling story and you are able to relate with the characters dilemma including when he feels he has lost control of his own life.
This descent into irrationality is a worth read!
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Short books are tricky and this one comes up all aces. In the foreword, there is this quote by the author in his journal that sort of explains the position of the author - why he did what he did.
“In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love."
In this book about friendship and human companionship, every character yearns for acknowledgement, for validation and for something to hold onto. Lennie and George are wandering farm hands who are on the run from the last farm after an incident, on their way to a new farm . Lennie is "bit soft in the head" but a big brute. He is an overgrown baby and George has promised his Aunt to always look out for him and loves him like a brother. They have a plan to own their piece of land and George paints a beautiful picture of their life once this stint is done.
In the new farm, they encounter several characters who in the safety of Lennie's innocence confess to him their life's hopes and dreams. When things take a bad turn at the new farm, what happens becomes the rest of the story.
The book touches a chord and celebrates, in it's own way, a friendship that goes to great lengths to fulfill a promise.
My first Steinbeck and now I get what all the hype is about.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Nordic mysteries are a lot more about the environment than the story. This book holds good - set in Iceland's remote village where a suspended policeman is sucked into a search for a missing woman. Parallely we see the woman's plight - Sajee - a Sri Lankan who has been duped into coming to Iceland with a fake job offer and finding herself as a caretaker in an odd family.
What the book does really well is keep the suspense alive and the plot hidden for the majority of the book. What could have been better is the plausibility of a complex plot. Evidently this is a 4th book in a series which was the first to be translated - so the entire backstory of the cop is non-relatable.
It's a quick drama. The symbolism of the fox becomes evident only in the last chapter and the characters are eerie and scary. The plight of Sajee makes you perplexed and there are some chapters that are tough to take.
A promising author.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: "Maybe like the way we dream of the future, we also dream up the past, smoothing all the edges for the sake of our present longings"
Romesh Gunasekara's coming of age book set in 1960s Srilanka is a slow burn affair that indulges itself too much with sentences that hang around without saying much. The book did not need a political setting, nor did it need so many episodes - for it's basic plot of making sense of a loved one actions.
Kairo's young world changes the day he meets the rebel bourgeoise teenager Jay who behaves much older than his age. Drawn through the curiosity about birds, Kairo becomes Jay's sidekick as they start by capturing a sunbeam, building aviaries and shooting crows. Their worlds are poles apart with a left leaning dad on one side to a car collecting uncle on the other side. Andd yet, through the innocence of Kairo, we see the world and the author keeps giving you nudges around what is wrong with it.
The episodes sort of become forced and there are some developments that you don't see them coming at all (and didn't have to). The focus changes from being about the kids making sense of the adult world to making the adult world a simple affair as compared to their dramas. We have the boys shooting birds, fishing and fish trapping and cruel role playing shooting at targets. There is also a tenderness of finding birds and being curious.
I could not guess what the author was going for but what I found was a sudden escalation in the magnitude of the book that had nothing to do with the political environment. And that made the book tough to digest - circumstances thrust upon by an all powerful author. The other characters be it the fathers on either side of the political climate, uncle Elvin, the mothers who are opposites play very subdued role.
The sun-catcher let's it drop - your attention and a plot with so much potential.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: "The Reddit crowd took that to mean that the only way to win was to try to tear that system down. What they didn't realise was that there was a simpler path to victory.
You didn't tear the system down - you became the system. And once you were the system, the rules were there to protect you."
Gamestomp's short squeeze in Jan 2021 shook the hedge funds system (once again) where a group of people on social media took on the investment houses. The frenzy in those few weeks died down eventually and people went back to other things and the book picks a few people and their life who were part of the "revolution".
Ben Mezrich is probably the only writer who could have taken this position without a newsreaders approach of reporting what happened. What made the people be part of this, their inspirations and fears, their reactions when shit hit the roof.
Unfortunate but true, the people chosen are such ordinary people that the magnitude of what was happening was more exciting than their responses. The hedge fund, the trading platform (Robinhood) and the big bad guys were too gray - feeding into the greed stereotype. It's a way of wealth creation and so the entire position of reddit investors seemed a bit - uninformed.
Maybe a reflection of the people who elected Trump to make America great again - the entire spectacle was for the people on the sideline. The players - not so much.
Did not work for me.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: I had read about the women of war in articles and books like Transcription. So when this book claimed it is about France's women's spy network covering both wars - I had high expectations.
The book, despite being engaging, was not much of a thriller. A pregnant Christie decides to get off a ship to search for her cousin Rose who went missing in the WW-II. She lands at the door of Eve Gardner, an ex-spy from WW-I who is now a drunk haunted sole who needs a conman driver to mind her. Told between the two timelines the book talks about the perils of a spy and the sacrifices women had to make for the career.
