I had this book with me ever since its publication last year and when I saw it trending for several weeks in a row on the NYT bestseller list,I knew it was time to pick it up.
The King of horror is on a roll in this book.He gives us not one or two but twenty creepy stories which get weirder by the minute.However there are only three previously unpublished stories in this one-Bad Little Kid,Mister Yummy and Obits.The rest have been previously published at some time or other.Each story begins with a small note by him explaining just what led him to write it.I love his irreverance when it comes to writing.How everything about it just shocks you and Im talking about much more than the plot here.I find his stories always toe the line between the impossible-but-could-happen-sometime to completely bizarre-but-maybe-could-happen-sometime.And of course theres no time like the night to read the books when you are free to internalize those screams.
So lets get started!I will try and not reveal what the plot lines are and just say what I felt after I read them.
Mile 81:Did I mention that he writes weird stuff.This story is about a station wagon which is not a station wagon at all.Stephen King fans will probably know what Im hinting at but the rest of us will have to read this story.I waited for a bit after reading this one and found myself thinking that something like this could happen.
Premium Harmony : So all the stories need not be macabre and bloody to evoke the feelings of horror.This one disturbed me and made me rethink what marriage can really turn into sometime.
Batman and Robin Have an Altercation: I liked it.Life continues to throw surprises and we just have to deal with them.
The Dune: Loved it!I didnt see it coming so was appropriately shocked.Should have guessed.But I am not usually at my alert best on weekends.
Bad Little Kid: Loved it!Downright Eerie.Sometimes you are so sure about things that you do not entertain any other possibility.What was he thinking?What was I thinking?We definitely werent thinking the same thing.This one kind of creeped me out.
A Death: Awesome!Totally unexpected yet expected,if you know what I mean.Classic King.Continues to shock.
The Bone Church: Didnt work for me.
Morality: Was weird but makes you just sit still and think.
Afterlife: Totally loved it.I had so many questions after this.And some things just made so much sense.The only time I ever wished Stephen King was a friend.
Ur: Strictly OK.Kindle users ,Beware!
Herman Wouk is still Alive: Sad.Just random stuff happening to everyone around.Thats another thing I like about his books.The randomness in them mimics life sometimes.Predictable but not entirely.
Under The Weather: Figured it out as soon as I started reading this.Not a novel plot at all.Old wine in new bottle.
Blockade Billy: Good.But not in the same league as the ones I really liked.
Mister Yummy: Stranger things are known to happen and when its Mr King we expect nothing less.
Tommy: Didnt work for me.
The Little Green God Of Agony: This one was stretching it a bit too far.Totally over the top.Lots of eyerolls from me while reading this one but nicely written.
That Bus is Another World: Bizarre!Could really happen sometime,somewhere.Or maybe it already has.
Obits: Whoa!What a mean little story.Feel horrible to even think about it.But what if.....
Drunken Fireworks:Enjoyed this one!What a story!
Summer Thunder: Scary to contemplate.The end of the world ,Stephen King style!
You need to read this book to see what Im really talking about.Its surely worth a shot.Read it when you are missing a nightmare.
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
My first book for the year!and I am absolutely thrilled to have chosen it.I berated myself for not having read it earlier.
This one was top priority in my TBR pile and was waiting to be read.And what better time than now to pick it up.I read it through the weekend and have just finished reading it today.
This is a true account of the Durrell family narrated by naturalist Gerald Durrell telling us of a part of his childhood spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939.The Durrell family consisting of the mother and her three sons,Larry,Leslie, Gerry and a daughter Margo are all eccentric and unconventional in a totally endearing way ,when they can no longer endure the damp cold English climate,they sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu.The island is wonderfully rich in flora and fauna.This is a delightful account of Gerrys uninhibited interest in all living thing be it puppies,toads,geckoes,scorpions,snakes,ladybugs,gloworms,octopuses,bats,magpies,gulls,pigs and calmly getting them home
My Views:
This book had my undivided attention ever since I started reading it.It is a delightful account of Gerry Durrell and his family during their stay in Corfu.This is a non-fiction novel and memoir and honestly I had not expected non-fiction to be so much fun.Gerald Durrell has impeccable comic timing.His life and time there is so vividly described that I was transported to Corfu along with his family.
I loved his fearlessness and uninhibited nature,the ability to keep an open mind while trying new things and just being so nature and animal friendly.His wit just shines through.The descriptions had me totally enraptured.This account was full of vivid descriptions about the island,the animals he caught and about his family.
