The Bookseller's Sonnets: A Book Review

As I started reading the book, I did not remember anything from the cover.. I had no idea what the book was about or what to expect. I just assumed from the title that it was something to do with middle east.. perhaps hoping for an Iranian flavor somewhere ..

Boy was I wrong!! As I read through the pages, it became evident, it was anything but middle eastern.. the completely fictional story takes place in post sept 11 timeframe.. exploring the complex world of a jewesh curator of Holocaust Museum in Manhattan.  As you get through the first chapter, you think you know the theme .. ah! A love story about a jewish woman with orthodox background in love with a non Jewish American.. and then! the plot manages to surprise you.. in comes that mystery book, from an aynamous person…. And a story within a story begins to unravel. It weaves a complex yet fine thread of pain, joy, love and suffering. The forbidden love between the catholic and a jew in Tudor times and the pain and suffering of holocaust…. just keeps you tied in.

Predictable? Yes perhaps, but the story is told in a rather engaging manner… when a new born had to be killed to protect the family from Nazi’s I found my eyes fill up , just imagining the horror of killing ur own child made my heart ache.. the inner agony of the main character, the Jewish curator to come clean about her relationship with her family… had your understanding…

To be warned, the ending of the book, is along the expected lines, however, there is something to be said of the expected.. sometimes the expected can give you as much pleasure as the expected.

A definite one on my list.

Kindle: A love Story

Yes! I admit it.. I am a kindle lover!!! 

And  this was no easy transition… A vivid reader, I have always felt the need to hold, smell and turn those pages.. Initially I could not wrap my brain around having a electronic format of book .. it seemed just too weird not to turn the page .. or to be able to jump ahead, read a few lines and jump back to recall something..

And then Kindle happened!! A gift from my husband, I threaded cautiously.. I felt the weight of the reader, I downloaded a few books from Amazon and I just gave it a try… And much to my surprise, I actually found myself liking whole experience!! I could easily hold the reader with one hand, slip it into my purse/laptop bag without adding extra weight, could read without my eyes getting tired…..  Soon  I found myself reading all the time.. while feeding the baby, in restroom .. while sitting in passenger end of the car, while flyin.. oh yeah I was hooked…..

Oh yeah Kindle is my current fav. Electronic gadget (yeah even after having it for nearly 2 years now) …. And my dearest travel companion!! Love Love Love  Kindle!

Genghis: Birth of an Empire

Just finished reading this book and I have to admit though not transfixing... it was certainly entertaining...

Being a total history buff, I tend more towards reading historically based novels.... it feeds my travel hungry soul!

The book gives an excellent description of the Mongolian landscape and the hardships places by the wandering tribes... I could almost imagine myself in the place. Though some of the historical facts have been tweaked a bit to make the novel interesting, it seems to stick to the essence of the "dreaded Khan"... I think the novel manages to be illuminating while being entertaining...

You find your heart going out and rooting for young Temujin (the future Genghis Khan) when he and his family are left to fend for themselves in the harsh Mongolian plains.. you cannot help but admire the feistiness of the mother, Houlen who manages to keep the young kids alive through the winter at sub zero temperatures with no roof on the head...

I, for one will definitely read the next in the series, Bones of the hills....

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society : A Review

What a delight !!!!! I just got up after reading this book and I have to say that it was a one of those which leaves a smile lingering on your face long afterward.

Placed around World War II this book brings to life the horrors of the war time and the bravery of the people who lived through it. Set as a series of letter, between the narrator and the other characters, this book manages to be funny while tantalizing those "tear glands"

At the end of the book, I swear I feel like I personally know all the characters and the place "Guernsey Island". And the best part - I have that "rare" feeling of satisfaction at the "end", which is so rare with a book.

Often great books fall short of being really "great" due to the ending, but this one ... Nay! not this one.

On a day of leisure, where you want to curl up and pick a "feel good" book, choose this one... with a mug of coffee next to you, sipping away, drown yourself into these pages......... you will find yourself sighing, sniffling and smiling....

Snow Flower and Secret fan- thoughts

As I turned each page of “Snow flower and secret fan” I felt emotions welling up inside me. It was difficult not to associate with some characters in 19th century china. The foot-binding was a saga new to me and I found myself fascinated by the things done in name of beauty. The book describes in detail the procedure of foot-binding and your heart goes out to “third sister” whose cries for “mercy” and “ I won’t do it” are left unheard resulting to her eventual death. .