The feminist Injections aside, the book withers away into a personal vendetta and revenge in an atmosphere with so much potential. Eve's role in 1914 France, based on a real network, was fascinating and somewhat well imagined. Story of Rose, the lost cousin on the other hand was not so compelling and I felt the two stories didn't gel well. The last part of the book was somewhat predictable and having one villain felt like a betrayal in the times of war. Given how easy it was, Questions like what made Eve wait till this girl came knocking go unanswered.
Since the tale has been watered down a lot, there is only an aftertaste of a spy book. And I wish we had a better understanding the women in the Alice network than just one Eve's storyline.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: “Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.”
“Had I catalogued the downsides of parenthood, "son might turn out to be a killer" would never have turned up on the list.
Thanks to Hallmark cards and marketing Mother's day extols the virtues of a mother as the patient, selfless person who unconditionally loves their children. Putting on a pedestal is different from normal which most mothers go through - the questions of the life change with a kid, the initial struggle, the borderline hatred and the cycle of reaction and discovery. So, if the child goes on to becoming a serial killer, how does the mother take it?
The book sent a chill down my spine and the horror, though foreshadowed, still gets you. And this is not about just the killing, which the author, usefully mentions alongside multiple school shoot outs from news with victims and motives. It's the horror of parenting a sociopath with the manyfold guilt of a mother who did not wish to become one.
Written as letters written by Eve the mother to the absent father, the book, though in parts appeared forces and unnatural, is still convincing. Starting from the decision to become a parent, the book rakes the though process behind many life choice, that don't hold up when the choice is made. The parts about Kevin's cruelty and early signs - which the father keeps missing was a bit repetitive. But then it makes the buildup to the event, mostly refered to as "that Thursday", inevitable.
The shock of the last few chapters was something I had to get over. The conversation between Eve and Kevin in the prison, with dark humor and sarcasm was well written. The book on the whole is a fine exhibit of the author's prowess.
Chilling
Category: Award Winning Books. Women's Prize for Fiction
Mod
Rating: 1/5
Review: If and when a novelist chooses Satire, the hope is that he/she would be elegant about it. (Can think of Hari Kunzu's Red Pill from Last year) Else, if it just about demeaning and foul mouthing, with no disrespect, it is better off a comic strip. This book declares itself a metaphor and then dives deep into dissecting the Trump administration through a man who takes up the mantle as captain of a decorated ship called "Glory" without any experience, qualification or common sense.
The absurdity (strangely close to the truth) that he hopes to push us to laugh includes repetitive themes of the captain's senseless babble, his childish handwriting, his fear of women not in bikinis and a crush on his daughter. This was, though an author's creative license, is actually as imbecile as the subject matter. Throwing away the ship's operating manual and then firing anybody who knows something about running a ship - more palatable humor.
After the first few pages - you get the drift. And then comes the last part with the "Pale-one" and "So soft" who make a fool of him and take over the ship - which stretched credibility.
The book is more an angry diatribe than a creative piece. I sympathize with the author, but then I'd recommend a therapist than a publisher.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: “I don’t have any serious problem with the time we live in,I just wish the past didn’t have to go away."
Says one of the characters in the book, a long metaphor that is not just about the haveli in Delhi but about the country that has reinvented itself with a pivot on it's past. Both ambiguous and aspirational, it tries to paint three generations of two families with the evolving country. There are 4 long letters written by a self-flagellating grieving father and author that conquers complex emotions with words. There is a melancholy in the background that kind of lifts the sentences and events that are seemingly trivial - like a boy sucking his thumb and trying to read.
At the centre of the almost-seems-like-translation book (which speaks English as a native Hindi speaker would) is the Ramcharitramanas - the poetic tale of Ram, Lakshman and Hanuman that tries to ascertain meaning and explanation. An interesting couplet is the one below which is the closest to Schrodinger's cat.
“Ardh raati gayi kapi nahi aayau/ Ram uthai anuj ur layau” (Past midnight and the monkey has not returned/ Ram lifted his brother’s prone body and held him to his heart)
The prose is beautiful and the metaphors are so subtle and you can be forgiven for missing it. An Indian trader with 3 sons at the turn of independence - an Anglophilic trader, a spiritual poet/guru and a bastard son leaning left - all factions covered. (and a role less daughter). The men are mere actors and the women are the thinkers and doers. The book also tries to go deep into the spiritual contrasts and the politics of a household.
When too many people call a book great, then you create a resistance for the book - almost a dare to impress you. This book, maybe due to my very high bar of expectation, felt a bit short of a Great book. Definitely a good book worth a read.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: Second book in a series,Silenced by Solveig Palsdottir,is a police procedural on multiple interconnected crimes. The standout theme that passes through the book is of power and patriarchy.
