DORK

Did I mention that..im a huge fan of books and have quite a neat little collection myself?!.The last weekend after cursing the interminable Summer heat for the millionth time I decided to distract myself by reading something new.I feel I just cant pick up any book ,at any time of the day and read it.The setting has to be just right.

Its not like the monsoon when its pouring outside and you have this neat little gallery space open to let in the cool breeze with the amazing smell of wet earth,the bed and comforter ready and a steaming hot cup of chocolate.Now in this setting I can read any book,without prior contemplation.

This time however,it was a hot ,muggy afternoon with soaring temperatures.So it would have to be a light read.So I picked up DORK......and the rest as they say is ....History.I couldnt have been more pleased with myself for choosing right!

It is a fantastic book,totally hilarious and a mood-lifter.It tells the story of this bungling management graduate Robin 'Einstein' Varghese and how he manages to get in the most weird of situations and how efficiently he gets out of them.I read the book over the afternoon and it left me with a good feeling.Very few books can do that.Moreover even the ending couldnt have been more perfect.

Ive heard its the first book in a trilogy so now I will most certainely be reading DORK 2 and 3.Sidin Vadukut has written this book to much acclaim.He is a blogger too and blogs at http://www.whatay.com .So if you chance upon this book do not give it a miss.Definitely recommended.

THE PRAYER ROOM

When I picked this one up,i thought it was going to be yet another book about the Indian diaspora but as I kept turning its pages,I was pleasantly surprised.

The Prayer Room is a very engaging debut novel by Shanthi Sekaran.It tells the story of Vijaya (Viji),a small town tamil girl who is married to a foreigner for getting into a relationship with him and is packed off to London with a husband she barely knows.George her husband is equally clueless and we are told in the beginning of the story itself that "he had a habit of regretting his purchases".

It goes on to tell us of their journey from England ,to Sacramento,in America,where they decide to settle.Viji tries to adjust herself to her new life and also tries to keep a little of her old by having a small prayer room,where she keeps pictures of all those near to and no longer with her.She seeks solace by holding conversations with the people in the picture frames.George is also trudging on in life,wishing it were something else. Life of course doesnt stop amidst all this and twelve years and three kids later (triplets) Viji finds herself dissatisfied and questioning everything about her life.

She therefore packs her bags and goes off to India to find all her answers and this is where the story catches pace.What happens in India?Does she get her answers? and does she come back to her life in America? is what makes up for the rest of the book.

This story tells us about the need we all have at some point in our life to come to terms with what has happened,the need to make peace with ourselves.How sometimes there are a lot of things buried inside our soul and we just cannot stifle them any longer.How everything appears smooth on the surface but there are deep cracks within.About love,relationships,family,lasting bonds and duty.

I liked the book for its honest approach and beautiful prose.It is a page-turner and I could not guess what would happen next, until the end and that was what I liked most about it.

ROOM

I wouldn't have known about this book,if a friend hadn't tweeted about it.I picked it up randomly because I was intrigued as the book by itself hadn't revealed much in terms of the plot.



I began reading it as soon as I got it home.It is written by Emma Donoghue.



It is a very different sort of a book as its narrated by a five year old kid.Everything is seen through his perspective.It takes a few pages down to realize what is actually happening and then the whole plot hits you.



A young woman imprisoned in a modified garden shed somewhere in America, regularly raped by her captor, but otherwise left alone, with enough food, a few books, a television. She becomes pregnant, gives birth and trains her son Jack to the best of her ability in a 12 ft by 12 ft room.Jack has no idea that anything at all exists outside “Room”: the sun and moon are God’s two faces, and Jack is always safe asleep in “Wardrobe” when “Old Nick” comes in through “Door”.Jack describes things as proper nouns, such as Room, Table and Rug as he does not know anything beyond this make believe world.The rest of the story describes how they both flee from their captor after years of staying cooped up in this cloistered existence and how they finally start a new life in the outside 'real' world.



I cannot say I liked this book as much as I was hoping I would.It left me with an eerie sort of feeling.I heard its based on the Elizabeth Fritzl case and when I looked it up,it sent a chill down my spine.To think that something as ghastly as that could have happened somewhere in this world!!

In the book however ,as much as the author has tried to build a story ,after a while you realize that its just another work of fiction you are reading and you see it as that.Its a little too hard to digest at times.



