all things Love

The Essential Collection for Young Readers by Ruskin Bond My rating: 5 of 5 stars Loved this marvellous collection. Ruskin Bond is one of my favorite authors. I adore his simplicity and the appeal in a rustic life close to the nature. This collection is astutely curated. I especially loved the "Night Train to Deoli" and "The Blue Umbrella", the latter of which has been made into a wonderful film. The first few stories from the author's own life were imaginative too. "Rani" shall be close to my heart. Highly recommended. Audiobook does justice to the book, however prompt with the chapter number when a particular chapter starts would be a great update. View all my reviews

The Art of War by Sun Tzu My rating: 4 of 5 stars Ancient Chinese Philosophy on the Art of War by the master himself. Contains different sections on different kinds of tactics for warfare, how to keep your soldiers subservient and yet disciplined, how and when to engage the enemy, when to flee the scene etc. Not much relevant content for the contemporary world View all my reviews

The Past as Present: Forging Contemporary Identities Through History by Romila Thapar My rating: 4 of 5 stars Loved the details. Highly informative even if some of her ideas have been contested often times. Romila Thapar is without doubt one of the best Historians alive in India today. Her characteristic narrative style with adequate focus on analyzing an issue from all corners, makes one think strongly about the believes they have had since as long as they can remember. How can one say if the tradition that they have been following since decades and centuries isn't something that originally begun with those ideas mind and isn't were simple tactics to gain wealth and suppress the enemies; when the sources themselves that tell us the history of these practices can be found to not withhold under scutiny. The history of India, it seems, is as multi-faceted and ever changing as are the people and it's languages in the contemporary world, a fa...

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup My rating: 5 of 5 stars "12 years a Slave" is truly a moving account of the arduous journey and experiences of Solomon Northup. Prior to listening to this book, I had been of the opinion that the story was a fictional one. However, published in 1853, the year of the author's extraordinary deliverance from the shackles of Slavery, the harrowing tale is indeed a truth. Reading the book across a passage of close to two centuries, the kind of perils borne by some sections of our society is perfectly stupefying, and yet still today among the remote parts of our world there are some similar instances taking place. I believe writings like "12 years a Slave" pave a way for us to face the atrocious history that a few of our ancestors have lived every day. In having the courage to speak out about his experiences and to publish this singular account, back in mid-19th century, the author played a pivotal role in bringing afresh the...

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie My rating: 5 of 5 stars Nice mystery. Quintessential Christie. Loved it. Must have read it before during School days. View all my reviews

Mr Dodge, Mr Hitchcock, and the French Riviera: The story behind To Catch a Thief by Jean Buchanan My rating: 5 of 5 stars Nice story about how the critically acclaimed "To a Catch Thief" by Alfred Hitchcock came out to be. Some of the outré aspects of the way Mr. Dodge came upon the plot were interesting. And the French Riviera seems to be an enchanting place. View all my reviews

The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was the first Colin Dexter book I took up, indeed only after we had obtained a paperback of it. This is per se the sixth book in the Inspector Morse series, but I am glad I started off with this first. Because, this is a mighty likeable book. Also, the first episode of the Inspector Morse TV series is based on the Dead of Jericho, so another plus point. In the book, Morse cunningly, albeit with hick-ups here and there, solves the Murder of Miss Anne Scott, previous employee at Richards Publishing shifted now to giving private Greek lessons owning to her previous exposer to it, and that of her nosy sixty-something neighbour Mr. George Jackson, who pries over others affairs and wanted to make a buck or two out of it. Events take place mostly in the Oxford sub-urb of Jericho, which is a real place on the map. I liked the complexity of the plot and the level of familiarity the author shows about the vocabulary of the E...

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari My rating: 5 of 5 stars It took me a long time to finish reading Homo Deus . And I think the long duration was well worth it. Homo Deus is not the ordinary everyday stale non-fiction that one comes across. It is a masterpiece in its own right. But for the Sapiens , I don't recall having read any other book that stimulated thinking to the degree Homo Deus does. The book starts off almost right away from where its predecessor, Sapiens , ended. A New Human Agenda , that of seeking eternal youth , bliss and divinity , is put forward for the 21st Century. Since the dawn of Humankind, the persistent goal of any population has been to have sufficient food to quench hunger, to have health measures to fight infections and diseases and to be at peace with neighbouring kingdoms. With the advent of the modern technology and the unprecedented progress it has made over the last few decades, the goals have changed now. Rest of the...

