My Kind of Girl … a review

This was another book offered for free at Archipelago Books, what a great selection. Of course, I have heard of Basu, he is very prolific and famous in Bengal. But I have never come across a suitable translation before. This book is a montage of five stories about love. Five gentlemen have to spend the night in a train station waiting room in 1940s India and start talking about the women they have loved in the past.

So the stories are all woven by a common thread, but are each man’s reflections. They are all set in the 1920s British India, and the women are all very much a product of their times. Some of the love stories are unrequited, but not all, which makes the variety unpredictable. The translation is absolutely sublime, I was particularly impressed as love stories can be harder than most to translate due to the nuances of emotion.

I would recommend this book. Its a brief read, and perfect for a solitary lockdown evening, when you might be tempted to watch something online. But I’d counsel this read instead, perhaps with a cup of something warm for company.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society … a review

I received this book as an early Christmas present from a friend. And because I am impatient with books and I also want to watch the movie, I’ve even finished reading it before Christmas! What an enjoyable read. This story is set on the tiny island of Guernsey in the English Channel in the mid-1940s. After the end of World War II, the German occupation of Guernsey ended and our book’s protagonist Juliet Ashton is touring the UK promoting her book.

Out of the blue, she receives a letter from an unknown man called Dawsey Adams from Guernsey. One thing leads to another, and instead of ‘settling down’ with her suitor Reynolds, which she never intended to do anyway, Ashton ends up researching her next book about the Occupation of Guernsey. Not least to do with the fact that she is intrigued by the name of the society that Adams is a part of ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’.

This is a beautifully written book, based on letters that the characters write to one another. The backdrop of war is very prominent, but because of the time it is set in, the war isn’t central, which I liked. Overall, it is light-hearted in its approach to the life of the characters and has a heart-warming ending. Not that that’s what I go for at Christmastime, but I did enjoy it. Now to get the popcorn and watch the movie!

Impossible Depths … a review

Last day of the year, last review for 2017. Impossible Depths is the second book in the Silver Lake series, following Stronger Within. This book continues on with the story of artist Lori and her now fiance Jake, the rock star. I lingered over this book for months as I was reading it off and on, amidst other books. Also, it was nice and familiar to dip into this one as I felt I knew Lori and Jake like friends.

Lori and Jake are newly engaged and very much in love. The band is doing well and both are happy in their jobs. This is one thing I love about this series, it shows characters doing actual work and spending real time doing real things, which is sometimes missing from romance novels. But despite all the success and love, tragedy lurks just around the corner. With plans being derailed completely and many hearts broken, this books packs in an emotional punch.

However, one of the things that annoyed me is how Jake calls Lori ‘lil’ lady’. Something about it ticks me off, but that is a personal thing. Overall. McCallum is a more mature writer in this book and the balance between the storylines and the sub-plots is great. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to reading the third book in the series.

Thank you all for reading in 2017. Hope you all have some downtime and the company of family and friends during this festive season. See you all in 2018 for some more books, reviews and recommendations! Happy New Year 🙂

Stronger Within … a review

Stronger Within is Coral McCallum’s debut novel, the first book in the Silver Lake series. Set in Delaware, it follows the lives of Lori (a.k.a Mz Hyde) an artist cum investor and Jake, a guitarist in a rock band. A chance meeting occurs and one thing leads to another as an unlikely couple come together.

The author takes her time. The build up of the characters is very slow, it is at life speed. So events happen at a very realistic speed but until an important thread in the background is revealed, I have nothing to go on. So the first third of the book is a bit slow going. But as the pace picks up and we follow the characters’ individual and collective journeys, the plot unravels masterfully.

In particular, I really enjoyed the rock band’s travels. Because they perform across the US as well as overseas, it adds an element of adventure to the novel. There is a great deal of detail in every scene and the writing is very fluid and easily read.

So it ticked a lot of boxes for me. Especially as the nights have started to draw in on this northern burgh ever so much, this book filled quite a few evenings with a big mug of tea – recommended!

The Sunrise … a review

I picked this book up at a local book swap. It was set in Europe, seemed a good sized travel read, and it’s summer – so if those two boxes are ticked I’m set. What took me by surprise is how moving, beautiful and tangible Victoria Hislop’s writing is.

The book is set in Cyprus in the 1970s. Now, I will admit, before I read this book I knew nothing about Cyprus. But that was just as well, because the backdrop is the social, political and economic climate of the country in the 70s and 80s. In the heart of the action are the couple that owns the fancy hotel on the beach in Famagusta ‘The Sunrise’ and their business manager of sorts. As riots and rivalry break out between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, we read on as families are torn apart, entire cities razed to dust and love crumbles. If you haven’t read anything by Hislop yet, I highly recommend it. And if you have been or are planning to go to Cyprus, then this should be on your must-read list.

The only thing I will say is, this isn’t a light read. It has substance, it is not your typical ‘I can zone out while reading this…’ type of book. So with that word of caution, I will leave you. Have you read anything else by Hislop? Recommendations?