I did like the way the relationship between a mother and son has been portrayed but that's about it.I could not relate to a child narrating the story.It just didn't work for me.

Its one of those books short-listed for the Man Booker Prize,probably because its somewhat based on a real life story.It was just something very different from what Ive read before.Wouldn't rate it too high.

LAST MAN IN TOWER

So...i have been reading.I just don't make the time to post reviews.That's going to change very soon.Its funny how every book I pick up has a small story attached with it.Its funny how every book i am hesitant to pick up at first ends up being the one I like the most.The same happened with Last Man in Tower.I had delayed picking up the book.Having read Adiga's 'The white Tiger' and his second book 'Between the assassinations'.....I wasn't too keen in reading this one.Not that I don't like his work.In fact The white tiger was an enjoyable read.However ' Between the assassinations' did not quite live up to my expectations.Also I had begun predicting his style of story telling.So when the book was first released I totally ignored it.Then there were reviews in newspapers which caught my attention.On my next visit to the bookstore I picked up the book and carefully scanned it,but put it back promptly as I had decided to not buy it.Then a few months passed and I was looking for something good to read on one of my trips out of town.Walking the streets in another city,I came across these street book hawkers and each one of them was waving Adiga's 'Last Man in tower' in my face.Now I dont believe in signs and all that stuff,so I walked past them too.The same day I stopped for lunch in a small cafe with a bookstore by the side and there at the entrance was the same book staring at me .I could not ignore it anymore and so picked it up and having nothing better to do in a different city I promptly began reading it.To my surprise I stopped only after finishing the book in two days.I loved it and that prompted me to write this small review.

Those of you who have read Adiga before would know that he never paints a rosy picture and prefers to tell the story as it is in all its gory details,he tells us about the India he observes.Last man in tower is about a housing co-operative in Mumbai called Vishram and its residents.Dharmen Shah, the property developer wants to redevelop it into a stack of luxury apartments.H0wever there is a group of residents in the building who look beyond Shahs lucrative offer and vehemently oppose the redevelopment plan.Shah is not a man to give up easily and tries every trick in his book to lure these people till each one of them slowly gives in.But one man remains unconvinced and holds on to his memories in the building and refuses to place a price on them and he is the retired teacher Yogesh Murthy and so he is the Last Man in tower.This story becomes a little darker towards the end . Adiga speaks about how money changes all equations.How all relationships,friendships crumble .How each resident has a story and a past which is a major factor in influencing their decisions.There are so many beautifully etched characters besides the residents of the building and as you read the book you become a part of their lives,standing by,watching the story unfold.

When I put down the book,I was left with mixed feelings but most of all it left me with a lingering feeling of reading a good story after a long time.

84,CHARING CROSS ROAD

What do I say about this book!!!?I read it in a few hours yesterday and found it to be utterly charming.
I am so happy to have found a book which talks about the love of books.

84,Charing Cross Road is written in epistolary format.The only other book I have read so far in this format is Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' and while that was macabre and somber ,this turned out to be absolutely endearing.It is just a series of letters spanned over twenty years written by Helene Hanff and posted to 84, Charing Cross Road in London to a lovely little book store Marks and Co.The letters are replied to by Frank Doel,chief buyer of Marks and Co.Hanff, is in search of obscure classics and British literature titles she had been unable to find in New York and therefore orders them from this antiquated book store in London and a lovely friendship develops between her and Frank Doel and all the other people working at Marks and Co.Helene also sends Christmas packages,birthday gifts and food parcels along with the letters and her kindness and thoughtfulness are appreciated by everyone especially at a time when there is a food shortage in London post world war 2.

I loved the way Hanff talks about books.She says ,she does not buy a book she has not already read and she refuses to read fiction which according to her "is a book about something that didn't happen to someone who doesn't exist".I found that very different to the way I read or choose my books,but then I am not Helene, so I let it pass.

Frank Doel is very proper in his replies to the letters,in the manner of the English but he just warms up to Helene over the course of many years.

There are so many lovely bits I liked about this book.Like the way she talks about books, as if they are living things.When she writes back to say a book has arrived she says "The book arrived safely, the Stevenson is so fine it embarrasses my orange-crate bookshelves, I'm almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream coloured pages. Being used to the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books, I never knew a book could be such a joy to the touch."

Also "I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to."That echoes my thoughts exactly.

