Books

Author : Fredrik Backman Yes, there are spoilers. A Man called Ove wouldn’t cry. Or atleast he wouldn’t cry as much as I did in more than a few parts in the book. I thought a Man called Ove didn’t deserve the hype it got, till I finally was handed a copy of the book myself and I gave in. And now it deserves all the accolades it’s received and more. And when you’re done with the book as well, you will remember Ove for all the times he was more human as a fictitious character than the humans we are in today’s world - When he places his hand on the tombstone…and talks longingly to a wife who was only a memory and a stone now. When he shows his dad what stuff he’s made of when he decides to turn in the wallet at the station. When he’s had enough gives Tom what he’s been asking for for a long time. When he stands up the “Suits” and builds his house all by himself. When he runs into a burning house opposite his and makes that choice over saving his own skin. When he loves a girl who can take care of him and loves her more when she can’t. When he takes a neighbor and her children to the hospital when her husband falls off a ladder, albeit begrudgingly and punches a clown at the place. When he teaches her driving. When he helps a boy fix his bicycle for a girl who might one day become his girlfriend. When he helps a woman retain the care of a husband (who’s also the closest thing he had to a best friend) whose health is deteriorating and fights off more “Suits” in the process. When he earns the love of a 3 year old and a 7 year old. When he takes in a son who’s kicked out of his house by his father for being a “bender” and later helps them reconcile. When he takes care of an entire locality and sticks to his guns every time…because principles. ...

I’ve tried to start this book thrice before and everytime I’ve stopped short of moving past the first chapterfor reasons I cannot remember anymore because this time, I crossed the first 20% within minutes of picking the book up. The rest of it built up in excitement and intensity with each….milestone and the crescendo culminated in a loud bang at one point (in my mind ;) ). A childhood poem “Ten Little Indians” is used as the template around which the plot is woven, but just when it seems like things could be predictable, the story takes a turn. Now, generally, towards the 80% mark, one is able to atleast guess what the ending might be like. But this book gave away nothing till the very end and That was the most satisfying part of all, to me. There are ten characters that are of importance in this story and while none of them is memorable, all of them were extremely interesting in their presence whenever they appear. I’ve been told that this is “the Best Christie”. The description leaves a sour taste in my mouth because it makes me wonder if it’s all downhill from here, given that I’ve only read 4 other Christie novels.We’ll see! :) ...

I think the best thing about Backman is the way he introduces people to you. You would think introductions are possible only once. But he introduces the same people multiple times and you see them in a different light each time. And when you finally see them wholly, the way he intends for you to see them, you cannot recognize the person you first saw and you realize you are happy to be proven so wrong. This book is probably about a lot of things - a bridge, money, relationships, circumstances, death. But most crucially, maybe this story is really about idiots. And that’s why I loved it so damn much.

Author : Ernest Cline This book, the second work that Ernest Cline produced in 2015, “Armada” is at best an average read, if read with regular remembrance that “Ready Player One” was a good book. The story traces the life, well, a few days in the life, of teenager Zack “ZackAttack” Lightman, who likes to play video games and beat up bullies. His father died shortly after he was born, but he left behind his legacy of video games and the same passion for games and everything “pop culture”, in Zack. Everything changes for Zack when one day, he’s picked up by a giant military flight manned by his third best friend on Earth and owner of local videogame store, Ray and tells him that he’s been recruited by an international agency called the “EDA” to save the world from war aliens from the moon Europa. I would go on, but at this point, I feel like spending more time describing the “plot” of the book would be just as much time wasted as it was reading it. But here are a few things wrong with this book and they are primarily and probably due to the expectations stemming from Cline’s first work - “Ready Player One” - a) Too much name dropping. The number of pop-culture references are sickening and probably sufficient to cover three chapters worth of content on their own. b) Unnecessarily detailed and drawn-out explanations of certain events c) “Plots” drawn here and there from the likes of Deception Point and Ender’s Game. d) Even things that seem like they’ve been written to evoke surprise fail to impress. ...

♥ Now I have to read this

Author : Agatha Christie It was okay, you know? I’ve read 3 Agatha Christies so far and this was my 4th. I’ve gotten used to the way Poirot starts getting involved in a case by now and I’ve begun to welcome it. Unfortunately, I’ve also begun to welcome a plot in which I cannot pinpoint the ending with much confidence. I have become comfortable in the role of Captain Hastings accompanying Poirot as he muses, reasons and solves a crime. So when I found myself at the 60% mark hitting upon a revelation that I found to be the very way things unfolded, I was disappointed. Yet, I did complete it and it was a good tale overall. Nevertheless, it is the charm of the crime genre and more so of an author/authoress who has multiple such books to their name that you can safely continue to look forward with confidence to finding yourself enthralled in a lovely mystery once again. And so do I. ...