10 Favourite Love Quotes

Here’s 10 of my personal favourites:

“I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it — to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. ”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him when he departs to the Havens: for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“It is that happy stretch of time when the lovers set to chronicling their passion. When no glance, no tone of voice is so fleeting but it shines with significance. When each moment, each perception is brought out with care, unfolded like a precious gem from its layers of the softest tissue paper and laid in front of the beloved — turned this way and that, examined, considered.”
― Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love

“The moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you’ve already stopped loving that person forever.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“You can never know if a person forgives you when you wrong them. Therefore it is existentially important to you. It is a question you are intensely concerned with. Neither can you know whether a person loves you. It’s something you just have to believe or hope. But these things are more important to you than the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You don’t think about the law of cause and effect or about modes of perception when you are in the middle of your first kiss.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I want to fall in love in such a way that the mere sight of a man, even a block away from me, will shake and pierce me, will weaken me, and make me tremble and soften and melt.”
― Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus

And in the end, I leave you with the most heartbreaking love poem by Pablo Neruda, placed to incredible violin, watch here.

I’m reading poetry…

Trigger Warnings … a review

I got this book as a Christmas present from a faraway friend who has the most eclectic reading taste.She asked me if I had read any Gaiman and when I said no, she proceeded to post me this. I can safely say that this is unline anything I have read in a long time.

This book is primarily fantasy fiction, with elements of magic realism, surrealism, and general strangeness that run in a common vein throughout. Made up of many short stories and poems of varying lengths, this has a  nice dip-in-and-out quality to it. And that is exactly what I needed as I have been travelling over the holidays to various people. I like to read short stories which then don’t weigh on my mind when I’m doing other stuff and make me in any way anti-social.

Some of the stories have stayed with me. Especially, a modern day retelling of Cinderella, which is my favourite Disney move since I was three! Gaiman is a natural poet and his writing has a haunting, wistful quality about it that is very engaging. In some ways, this book was a reminder of feelings of reading Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes. And as far as I am concerned, being reminded of his writing is never a bad thing.

If you fancy a different kind of read, shorter fiction, fairy-tales for adults, or just want to add some surreal to the January fog, this is your book. Enjoy!

Committed … a review

I had read and enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love when it was doing its famous rounds. I had no idea that there was a sequel. So when I came across this book in a pile, I picked it up out of curiosity. I was not disappointed.

Gilbert is a good writer, her tone is very conversational and her stories and failures come across as honest and relatable. In this book, she traces the misadventures that ensue in her life when she falls in ove with ‘Felipe’ – a Brazilianborn businessman, nearlt twenty years her senior. He cannot get into the Us because of visa issues and so they must get married even though neither of them are remotely inclined. And all this happens in the first few pages, which is quite exciting.

What follows is a mish mash of travels, adventures, and Gilbert’s own journey into history to understand the very institution of marriage and where she might fit into it. She claims to be neither an anthropologist nor a sociologist as she takes the reader to a Laotian household and lays bare some secrets of the Hmong tribe. She frequently intersperses her travelogue with the relationship stories of her own ancestors and the history of the Western traditions as well.

Another interesting thing about the book was the analyses of the role of women in amarriage unit, both historically and also in the modern day world. Gilbert navigates this with great difficulty, but has thoroughly succeeded in making the reading experience enjoyable. Humour crept up on me as she speaks about what women want, what men are thinking, and why fighting on a stinky old bus is a bad idea.

Read this book, whether you are in a relationship or not, married or not, because in the end,it will help you understand your own perspective on things better as you take sides during her narrative.

The Secret Life of Bees … a review

What a book! What a tremendous piece of literature that I had not come across until now. I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough, if you haven’t read it, you must do.

Set in 1960s South Carolina, this book is the coming of age story of 14 year old Lily Owens. She is white and her nanny of sorts, Rosaleen is black. When the latter gets into trouble for being vocal about black peoples’ rights and ends up in jail, Lily decides to do the inevitable – leave her abusive father T Ray and escape with Rosaleen. The only place that they know to go to is to August Boatwright’s  honey bee farm. This is from the only semblance of Lily’s mother’s life she has, a honey jar label with a black Mother Mary on it.

The honey farm takes these fugitives in and so begins Lily’s journey of self-awareness, love, honey harvesting, religion, and lessons of people reading. The greater part of the book shows the entwining of Lily and Rosaleen’s life with those of the Boatwright sisters – May, June, August. There are many instances of racism but none of them are as horrible as, say, The Bluest Eye. Rather, the distinction between white and black is presented through Lily’s eyes and is a poignant reminder of the differences that are made by man.

The book also has a happy ending. There are times when I thought that once the entire truth about why Lily’s mother was in Tiburon would come out, they would both be maybe sent back to the police or even worse, back to the father. And after all, the father was looking for his daughter in anger. But the book brings a lovely resolution at the end. So for a tender account of love and life and colour, this is one of the most uplifting books I have read. Must read!