Tag: author

A COOL HEAD BY IAN RANKIN: A BOOK REVIEW

Posted February 21, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Crime & Mystery, Reviews / 0 Comments

Ian Rankin’s A COOL HEAD is a one hour read. Very light read, just 107 pages, written for the BBC’s Quick Read series which “are designed to be read and enjoyed by avid readers and by people who never had or who have lost the reading habit”. The story starts with Gravy, a thirty-something suffering from OCD (Obsessive–compulsive disorder, that’s my guess), working at the graveyard when a flashy BMW drives up to him. From out of the car steps out a friend of Gravy’s, who’s got a bag in one hand and a hole in his chest. Unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation, Gravy thinks this is just another visit from his friend. However, when his friend’s fate is […]

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The BRUNCH BOOK CHALLENGE

Posted February 20, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books / 0 Comments

I feel lucky that I have become an avid part of #BrunchBookChallenge which is a Hindustan Times Brunch Magazine’s initiative to promote reading. The idea is to read at least 24 books in 2014. To participate one must tweet about his/her progress by tagging @HTBrunch and using the hashtag #BrunchBookChallenge. There are surely some rules to follow: 1. Unless you are a child, you cannot include children’s books. 2. No textbooks. Just so we’re clear, a textbook is any ‘manual of instruction for any subject of study’, you can’t include it. In short, your engineering/GMAT/IAS books don’t count. 3. Graphic novels are allowed, encouraged in fact. If you’re reading comic books, then one volume (or a set of […]

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CHRONCILES OF A BOOK ZOMBIE

Posted February 18, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, MyWorks / 0 Comments

Am I a Book Zombie? From past five days I am getting trouble in sleeping. I cannot understand, I am tired due to a lot of travelling and still I cannot sleep. Only today I realized that in past three days not only I have read three books, not only more than 700 pages but I am feeling that I want to eat a book a page by page, word by word. That’s right. I don’t know if I am reaching my extreme point of reading books (and then eventually I’ll get tired of reading) or if the reading has seriously become an obsession for me. Sounds to me like my past eight years of reading is finally paying off […]

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PAPER TOWNS BY JOHN GREEN: A BOOK REVIEW

Posted February 12, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

Paper Towns by John Green is the second book I’ve read written by him. The previous, Fault in our Stars was unimpressive to me. Though this book impresses me than the previous one in some ways but there is a unacceptable vibe about this book. I’ll start with John Green, he is a good writer there is no doubt, his skill of writing is a bit ordinary but witty and humorous. The plot and scenes he challenges himself to write are not very realistic but hey, after all this what fiction is. It’s a lie. So there is no point in arguing over the that fact as many people believe he should write more realistic but being a fictitious writer he can […]

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THE LOWLAND BY JHUMPA LAHIRI: A BOOK REVIEW

Posted February 11, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

After reading The Lowland in two days, not for the reason the book is easy to read. But for Jhumpa Lahiri is a natural-born storyteller. She indeed is. In this book, she introduces two brothers, close in age who are poles apart, Udayan, the revolutionary brother who gets caught up in the Mao-inspired Naxalite movement to wipe out poverty in India and his more reserved and dutiful brother, Subhash, who leaves home to pursue an academic and scientific life in Rhode Island. When Udayan inevitably gets swept into a revolutionary movement that turns out badly, Subhash returns home briefly, and picks up the pieces, including an attempt to heal the emotional scars of his brother’s young wife. As the plot goes […]

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THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P. by ADELLE WALDMAN: A BOOK REVIEW

Posted February 7, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

Before starting the review, I’d like to thanks @HTBrunch Magazine for making this review happen through their #BrunchBookChallenge in which you have to read just 24 books to complete the challenge. For making me read a book by an author who knows exactly how to put some relevant words between more words. I met Adelle Waldman’s highly acclaimed The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. a best book of the year 2013 by The New Yorker, The Economist, The Daily Beast, The Guardian (UK) and many more. Being a debut novelist and having a strong reading-background, having read Jane Austen, George Eliot, Balzac, and Tolstoy, Waldman through her words has a eerie talent of describing women through a man’s eyes. When I had […]

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SAINTS OF THE SHADOW BIBLE by IAN RANKIN- A BOOK REVIEW

Posted January 31, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Crime & Mystery, Reviews / 0 Comments

There is no doubt why Ian Rankin is one of the best crime fiction writer in all over Britain. And Certainly John Rebus is the “Sherlock Holmes” of modern crime fiction. Or I should say in clear words, certainly the best detective of modern crime fiction. The enigma which surrounds John Rebus is the essence a reader reading Rebus must feel. And Ian Rankin maintains that enigma, that aroma of mysteriousness consistently. He is doing for past 19 books. Not one Rebus I read, and felt discomfort. This is an art and Rankin is the master of this art of consistency in storytelling. I was once disappointed and sad when I read Exit Music which was once the last book […]

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BOOK REVIEW: UNACCUSTOMED EARTH BY JHUMPA LAHIRI

Posted January 26, 2014 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

I must say I do not enjoy reading short stories. Especially, a collection of short stories, otherwise if they are properly dramatic and structured, I would read only one or two stories from it. Rarely do I finish a whole book of short stories and this time I did. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri is the collection of eight stories which proves that she indeed is a better writer than the other Indian Authors I have read in my lifetime. She understands the experience she wants a reader to enjoy while reading her words. Her writing style is very natural and effortless and the way she care about each and every character she makes is one thing to be learn […]