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo My rating: 5 of 5 stars Well, this is my first of both translated Japanese mysteries and in particular, Seishi Yokomizo-san. I was vaguely familiar with the author's name from it being mentioned in some Detective Conan episodes. What I didn't know was how famous this author is in Japan, which googling the book afterwards amply told me. The Honjin Murders is the first book in a series of 77 novels featuring the scruffy looking young detective Kosuke Kindaichi that Seishi-san wrote in his lifetime. Only two of the series have been translated to English till date. The story of The Honjin Murders starts with a cheery narrator, fascinated by a crime committed ten years ago in the remote village of Yamanaza, visiting the location in order to get the material for his book on the same. Soon the reader learns about the Ichiyanagi family, their honjin lineage, the events before the fateful night and the greasome crime. The bride and the groom ...

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy My rating: 5 of 5 stars God of Small Things is my new favorite. I do not recall having been moved this much by anything I read in the recent times. It is story par excellence . Even days after turning over the last page, the reader simply resides in the world created by Roy. The world where Estha, Rahel, Ammu, Velutha, Sophie Mol, Baby Kochamma, Mammachi and Chacho live. In the world of Ayememon, that small town in Kerala where the god of small things reigns, but is meant to be quiet. And where it is the big things that are forced upon people. The world of God of Small Things , is a world of chaos. It is a world of patriarchal norms and how they have controlled the societies, of political quests and how they affect the lay gentry, of social differentiation and how derogatory they can be. It is a family saga set against the back drop of rural India, in a time when events were taking place at a q...

Endless Night by Agatha Christie My rating: 5 of 5 stars Honestly, and I am gonna be very honest with this one, having read Then There Were None and Murder in the Orient Express , I did not think it possible that any of Christie's can surprise me now. I was wrong. Endless Night is a gem. A rarity that one comes across in many a long months. Christie took the title of the book from William Blake's, Auguries of Innocence: Every night and every morn Some to misery are born Every morn and every night Some are born to sweet delight Some are born to sweet delight Some are born to endless night There is subtle interplay between emotions and actions. The story unfolds like a personal journal. Endless Night is written in the first person narrative, unlike most of Christie's other works. The first few chapters narrate the story of how a young cab driver, Michael Rogers, who seems to lack f...

The Story of My Experiments with Truth, An Autobiography by Mahatma Gandhi My rating: 4 of 5 stars Finished it a few moments ago. The reading was quite an adventure and moreover an enlightening experience. Almost all the book is filled with the chapters talking about the Truth. The Ahinsa, as Gandhiji so vividly explains, is so intermingled with Truth that both can be seen to be overspread in the vast canvas of the Gandhiji's Life although as he himself has many a times said that his life is but the a coagulation of his multitudous experiments in Truth. He is seen to so irrevocably administer the golden mantra of Ahinsa in his being. His was a life seldom witnessed in our rather self-occupied world. With his wisdom, his thoughts, his actions and moreover his teachings with his own example led the vast landscape of India and its people to their freedom. Such a legend's (autobiographical) book laying down in detail his various e...

Luminaries by Eleanor Catton This been my first Blog post Ever, I would like to present you a review written by me of the wonderful book The Luminaries. Its The Best Book In The world . It truly is. I just love it. A withered old man is dead, a whore is found unconscious on the street, a young man has disappeared, all on a single day of 14th of January 1866; & in between these miss-happenings ventures the enigmatic tale of fortunes gained and lost. To investigate these profoundly luring scenarios; 12 men, with such a myriad collection of origins and cultures (there’s also a vista of different languages of these people, but English been their lingua-franca, is used in almost all of the conversations) that the reader is sure to be curious; assemble in the crown hotel, who are, to their dismay, interjected by a stranger who has arrived in the town that very morning. They are prompted to share their stories, which are, as it turns out, so mu...