October 31, 2015
Confessions of a Readaholic
Reviews | Interviews | Giveaways | Recommendations | "I'm Mad About Books"
Reviews | Interviews | Giveaways | Recommendations | "I'm Mad About Books"
October 28, 2015
I often say that, mental health is as important as the physical one. Understating out mind with a clarity is what we need. To understand our mind, we must have knowledge over the illnesses or the disease that may effect it. In simpler words, Matt Haig’s Reasons To Stay Alive is account of man’s struggle with depression. Reading about depression and anxiety helps a lot, both consciously and unconsciously.
This account of Haig’s struggle through depression when he was just twenty four and living in Ibiza tell us how depression made him see the world around him, the present and the future, but most importantly how it made him see himself. It is beautifully written and at times heart-warmingly funny, in a way that allows its readers to resonate completely with his personal experience.
Depression, I feel, is more than a mood swing. Technically it is a mood swing. I think it should be considered in serious terms as an illness just as one might take any physical or other type of illness that is not mental. There are ‘n‘ number of things that can cause it but since one has got only life, and it is better to live your life, instead of focusing and worrying about the causes. It is hard, I agree, but it is possible to some extent. (more…)
October 25, 2015
The other day I was just hovering around the internet researching a bit on David Foster Wallace. After reading The Pale King, I was impressed by his versatile writing style of taking ordinary topics and characters and blending them together and turning them in an extraordinary experience for the reader. I cam across some of his essays which I think you should take a look.
October 22, 2015
One of the good things about the contemporary crime fiction that can happen to itself is John Rebus and his creator Ian Rankin. Without Ian Rankin, there would have been no John Rebus. Rankin has certainly set a benchmark with his John Rebus’ series and Mortal Causes is the sixth book in this series. Without John Rebus, I won’t be reading as much crime fiction as I do. I started reading John Rebus, even before I laid my hands on Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Things are even darker than usual this time in Mortal Causes.
It is August during the Edinburgh Festival when Inspector John Rebus is called to investigate a brutally tortured body found hanging in the medieval subterranean streets of Edinburgh. The death looks like an execution which causes Rebus to start investigating radical activists. Even worse, he discovers the victim is the son of one of Edinburgh’s most notorious criminal gang leaders, Gerald McCafferty.
With well-crafted characters and the plot so interesting the author makes the book interesting by adding a a challenging situation in which Rebus needs to develop a level of understanding with Big Ger McCafferty. It sounds darker than most of his novels and it turns to be exactly how it sounds. (more…)
October 19, 2015
A Little about Me
I was asked to contribute an article to a fellow author’s blog. At first I panicked. I didn’t know what to write about. I’m a listener. I listen to other people’s stories. I’m a good listener. I don’t like speaking about myself. Therefore, I don’t like to write about myself. But now that I’m a writer, I have to move into the spotlight.
I’ve done a few interviews on fellow authors’ blogs. Their questions helped to serve as guidelines. Now I have a blank page to deal with. Should I write about why I had decided to become a writer? I don’t think so. It has been done to death by writers. I believe I will write about what had inspired me to pursue my career in Finance. It wasn’t a ‘what’ but a ‘who;’ the person who I had looked up to and then had lost too early in life. This was my brother, Neil Leist.
Neil was the type of person who lit up a room when he entered it. He was 6’2”, but it wasn’t his height that drew others’ eyes. It was his dynamic personality and his intelligence. Those grey eyes mirrored his great intellect and capacity for greatness. He acted as my father when my father wasn’t home but working long days and nights driving a taxi. He took care of my blind mother until I was old enough to help out. He sheltered me as much as he could from life and responsibilities. He shouldered these burdens himself. (more…)
October 16, 2015
I usually read 90 to 110 books a year as I have only been recording my reading habit through a widget on Goodreads.com called Yearly Reading Challenge from past four years. It’s fun thing to do, you get to know exact statistics like how many number of pages one has read in total or a graph showing books read by you in the year they were published. It can also go otherwise for some of us, like having no time to read, and your ‘yearly reading challenge’ displaying that you are 3 books behind your schedule. Then some of us might force our way to do so.
