13 Jul 2011
by adminin Books Tags: Arundhati Roy, The god of small things
`The God of Small Things explores the tragic fate of a family which “tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.” They are an electric mix: grandmother Mammachi; her spoilt Anglophile son, Chacko ; her daughter Ammu; Ammu’s inseparable twins Estha and Rahel; and Baby Kochamma, grant aunt, determined to spread the bitter seeds of her early disappointment in love. From its mesmerizing opening sequence, it is clear that we are in the grip of a delicious new voice… a voice of breathtaking beauty. The God of Small Thing achieves genuine, tragic resonance. It is, indeed, a masterpiece.’ Christina Patterson , Observer
Winner of the Booker Prize
The God of small things is Arundhati Roy’s first novel. The book is absolutely moving however it jumps around in time a lot for which I felt it was too disjointed and confusing.
10 Jul 2011
by adminin Books Tags: Moon Palace, Paul Auster
It was the summer that man first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, I did not believe there would ever be a future…
Spanning three generations, Moon Palace is the story of Marco Stanley Fogg and his quest for identity in the modern world. Moving from the concrete canyons of Manhattan to the cruelly beautiful landscape of the American West, it is a meditation on and re-examination of America, art and the self, by one of America’s foremost authors.
I think I have read this book only because I don’t like lay down books without reading them till the end. This book frustrated me and bored me so much. The fact that there are so many coincidences occurring in the book, for example Fogg meeting his long-lost father and grand-father only by accident, that all realism and parts of the book’s fascination get lost. Also, the author’s way of starting every episode with its result, failed to hold my interest.
09 Jul 2011
by adminin Books Tags: Jed Rubenfeld, The interpretation of murder
Manhattan, 1909
On the morning after Sigmund Freud arrives in New York on his first – and only – visit to the United States, a stunning debutante is found bound and strangled in her penthouse apartment, high above Broadway. The following night, another beautiful heiress, Nora Acton, is discovered tied to a chandelier in her parents’ home, viciously wounded and unable to speak or to recall her ordeal. Soon Freud and his American disciple, Stratham Younger, are enlisted to help Miss Acton recover her memory, and to piece together the killer’s identity. It is a riddle that will test their skills to the limit, and lead them on a thrilling journey – into the darkest places of the city, and of the human mind.
WINNER Galaxy British Book Awards Best Read
Although this book promises to be an enthralling read, it doesn’t leave up to its expectations for the following reasons. Firstly, it gets into many psychological definitions and discussions which were not so easy to understand. Then, there is no protagonist to identify with, which made it hard to connect with any of the characters. When the author brought in a different character with it, I had to go a little backwards to refresh my memory. Also, I could not link detective’s Littlemore findings to the plot which it actually did not help me to understand how the story is going to end. Lastly, a good part of the book and especially the ending turns into a funny soap opera in my opinion. The author tries to create an unexpected ending but, unfortunately, the result is lack of common sense. It is a novel that will strongly appeal to students and fans of psychology.
09 Jul 2011
by adminin Books Tags: Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
When he hears her favorite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his students days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire – to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to chose between the future and the past.
The book’s story is carefully written. It is set in Tokyo late sixties and it is focused on the theme of relationships. The story teller, Toru Watanabe, describes everything in detail and this makes the story seem very vivid, as if the memories he’s recalling and telling the reader at that moment is as if they happened yesterday as the saying sometimes goes. It is a love story but very much different to what I have read so far.
09 Jul 2011
by adminin Books Tags: A thousand splendid suns, Khaled Hosseini
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism.
A thousand splendid suns is a disturbing story from Afghanistan. It is a story of two women who went through quite a lot of ordeal. Not very pleasant book to read. Sad and melancholic. The beginning of the story is a little bit slow with many pages dedicated to their women growing up and reaching the main story.
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