Author : Daniel Keyes Yes, there are spoilers. Please don’t read this if you haven’t already read the book and intend to. Charlie was just a guy who wanted to fit in, you know? He just wanted to be smart “like everyone else” and understand what people said and..fit in. That’s why he tried so hard. He jumped through every hoop Dr.Nemur and Dr. Strauss showed him and he got his wish. He became smart. He became smarter. He became the smartest person humankind ever possibly knew. Life would be so simple and happy if that was the end of the story. We love happy endings, don’t we. We want the underdog to succeed. We want a triumphant person at the end of a story. Maybe that’s what we get at the end; I’m not going to give anything away. But I will tell you about the process to that end. Charlie Gordon has an IQ of 68 when the story begins and life has been extremely hard for him - being abandoned by his parents, working at a bakery where he seems to have been given a chance from his perspective, but we can see they’re plain bullies there, having fun at Charlie’s expense and he bears it all with a grin and a laugh, because he wants to have friends. He thinks they Are his friends. And that heart of his is what makes you want to take the entire journey with him through his journal, go through everything he’s gone through, through his memories of his mother - Rose, his father -Matt and his sister, Norma…. The only glimmer of sunshine Charlie has or seems to have through this gloomy cloud of a fast-paced IQ-rising life of his is Alice Kinnian, one of his tutors at the facility where Charlie is to undergo treatments and eventually therapy sessions. In her, Charlie finds love and safety and I love that Daniel Keyes had her as a character. Another character that is constantly alluded to and is really, the titular character is Algernon, a mouse that Charlie is pitted against at the beginning. It’s heartening to see how Charlie’s relationship with Algernon changes, even if one-sided - first as a goal, then as a rival, then as a subordinate and subsequently as a pet. The symbolism of Algernon’s microcosmic journey is telling and when flowers Are placed for Algernon, one can’t help but feel the ground drop from under them even if they have been expecting it. At the core of it, Flowers for Algernon is, in my opinion, about relationships - the relationship with one’s self, with those you count friends, those you count lovers, those you count superiors and others. Underneath the veil of a man climbing a ladder of IQs was a man .. ...

I normally write my-version-of-reviews after I’m done reading a book, but this time I thought I’d do things differently because of the nature of the book I’m reading, which is, Guards! Guards! by Sir Terry Pratchett. It is the 8th book in the publishing order and the 1st in the City Watch series. Initially, it seemed as though the book was following the Hero’s Journey …well…not so much a Hero but the journey of a dwarf who is not quite a dwarf - Carrot. He’s sent to the City of Ankh-Morpokh to do that which is the highest calling of a human - “join the City Watch”. Quite voluntarily as opposed to how people normally join the Watch. It is here that he meets his reporting officer Captain Vimes, Corporal “Nobby” Nobbs and Seargent Colon. They’d been quite content in their lack of a purpose for quite a while, allowing crime to thrive and all that. But Carrot’s arrival has coincided with a genuine need for the Watch to well…watch. And act. A dragon has been sighted flying and razing the city and it’s the Watch’s duty (among other aspirational, self-proclaimed Dragon Hunters) to take it down, so to speak. ...

This post was originally published on Medium on Sep 13, 2018 and has now been migrated here because Medium sucks. I’ve been putting off starting a fantasy fiction saga like this for a long time now; the only ones I remember reading prior to starting this have been Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings; and that was a decade ago. Since then I’ve read a few hundred books but they’ve all been standalone novels. The only thing that comes close to a series since then was the Millenium Trilogy by Steig Larsson but that doesn’t fall in this category. My reasons for not having ventured into these waters again are frankly, juvenile — chief among them and the only one worth mention being the fear that nothing will come close to the aforementioned works, which is, if the rest of the reading populace is to be believed, a blatant fallacy. ...

Author : George Orwell This book was a roller coaster of emotions, culminating in the equivalent of a huge tidal wave crashing against a boulder, scattering into indiscernible droplets of water. The story describes a dystopian world (or is it?) where every action of every individual in the land of Oceania is monitored by an all-seeing, all-knowing body called “Big Brother”. The system is one devoid of free thought and speech, the very first scene opening with scenes of hatred towards the only attempt at a revolting entity (Goldstein). Amid all this, there are still those who understand that this is not how the natural order of things should be, that they should not be rewriting history to match the present or the past predictions of Big Brother, that people should not be “vaporised” for committing thought crimes and the story follows one such individual — Winston. His journey from cautious citizen to a reckless revolutionary is a breath of fresh air in the suffocating environment of Oceania, as he finds a cohort in the plucky, young Julia. Together they dream and scheme and believe they aren’t alone, and find this to be true when they meet O’Brien. ...