Category: Fiction

BOOK REVIEW: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

BOOK REVIEW: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Posted April 13, 2016 by @amanhimself in Books, classics, Fiction, Reviews / 18 Comments

People have been reviewing Great Expectations for 150 years. It’s the essence of a classic to survive such a long time and still being read. It is also a writer’s name that adds to a classic’s character, but that is not always the case. However, with Charles Dickens it is the former case and readers have expectations. I do. Whenever I start reading a Dickens novel, I expect it to be long, and contain all the elements of a story telling. Certainly, Dickens is one of the masters of the art. The story is of an orphan,Pip, who from the beginning of the novel is not an ideal protagonist who have to be heroes or emotionally and physically strong. The […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: Another Bloody Saturday by Mat Guy

BOOK REVIEW: Another Bloody Saturday by Mat Guy

Posted December 8, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews, sports / 5 Comments

Football is not just a game of 11 vs 11 bodies of flesh exhausting themselves physically and mentally for straight ninety minutes after a ball. There is football we watch on television, alone or with known ones, watching a nineteen year old whose market value is almost equivalent to the eleven players of opposition who are trying to get the ball off from his feet. At front of that television set we all are football pundits for ninety minutes. There is no denying in that. If you are football fanatic, in ninety minutes you are going to feel each and every emotion inside us- anger, ecstasy, astonishment, aversion, admiration, vigilance and yet one game is not enough. Similarly, Mat Guy in the […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: The Witch Of Portobello by Paulo Coelho

BOOK REVIEW: The Witch Of Portobello by Paulo Coelho

Posted June 17, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 28 Comments

I hardly ever read Paulo Coelho books. I was disappointed by his world-renowned book The Alchemist. And then came The Aleph. But there is one book, one book that is different from every other Paulo Coelho’s book. The Witch of Portobello. It is a very different form of a book. It requires your full attention and you will be pleased. It is the only Coelho’s book I am ever going to recommend to you. This the story of Athena, a mysterious woman, the story itself told by many different flesh entities who knew her or did not know her at all. She was born in Romania and her parents, a successful industrialist family of Beirut adopted her, as their much-loved, much-wanted daughter, who grew in wisdom and […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: The Silent Scream by Siddhartha Garg

BOOK REVIEW: The Silent Scream by Siddhartha Garg

Posted April 20, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

I sometimes wonder in what direction the contemporary Indian Literature is moving on. I have seen books written by contemporary Indian authors in Bollywood (movie making) style just for them to sell. Not particularly interesting or curiosity arousing technique. The non-fiction is almost a graveyard in Indian literature. In non-fiction genre, the attention seekers are movie stars’ autobiographies which are not even written by themselves and yet they are called autobiographies. On the other hand, the fiction genre, is mostly about fantasy or romance. The kind of romance which, I think, is mostly a tedious form of romanticism. I wonder, what is happening to Indian Literature? When I started reading THE SILENT SCREAM by Siddhartha Garg, I was satisfied to see some contemporary authors are […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: The Isle of Youth by Laura van den Berg

BOOK REVIEW: The Isle of Youth by Laura van den Berg

Posted March 29, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

Laura van den Berg’s THE ISLE OF YOUTH is a collection of seven engaging short stories exploring the lives of women mired in secrecy and deception. Each tale is spun with urgency, and the reader grows attached to the marginalized young women in these stories. I have already confessed a few times that I do not read much short stories collection, but reading this one has affected my view regarding the short stories. Brilliantly written, dark, unsettling stories with original voice, every narrator/protagonist dealing with their own loneliness in a way we all want to deal with. The best story I feel this collection conveyed me is entitled ‘Antarctica’  based on the Antarctic Peninsula, where a woman with holding others […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
Book Review: Doctor Who and The Daleks by David Whitaker

Book Review: Doctor Who and The Daleks by David Whitaker

Posted February 9, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

My past reading experience with Doctor Who books hasn’t been good (see Book Reviews Archive to read reviews of other Doctor Who Books). Though, Doctor Who and The Daleks is not one of them. I recently found a copy of this book, residing in the last row of my book shelf. I don’t remember when did I buy it but I feel happy that I have one. Doctor Who and the Daleks by David Whitaker is the fist ever novelisation of a Doctor Who television story, first published in 1964, original script written by Terry Nation. I consider myself a Whovian and I my favourite Doctor is the tenth one. This book is written in first person, narrated through out by […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: The Entire Predicament by Lucy Corin

BOOK REVIEW: The Entire Predicament by Lucy Corin

Posted December 22, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

It’s an impressive short-story collection written in a style that is unique and needs your full attention. I encountered this book on random basis as I was bored of my scheduled reading. Now, I can say that I am quite happy with my choice of random picking. It’s always a risk (whether you would like the book or not) when you choose to read a book at random but that’s the most thrilling part I feel, of this habit. I try to pick random books from time to time to go on with my reading, and explore and experience new sensations inside my head.

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams

BOOK REVIEW: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Posted December 18, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a fun, buoyant adventure following the tale of Arthur Dent as he narrowly escapes the earth’s destruction in the wake of a new space super-highway being built in its place, hitching a ride with interstellar researcher Ford Prefect aboard the ship of the very alien bureaucrats whom destroyed his planet. From here unfolds the winding and absurdly improbable tale which will take the sole survivor of earth’s destruction from the one side of […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
Book Review: I am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts

Book Review: I am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts

Posted December 14, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

Better than the last few books on Doctor Who I read but still lacks the basic component: to indulge the reader in the story. The plot seems fresh and good but the executing it into a story is not. Doctor Who along with his assistant Rose Tyler have plans for the Moon but TARDIS have other plans for them, landing them instead in a village on the south coast of England. At the village: an archaeological dig has turned up a Roman mosaic, circa AD 70, depicting mythical scenes, grapes and a Dalek. A few days later a young woman, rushing for work, is knocked over and killed by a bus, then comes back to life. It’s not long before […]

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider
BOOK REVIEW: Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

BOOK REVIEW: Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

Posted December 6, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Fiction, Reviews / 0 Comments

Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick My rating: 4 of 5 stars Books like Sleepless Nights are not ordinary. They are written once in a blue moon, and meant to read for once in a blue moon. It’s part fiction and part autobiography, memories of an aging women in a nursing home told through story, letters, quotes, literary passages and dreams of missed opportunities written by Elizabeth Hardwick sharing the first name with the protagonist. There are parts of this book that are stunningly beautiful. The type of writing is more of wandering, something you don’t get to read in other books. It has its own uniqueness.

Read Rest of the Post »
Divider
Divider