You are forgetting the whole point of reading. I do not read books for these mere statistics, I read books because of the benefits it offers. If you develop a habit of reading books, at least 5 to 10 pages a day, you will become smarter over the years, this self improvement thing is extremely important aspect for being an adult. A book doesn’t have to be a self-help rather a fiction, science or philosophical work which is full of ideas that you cannot gather by skimming articles reading online. (more…)
October 13, 2015
Another year, another bestseller. A book that will keep on turning the pages by itself. It’s The Girl on the Train, one of the most successful books of the year, fastest selling adult novel in the history, another psychological thriller, comparable to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl as the plot is full of lies and unreliable narration.
The girl on the train is Rachel, a lonely, alcoholic divorcée who rides the train to and from London each day, hoping to keep her long-suffering roommate from discovering that she’s been fired from her job. The train, cruelly, passes each day by the house where she once lived with her adored ex-husband. Rachel directs her focus a few houses down, where another young couple lives, envying their seemingly blissful partnership. One day, she is shaken by what she sees at the couple’s house and soon after, the wife disappears. Rachel, convinced the event she witnessed is relevant to the case, is quickly drawn into the mystery, but her debilitating alcoholism and the blackouts caused by her binges make her an unreliable witness, untrusted by the authorities and even by herself. (more…)
October 10, 2015
We all know NetGalley.com offers superb titles for readers from writers and publishers across the world. I have been following NetGalley.com for quite a time but have failed to read a single title and review it in past few weeks. But I love going through the new titles and their elegant book covers. Here are three books publishing this month that you should go check and read from NetGalley.com.
The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone
For fans of The Guild, New Girl, Scott Pilgrim, Big Bang Theory, Veronica Mars, meet debut author’s Max Wirestone character Dahlia Moss, the reigning queen of unfortunate decision-making in the St. Louis area. Unemployed broke, and on her last bowl of ramen, she’s not living her best life. But that’s all about to change.
The Clasp by Sloane Crosley
Part comedy of manners, part treasure hunt, another debut novel, looks promising and I am definitely going to get my hands on it.
Al the Things We Never Knew by Sheila Hamilton
All the Things We Never Knew takes readers from David and Sheila’s romance through the last three months of their life together and into the year after his death. It details their unsettling descent from ordinary life into the world of mental illness, and examines the fragile line between reality and madness.
October 7, 2015
Nothing gives me more pleasure these days than reading Haruki Murakami’s words blend in a story which might constitute of fantastical world along with realism. There are not much books left written by him that I haven’t read such that I can count on my fingers, the remaining titles now. A whole weekend is more than enough to finish exploring a new account of Murakami’s realism.
The story is woven of Hajime, a 37-year-old owner of two jazz clubs, married with two kids and seemingly happy in a relationship with his wife. He recollects memories of his childhood, early teenage days, being a twelve-year-old, falling for a wise girl in his class who was inflicted with polio, and shared memories with her. Reality takes over in one of the jazz bar he owns, the girl whom he was dreaming of in his memories is in front of him, full of mystery. (more…)
October 4, 2015
Recently, a blog-friend of mine, Lee nominated from for One Lovely Blog Award. I thank him for it. I have been nominated for a few similar blogging awards in past recent years, but I have never taken the pain to accept them and nominate other fellow bloggers of mine. I don’t usually do them. Well, this time I thought, what the heck, let’s write a post about it. I tried to find the origin of this award on Google, but there were no satisfactory results. If anyone knows do tell me. I would like to credit the person/blogger, who started this.
Well, here I go.
Seven things. 7 things about me. Mmm… Looks harder when I come to think about specifically seven things. The number also reminds of a very fine movie, Seven, a thriller and crime-fic, starring Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey. Let’s put aside the gibberish and talk about me.