At the centre of the book are 2 women - Cathryn an artist/rape victim who has committed suicide in prison; Andrea - a social media influencer who is a victim of patriarchy;
Detective Guðgeir Fransson is settling back into service in a new structure when he gets pulled into seemingly 3 different cases - an old missing person report, a prison suicide and a series of brutal rapes that has started in the city. The police with a surprisingly reflective procedural investigate the crimes while coming to terms with their own personal conflicts.
Some of the parts are well written - like trying to understand social media influencer role, forms of power and patriarchy and a subtle distinction of the good people from the 'bad'.
But ultimately what doesn't work is too much reliance on coincidences and an urge to tie all that is happening in a book. Why can't each be a separate crime? College year books establish relationships between almost all characters! And almost unnatural and contrived acts that do not fall in with human behaviour (though I don't claim to be an expert)
The book ultimately suffers from credibility issues. Wish the series does not have a mandate of limiting to one central crime per book.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: When I used to read Perry Mason mysteries, I remember I used to read the preface without fail. In most books, the author acknowledges and dedicates to a real life forensic expert, medical examiner, cop or prosecutor with a small write up of their contribution. I was fascinated by these people who were working on logic and science alone to reconstruct what happened.
This book by B.Umadathan of the medico legal case files in Kerala was a true joy since I wasn't aware of the practice's maturity in our country. Illustrated with many cases and the role played by the forensic team the book was more of a how we found out. Short crisp sentences, some flowing philosophy in passing and a dumbed down science procedures - the author writes for a wider audience.
Some of the procedures like facial reconstruction from photograph and skull or detecting a bullet with a metal detector were fascinating. The motives in most cases including suicides were more common sensical and most of the criminals confess on being caught unlike in movies and mysteries. Real life is a lot less exciting than a detective mystery but people are no less mosntrous.
A very readable non-fiction book.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: This novella by Kalki is a short snack compared to the seven course meal of his other classics. I had difficulty in processing the construct of the book - of story within a story within a story and found myself questioning the need for it.
The main narrator is an Indian exile from Burma who narrates a tale from his voyage back by ship. He narrates to a man he meets at a theatre and the initial conversation is around the Burma situation and the chaos of the exile. Suddenly the book shifts to a abandoned island story and we meet a mysterious couple who start narrating the story of a love story set in the times of Chozha-Pandiars. The story of course then takes over with Kalki displaying his Tamil skills of beautiful descriptions and sounds.
While the story in itself makes you curious as to where it is headed, you get put off time and again by the island setting conversations.
Not the best - but then even a sub-par is high above on the literature scale for Kalki
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: What a book! Pa.Raghavan's Iravaan is surely worth translating since it seamlessly blends an Indian prodigy's story with a question of identity.
In what is a loose translation "Being a genius trying to fit in among normal people is like a dad pretending to be an elephant for his kid. The dad can stop pretending, but the genius is stuck for life". The book is simply brilliant like that.
Edwin a muscial prodigy from Mumbai feels he is a gifted Jew named Abraham who is bound for greatness. Early on he performs multiple miracles like writing in Hebrew and decides his path will lead him to Jerusalem. Much to the bewilderment of his parents, he finds his way to a Synagogue and then learns to play multiple instruments. On his path he hears a girl offer him bun at a tea shop and destines her for ever lasting greatness.
The parallel track is of how his friends perceive his miracles and eccentricities. He forms a band called Devil which plays original music composed by him. He has a casual relationship with his drummer, a girl who loves him for his genius without expecting anything from him.
The audiobook experience was greatly enhanced by the narration of two narrators - Deepika Arun and Veera. The author brilliantly writes the blurring between reality and prophecy. I loved a few phrases so much that I reread it.
"Sometimes, you do not want the clarity of understanding. You are comfortable to stay in the muddle of possibilities"
Loved It.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: “Waris said it's crazy that people are so stupid to think over one and a half billion Muslims all think and act the same way, a Muslim man carries out a mass shooting or blows people up and he's called a terrorist, a white man does the same thing and he's called a mad man"
“Who needs enemies when your life partner undermines you on a regular basis?”
“what it was like when white men opened doors or gave up their seats on public transport for white women (which was sexist), but not for them (which was racist)”
This hard hitting book by Bernardine Evaristo is one that packs multiple difficult conversations without turning preachy. Through the stories of 12 Black women in Britain, she gives each an identity that goes beyond the color, gender and sexuality. With some overlap in each story to link the characters, each character's story is in itself a revelation, a struggle and an identity crisis.