Its such a mad family,the battle of wits amongst the brothers,especially Larry had me in splits.There is a cast of very interesting local characters and friends who are completely eccentric as well.
The moonlight picnic which eventually turns into a moonless midnight swim,with the flickering fireflies,the porpoises shimmering in the phosphorescence and the starlit sky was so incredibly beautiful,I read it twice and enjoyed it immensely.
Who wouldnt love a faithful companion like his dog Roger!He comes up with names for all his pets,so the pigeon is Quasimodo,the gecko is Geronimo ,the Owl named Ulysses and Widdle and Puke are the names of the puppies for obvious reasons.
And if thats not enough theres Spiro the local who is their guardian for the duration of their stay and who speaks the most outrageous English and his tutors Theodore and Kralefsky who have their strange ways as well.Im so glad he included the part about Kralefskys mother.I thoroughly enjoyed that bit too.
What do I say about this book!Im still basking in its afterglow having just finished reading it.I cannot find a single thing I did not like about it.It will be so hard to find another one as good now.I feel doomed.This is one of those books that will go at the very top on my shelf and someday when I am old and wrinkled,hopefully I will read it again and remember this day and all that I am feeling right now.I feel happy.I havent laughed like this in ages.I laughed out loud so many times unexpectedly even to myself that I had to stifle it when there were people around lest they thought im mental.
This book is simply awesome.
Of course I rate it a 5 out of 5.
I had been very curious about this book ever since I got to know about it.The 'title' caught my eye and kept beckoning me to it.I thought it was impossible to go wrong with 'Paris' and 'Bookshop'and I was so sure this would be the perfect book to end this year with.So I thought it only appropriate to pick it up now.I do pick up books on a whim sometimes,without reading the blurb.I find myself falling in love with the cover or the title even before I know what the story is about.These sometimes end in utter and complete disasters and sometimes lead to an unexpected surprise.But the surprises are worth my time.They make me happy,put me in a better mood.But let me get to the point.This was one of 'those' books.
This is the story of a middle-aged bookseller,Jean Perdu who has a book barge moored on the River Seine.He calls it the 'Literary Apothecary' because he doesn't just sell books but prescribes them to his customers like a physician would dispense medication for various illnesses after an exact diagnoses of the persons state of mind.But he is unable to treat his own depression caused by the sudden disappearance of his great love twenty years ago.Her name is 'Manon',she comes from Provence and believes in living life in the moment.
Perdu lives in an apartment complex shared by an eclectic group of people.What triggers Perdu to re-examine his life and choices so far is prompted by the arrival of Catherine ,a woman who is abandoned by her husband for a younger woman.When she moves in a flat opposite Perdus,he offers to give her a table as a kind neighbourly gesture because she is in need of furniture for her apartment.Perdu has kept the table in a room locked since Manon's disappearance along with his memories of their time together and opening that room brings back a deluge of memories.Moreover Catherine finds an unopened letter from Manon in the
drawer of the table and hands it over to Perdu.The letter and its contents sets everything in motion as Perdu grapples with guilt,loss and past memories.
He decides to unmoor his book barge and go and find Manon's village and put the past to rest.He is accompanied on this journey by an author facing a writers block after an unexpected first novel success.He is dealing with his own memories of a dysfuctional childhood.They in turn pick up two more passengers along the way,a Neapolitan cook who whips up the most delectable meals and an eccentric bookseller.
What happens on this journey?Is it possible to correct the past after decades?Is redemption even possible?
My Views:
I was hit harder by the year-end blues this time around and was in a particularly grouchy mood when I picked up this book. I under-estimated it a bit.I thought it would be similar to 'The storied life of A J Fikry',another book I had read at the beginning of the year and which spoke about a bookseller and books but the similarities ended there.This one turned out to be very emotionally demanding and took me longer than most books to read.What I didnt like about it was that it got too sentimental after a point,cloyingly so in parts and began to seem too fiction like and unreal.I couldnt connect too much with the characters,I had conflicting opinions regarding certain things but of course you can put that down to bias and I struggled a bit with the story.The emotional quotient was so high that I wanted to get it done with after a point.Now maybe that had something to do with the frame of mind I was in at the time but I find myself unable to deal with too much mush or sentimentality after a point.I really wanted to like this book more than I did.