It is amazing how a woman is always the worst adversary of another woman. I cannot understand how a woman who has personally known the pain and hurt of foot binding, put her own daughter through the very same trails. Isn’t a mother supposed to be your sieve for all things painful in your life? Isn’t a mother supposed to nurse and protect her young one?

Life for a woman must have been an entirely different thing, her very existence depending on them having “sons”. A child bearing vassal is what she was in true terms. A woman’s world not her own but spun intricately around men’s, made to accommodate the desires of “their men”. Yes, indeed life was different!

But inspite of such trails, the same 19th century women find their own way of rebellion –Nu Shu, the women’s secret language. I thought it was in it’s own an attempt at making their own independence self-felt. The fact that Nu-Shu had nothing to do with men’s existence but everything to do with women’s itself describes the radical nature of it. The fact that woman were not allowed to “literate” themselves, yet choose their own way to do so… choose their way to speak with the rest of their kind.. away from the prying eyes of the world in general.. makes you realize that the oppressed are not truly so.. the caged birds always find a way to flutter !!!!

Labyrinth.... by Kate Moss..............

When I first saw this book in London airport, the summary in the book jacket caught my eye and I knew I had to read this book. I was fascinated by the fact that it binds the lives of two women born centuries apart. So when I came back to US I made it a point to read few reviews on the book. Well, since Labyrinth is essentially a religious thriller with focus on Holy Grail comparison to the Da Vinci code is inventible. As a result most of the reviews weren’t really promising.

But for me, I was interested to actually see how the story shuttles back and forth between eras. I wanted to see if the author could do it successfully and stand on its own merit as a religious thriller. Well, as usual my curiosity got better for me and I spend my dollars on buying a hardcover version of the book (read $$$$$).

Armed with a desire to read, I turned one page after another and before I knew I was turning the last few pages of the book. While Labyrinth doesn't move with quite the frenetic pace of Dan Brown's thriller it still manages to keep you hooked. Many reviews complained of it being long slow read, but I think of it as being more involved. I love the way it has been written, seamlessly segueing the movement between time….almost effortlessly tailoring two lives in different centuries. Of course, the end wasn’t as spectacular as I expected……….. however, for me it was a complex, intricately plotted, century spanning tale (words borrowed from one of the reviews, it was so apt that I couldn’t resist using it!)

Beware: This is not a book for historical buffs and for those seeking more information on Holy Grail. It is an interesting read only if you take it for what it is – Fiction…..

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni... her books make me think about .... a lot of things

Over the past few days I have found myself literally devouring the books by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Perhaps, the fact that all her books are related to people from India, my country, holds me so much under its spell. All her works have a rather fascinating innuendo in them and speak about old “Indian-ess” which I somewhere along my quest for modernity seem to have left behind. Her books speak about Bengal and Bengalis whose culture is so far removed from mine (I am a south Indian army product) that I find myself puzzling over the stronghold they seem to have over me. The stories linger on in my mind long after I finish reading them, each of them making me think and analyze the depths of my own thoughts (some of them murky) which I had so far been unable to fathom. The fact that all her stories are so deeply engulfed with reality makes me think a lot about my country which I have left behind. I find my self wondering with awe over the deep rooted culture of ours, about the traditions and superstitions which form the backbone of the rural-India

Surprisingly, I also find in myself a yearning to live in those traditions and make some of them mine. . I have always prided on the fact that I have had a modern upbringing (by Indian standards), with mom who has always been my bestest friends but, this yearning to know more about my culture and traditions brings with it a thunderous flash of edification about myself !!! (I have always so far mocked at the so called ol’ fashioned ways and outdated thoughts which people still stick onto) However now I am forced to admit that our culture which at times seems so stifling to me (even now) brings along with it the undeniable love of elders. The old try to seep u into their ways, we revolt and think of them as fools, but wat we forget to c is the immense love that they have for us which makes them want to pass on their traditions, their ways to us.

Reading these books take me down the dusty lane of my memories and I remember the love of my grandmom (my mom’s mom) when she would put us to sleep by telling us stories and making us pray. I remember combing her white silvery hair and of her making my favorite “Tamarind rasam” (YUM). I remember sitting with her while she read books to me (I think I may have gotten my love of reading from her and ma) and her feeding me those rice balls with her hand. I miss her and my eyes fill with tears as I write this. In this moment of introspection, I hope somewhere down the lane in future my children at least learn to appreciate these love soaked traditions and culture which binds the hearts of the family so closely and tightly and makes India unique from the rest of the world.