Tags donot define you nor bunch you with similar people. Tags like rape victim, adopted, feminist, lesbian, socialist do not scratch the depth of the individual in this book. It's protagonists are normal people who are unique with their own unique struggles who refuse to fit into tags that society deems them.
Slipped into the stories or through words are the important discussions of today. Like one of the charcters exploring what the trans identity means or a debate on what feminism means. By interweaving the stories of multiple generation there is a common thread of different struggles one had to put of up over generations. The last chapter of one big after party and an epilogue that breaks down genes were an attempt at tying it up.
A thought provoking book that deserved it's adoration.
Challenges: Award winning Books
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: “A book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand.”
Based on a real book - the Sarajevo Haggadah, the author spins stories of the various people who came in contact with the book and made it survive years of attempt to destroy it. Knowing all of that is fiction but borders on the realm of possible makes it an achievement.
Sarajevo with it's own violent history and the WWII timeframes with recorded statements would have been relatively easier settings as compared to the Spanish Inquisition and the slave trade years. And herein shines the narration where the author zooms out from the book and focus on the life and times of people in that setting.
I am not sure why the personal life of the book historian had to play any role - since it only makes it seem a stretch. Any material of history that gets passed on carries traces of it's journey - be it a fly caught in amber that lead to the discovery of Dinosaurs or in this case a wine stain on a page. We do learn about the science behind book historians and restoration techniques which I was not aware of.
The narrative is smooth despite the jarring time jumps and somehow I found the last couple of chapters of drama unwarranted. Closures are a nice to have - and the book attempts one rather awkwardly.
An immersive read.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: Sometimes you are not sure what you picked up and at the end of the book wonder why in the first place you started with it. Maybe the fact that another folk lore of Bon-Bibi from the Sunderbans that had a tiger on the cover and an author like Amitav Ghosh nudged you.
This tale about deaths perpetrated by a vigilante god in the form of a tiger is a messy yarn. If not for the size, the book would have been discarded as an whatsapp forward. For what it is worth, the book has a series of corpses two of who are found with a heavy claws and fear in their face. The third death has an innocent girl pegged as the murderer and hence the god appears before a dutiful corpse handler and reveals the secret.
The audiobook version tried to sound like a fable, but then half heartedly tried to add music and sound effects - like a low budget production. The tale as such did not hold much mystery and the workings are pretty convoluted. In fact, i wasn't sure what the last chapter was meant to convey.
Pass if you are trying to squeeze time for reading.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Both dysfunctional families and mental illness are each powerful themes for fiction. This affecting book brings the two together in a sad but realistic portrayal of a modern family.
Margaret had a choice when she found her fiance John in an asylum before marriage being treated for chronic illness. Years later, she is married to him with 3 children - Michael, Celia and Alec.
The book follows the story of the family over decades after the father walks into the forest to put an end to the 'monster'. Michael - a creative genius seems to have inherited anxiety and depression and its effect on the caregivers who have lives of their own is explored creatively.
Celia is now a social counsellor in a relationship with a struggling writer. Alec is a successful journalist and closet gay. In their busy lives they have little time for their mother and a brother who is yet to complete graduation.
The parts of Michael's anxiety attack or humour filled forms are done really well. The angle of his fascination with black women as a inverse slavery and his panic attacks that beset him on delay in msgs make us feel for him.
Celia and Alec's parts of being torn between their own lives and caring for their brother is every person's struggle.
In the end Haslett has written an impactful piece of lives in turmoil creatively.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Sujatha wrote this book in 1970s - set in 2020 a dystopian dictatorship with holographic Projections, self learning Android robots and a society where everything is determined by Govt. The plot detailing is so believable and logical that a few of it is already realised.
Set as a thriller, the book does not slow down. Nila gets a letter of permission from Govt to have a child - the same day another man Ravi gets assigned to be her tenant. When her husband disappears - Ravi and his learning dog Geno help Nila to find her husband which ultimately leads to a plot to kill the dictator.
The part of Geno is obviously awesome and you can see his grasp on technology enthralls you as a reader. Things like neural networks weren't even in nascency then and hence the awe!
It does distract you from the gaping plot hole of the conspiracy. But then when you think about it, why? (did not stop me from diving into the sequel.
Asimov would have felt proud of this book.
Indian Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
China Dream (other topics)The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher (other topics)
ஒரு நாள் [Oru Naal] (other topics)
Thirumalai Thirudan (other topics)
The Liars' Gospel (other topics)
More...
Following up a fantastic reading year, 2022 is that year where I hope to not feel guilty about reading/not-reading any book. Hence not going with too many reading challenges - just the usual
20 Award winners
20 Regional Books (Across hopefully 4 languages)
10 Non-Fiction
And I hope to read books that I enjoy