Now lets come to the good part.I loved the lyrical prose and the language.It was sheer poetry in parts,I loved the book barge and the fact that Perdu could do a literary psychoanalysis and dispense books like medication.Read 200 pages of this book every night for the next three nights and you'll be cured.How cool is that!I loved it when he said that books are the only fixed point in an otherwise unpredictable world.In life,in love,after death.Books keep stupidity at bay!and of course I totally agreed with him when he said that 'Its well known that reading makes people impudent and tomorrows world is going to need some people who arent shy to speak their minds'.
I could empathize with him when he struggled to let go.I could understand the feeling that washes over you when you recognise that you havent got your whole life left to find out where you belong.What better time than the end of the year to mull over such thoughts!It pushed me a bit further down the abyss.But it also got me thinking.Dont we all have the sudden overwhelming inner thirst to seize life with both hands before time speeds past even faster.The futility of lost time.Of things we should have done because ultimately we really only regret the things that we didnt do.Did I tell you that this book is not as simple as it seems.It has the capacity to unsettle and overwhelm you.After all the talk about time passing us by these were some words which offered succour:
'All of us preserve time.We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us.And under our skin,under the layer of wrinkles and experience and laughter,we too are old versions of ourselves.Directly below the surface,we are our own former selves,the former child,the former lover,the former daughter'.
If you can get past the emotional aspect,this story is for those who believe in undying romance,second chances and who arent too shocked to discover that love doesnt need to be restricted to one person to be true.And of course the fact that everybody has an inner room where demons lurk.Only when we open it and face up to it are we truly free.
Read it if you are emotionally equipped to read it.
I rate it a 3 and a half out of 5.
and even though Ive started reading my next book,I think this one is the last for 2015 :)
It feels good to come back here and it has been two years since I created this space.Considering that I hardly ever persist with anything and give up too easily,this is indeed a feat!I never cease to amaze myself.
I know this blog is a bit unconventional and it doesnt really follow a standard format for the reviews.But thats the whole point of it.I write what I feel,how I feel,after Ive finished reading a book and I write almost immediately after having finished reading it ,so that nothing is ever an afterthought.
I was supposed to write another one today but im just half way through.Im going through something akin to a book slump,I have been reading but not as much as I would have liked to,but its December,its forgivable.
I have no idea if this blog has managed to connect to anyone out there but im hoping it has.I still havent found fellow bibliophiles along this journey but im sure ,someday I will.But largely this blog was about my journey with books and it will continue to be so.Did you know Bram Stoker dreamed up his Dracula all because of some crab salad?!Apparently he had eaten some rotten crab and contracted food poisoning.Between bouts of sickness he had his first dreams about the lord of the vampires and that marked the end of his creative slump.Is there some remedy for a reading slump?
Thats alright,I guess,I just have to wait.Everyone cant be like Bram Stoker!Getting rid of slumps just like that over food poisoning and dreaming up bestsellers!The rest of us do the best with what we have.
Its Christmas and even Im not feeling grouchy!Wasnt that a positive way to look at things?!
Im signing off with Hopes and Dreams of being a better person,doing better,reading more.
And wishing this coming year is even more fabulous for all of us.Merry Christmas!!
The Bibliophile
Sometimes books can be really demanding.They seek your undivided attention,leaving you with very little time to do anything else.My weekends are usually reserved for reading and consequently I hardly get any work done at all.This time around however I was looking to read something without investing too much of myself in it.
The No 1 Ladies Detective agency is a series Im very fond of.These books are an acquired taste.When I was first introduced to them several years ago,I was skeptical.However,I believe in giving every book a chance and I still remember the day I sat with the first book in the series and just like that I was hooked.This is the 16th instalment in the series and my 16th book as well.I must admit that these past months saw me checking time and again if the latest one was out and happily enough there it was on 27th October.I have written about one more book in this series here on my blog.The rest were of course read before this blog was created.
This time around the story takes a rather unusual turn with Mma Ramotswe being packed off on a forced vacation by the tenacious Mma Makutsi.However Mma Ramotswe is ill at ease even though she reluctantly agrees to take time off.As a result she finds herself unable to relax and finds that peace is short-lived when she encounters a young trouble-maker named Samuel.But as she learns more about his story she feels the need to go out of her way and help this child in any way she can.