I loved Helene's feisty spirit and her passion for reading.The book describes how two people from different sides of the Atlantic Ocean can bond over letters and forge a friendship for a lifetime.I was curious up to the end and wanted to know if Helene finally makes it to London to visit the bookstore but the novel ends without telling us that.

However the good news is...Ive got a kind of Omnibus in which there is another book THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET,which I am yet to read in which Helene does visit the bookstore.I am looking forward to reading it and finding out about her visit soon.

I wonder if the movie is as good.Hope to get a chance to watch it soon.

THE BOOK THIEF

I just finished reading this book and I m writing this review immediately .I got about reading this one as I had heard a lot being said about it and i m so glad that all of it was absolutely true.I loved the book.

This book tells us the story of Liesel a little girl and her life.The backdrop is the holocaust 1939-1942 in Nazi Germany and the narrator of the story is 'Death'.I found this a little strange in the beginning but I was pleasantly surprised to see the story so beautifully told,sometimes even with a sense of humor.

It tells us how Liesel comes to live with foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann as her mother cannot afford her upbringing anymore.On the way to the Hubermanns ,her only brother dies in the train.Liesel sees death at close quarters right from the start and the story progresses with her stealing a book,the first of many.She does so,just as a reminder of her brother,as she cannot read.

Liesel's life soon changes as she arrives at the Hubermanns.Hans ,her foster father is very kind right from the beginning and Rosa too has a hard exterior but a big soft heart.She has to deal with change,abandonment by her mother and death at the tender age of nine.She is put in a lower grade in school as she cannot read and that is when Hans Hubermann,her foster father starts teaching her how to.Liesel soon develops a passion for books and reading.However this is Nazi Germany and the Hubermanns are not rich enough to buy books.So Liesel ,gets books by the only way she knows to,by stealing them.

As the story progresses,it tells us about her love for words,how they comfort her,how she loves them and how they save her.It tells us about her life on 33,Himmel Street.Her bond with her foster parents.Her friendship with the boy next door,Rudy.Her connections with the many people that constitute her life and how her life changes irrevocably when her parents decide to hide a jew in their basement.

Liesel helps Max Vandenburg ,a jew, and the power of words creates unbreakable bonds between them.It tells us how a little girl of nine fails to understand why jews are treated differently.Why she has to say Heil Hitler everytime.It is a heart-wrenching story.Everytime I read about the holocaust,I cannot help but say a silent prayer for the times we now live in.That our lives are only ours to live.I cannot even begin to imagine the plight of the jews.

I could not read all of it at a stretch but it still managed to touch the right chords in my heart.In the few days,I took to read this book,I think I actually lived Liesel's story.

There are a very few books,which change your perspective on life.They make you a different person.They compel you to think.The Book Thief,is one such story.I highly recommend it.

THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET

Most often,it so happens,that I let a book choose me,instead of the other way round.After reading 84,Charing Cross Road,I did not immediately want to pick up the sequel.So I decided to pick up another random book to read.However ,after a couple of days,my attention wavered and I gave up on it.The same thing kept repeating itself with all the other books I picked thereafter and it reached to a point when I felt I was just not interested in reading anymore!That was when I panicked and resolved to find something to read  immediately .Incidentally my attention shifted to the copy of The duchess of Bloomsbury Street lying on the table and as fate would have it,I picked up the book and put it down only after having read it.

Needless to say,It is a charming little book.Something very different from what I have read so far.It is the sequel to 84,Charing Cross road and tells us about Helen's visit to London.I savored every little detail and felt I was right there with Helen!I loved her attitude towards travel in another country.I loved the way she made the most of her stay in London and how she trusted complete strangers to show her around a new country,one she had never visited before.Her free-spirited nature is truly admirable and she truly made the best of her stay in a foreign country.

This book fascinated me and held me captive.I loved to read about the different characters she meets,the places she visits and the food she eats.How she teaches a London bartender to make a martini 'HER' way!How she does not let anyone push her around and throws a tantrum,so that she can see the parts of oxford she wants to see.

In the end,Helen remarks on the plane "suddenly it was as if everything had vanished, Bloomsbury and Regent's park and Russel square and Rutland gate. None of it had happened, none of it was real. Even the people weren't real. It was all imagined, they were all phantoms.I could totally relate with her sentiment.I have felt the same way too.

I know I wont be doing justice to the book even after having written all this.It is just something you need to pick for yourself and discover.I am just happy to have this gem in my collection.