She is also concerned about Mma Makutsi not being able to handle the agency well in her absence.This is compounded by the fact that Mr Polopetsi secretly comes to her for help and tells her about a rather complicated case which he thinks is beyond Mma Makutsi's capacity.A well-respected Botswanan politician who is no longer alive is up for a major public honor and his reputation is being called into question by his rivals.His sister has contacted the agency to investigate these claims.However there is more to it than meets the eye.How this investigation changes a lot of things and viewpoints is what this story is all about.
My Views:
Alexander McCall Smith delivers every single time.At this point,I cannot say if I have grown more fond of the characters or the stories but these books will always have a very special place in my heart.I feel I read them just to know how the characters are doing.Its like meeting up with old friends after ages.And the titles are so charming----'The woman who walked in sunshine','Blue shoes and happiness'.Oh I could go on and on.They are simple stories and this is exactly why they are so endearing.They talk about simple things like the rain,the cattle,the blue skies,the land.Stuff which we have to be reminded of in our fast-paced world.Dont you just feel like escaping this world sometimes,go to a calm place where the mad frenzy cannot touch you.These books do just that,they manage to take me far from the madding crowd.They take me into a world I long to be in.Im an old soul,I often feel I dont belong here.
Smith finds a way to get all the characters together in each and every story.It might be a brief mention but it surely takes one back a long way.And of course,there are lessons to be learnt,sometimes they are obvious and sometimes very subtle.Sometimes we need to learn to trust and let go.We need to understand that everyone deserves to be treated with compassion.Mma Ramotswe is very selfless when it comes to helping the needy.In this story she rightly observes that "an act of selfishness,some small unkindess,could seem every bit as grave as a dreadful crime,the size of the secret said nothing about its weight on the soul".
A lot of things fall in place in the end.We learn that nobody is above human failings.
For fans of this series,there is also an interesting bit about Violet Sephotho,Mma Maktutsi's arch enemy.All this makes it a perfect read on a relaxed weekend.
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
I'm always up for a good thriller.I like it even more when its fast paced.This book caught my attention while I was browsing lists for my next read.I wasnt disappointed.
The story tells us about how two estranged sisters come together to find the truth about a harrowing tragedy,twenty years earlier,that devastates their lives.
Claire and Lydias sister Julia just vanished from their lives without a trace.Despite doing everything within their capacity,the disappearance remains a mystery.One thing leads to another and everything changes within the family and the sisters havent spoken to each other for all these years and lead two very different lives.
Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire while Lydia is a single mother struggling to make ends meet.However another disappearance of a teenage girl after all these years and the murder of a middle aged man opens a can of worms.The sisters ,bound together by shared loss ,unearth secrets that will shock,surprise and shatter lives.
My Views:
This book had me spellbound right from the word go.I have read thrillers but Karin Slaughter took this story to another level.It shocked me by the graphic violence and the utterly gripping plot.You better have a strong heart to stomach the gory detailing.The characters are well-developed and very believable.They have distinctly different personalities.
This story shows how a crime affects an entire family and how each member copes in different ways.Parts of this book got me very emotional,especially the fathers heartfelt letters to Julia.I normally dont use expletives but this saw me unleashing the worst expletives possible(in my mind) for the psychopath.The details of the horrific acts are very graphic and make you want to throw up.These get a bit repetitive towards the end but it just ends up building a fury in the reader making him want to know what is going to happen next.I had no idea that things like this actually happen in real life.The world just got sicker and perverse after reading this book.
The end was high intensity and satisfying.It couldnt have ended any other way.I see this one being made into a movie.This is easily the best psychological crime thriller I have read this year.
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
I've been slacking.The end of the year has that effect on me.It makes me morose to think about all that I could have done and didnt.I also havent met my goal to read the set number of books this year and with just a month to go,it seems far from attainable now.However on the positive side,i've read a few very interesting books this year and although I have a huge TBR pile,I intend to slowly work my way through it.
The book Ive just finished reading is 'DROWN' by a Dominican American author Junot Diaz who won the 2008 Pulitzer prize for fiction.Diaz was born in Santo Domingo,the capital of the Dominican Republic and lived there till he immigrated with his family to New Jersey when he was six years old.DROWN is his debut short story collection.
The book has ten very different and interesting short stories which are largely autobiographical and portray his life in the Dominican Republic and later as an immigrant in New Jersey.These stories are connected to each other and have to be read in the order in which they are narrated rather than randomly picking any one.
My Views:
We read sometimes to enter another world and get a view into lives we otherwise would have never known to exist.This book offered me a glimpse into a completely different way of life and living.
The way people react to circumstances,the way their childhood is shaped,the way they turn out to be who they are is influenced largely by where they are coming from.Different lives,different stories.
There is a stark contrast between his homeland in Santo Domingo and life in NYC and New Jersey.The feelings of rootlesness,leaving a country and culture behind in hopes of attaining the great American dream and the emotional upheaval that comes with it, is a price every immigrant has to pay.These stories are written in a very raw and direct way,like how it actually happened,sometimes lewd and the effect of this kind of powerful writing is that it manages to pull you into his story and view it like your own.It succeeds in evoking emotions on either end of the spectrum.
I have mentioned my views about each story in brief.
1.Ysrael:
Tells the story of Yunior and his brother Rafa in the Dominican Republic,searching for a neighbourhood boy,Ysrael,whose face was bitten off and disfigured by a pig,causing him to wear a mask at all times.
This story to me was of a chidhood destroyed,when young boys grow lawlessly and quickly beyond their age,with noone to guide them or set a particular code of conduct.Rafa is wise beyond his years and has lost his childhood.They know they have to scrimp on food and a bus ride.Money is scarce.On the other hand it also talks about Ysraels hope of being called to America and get treated by doctors there.
And I also learnt a lot of Spanish swear and cuss words.
2.Fiesta,1980:
Tells us about a family party in the Bronx,hosted by Yuniors aunt.How the kids know that the father is two timing his mother with a Puerto Rican woman yet choose to be silent about it and Yuniors fondness for his mother who was always very compassionate and tolerant.We are also shown a very ugly side to his father who is strict to the point of madness.It was heartbreaking to read Yuniors attempts at overcoming his carsickness in the fear that it would annoy his belligerent father,who was more concerned about his brand new VW than about his son.The punishments meted out to the child are deplorable.He writes that they were 'imaginative'.Makes you wonder.
3.Aurora:
A very strange narrative.Talks about his life as a drug dealer and his romantic relationship with Aurora,a heroin addict.Complete futility was what this chapter meant to me.The inability to love or have a normal relationship.To not know what is 'normal' anymore.Drugs,their easy accessibilty and their capability to ruin lives.Yet the desire to hope somewhere which they know is just a dream.This was too hard to read.
4.Aguantando:
His need for a father he never knew.He writes that his father left for New York when he was four but 'since I couldnt remember a single moment with him,I excused him from all nine years of my life'.The mother's struggles with raising them up single handedly.Being sent off to live with different relatives when finances were bleak.His fathers empty promises of coming to fetch them.Missing a father who was never there and dreaming about his fathers visit which would eventually turn out very differently.
5.Drown:
Describes the narrators relationship with a close friend Beto and eventually falling out with him because of his sexual advances.Being betrayed in the most basic of relations.Living a life which makes your feel that nothing will ever shock you anymore.Sadness and Anger.
6.Boyfriend:
Yunior is dealing with his own heartbreak and simultaneously overhearing the ups and downs of a relationship between his neighbours through the walls.This was also about trying to see if he could establish some bond with the woman.I guess this story was about trying to move on after a break up.
7.Edison,New Jersey:
Yuniors time as a pool table delivery man with his partner Wayne.He is now world-weary with a lot of bottled up rage.We see the kind of person he turns out to be.But we know where he is coming from.It also marks the end of a romantic relationship.
8.How to date a Browngirl,Blackgirl,Whitegirl or Halfie:
Lots of advice on how to behave or act depending upon the ethnicity and social class of your date.Weird,Unemotional,Artificial,Screwed -up.
9.No Face:
Ysraels story from his own perspective and his long wait for the facial reconstruction surgery by Canadian Doctors.This was extremely sad to read.
10.Negocios:
After all that he told us about his father,this chapter at the end tries to redeem his father,by showing us what exactly Rafael went through after coming to the United States.His struggles with language,boarding,financial issues.Marrying an American to obtain citizenship.The gnawing guilt at leaving his family behind.The other womans point of view and realization.Too little...too late.
My only grouse was that a lot of spanish words are scattered liberally and it was difficult to discern the meanings of a few phrases.Apart from that ,the book is a very honest portrayal of a very fractured life.
I rate it a 3 and a half out of 5.
