Tag: summary

BOOK REVIEW: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

BOOK REVIEW: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Posted December 5, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 22 Comments

The first time I came across this fat novel which concerns Objectivism at its best, was in college on a friend’s desk. The white colour cover with red structure like lines, every word written on the cover in uppercase letters. If the size of the book was not fascinating to me at the time, the font size inside it did the job. By looking inside it, eloquently written words uniformly scattered over 700 pages made me curious. That was the first time I heard about The Fountainhead. Though I never thought that it would be three years I’d take the novel in my hands to read it for the first time. In Rand’s The Fountainhead you will meet many characters, but […]

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BOOK REVIEW: Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin

BOOK REVIEW: Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin

Posted October 22, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Crime & Mystery, Reviews / 14 Comments

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 […]

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BOOK REVIEW: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

BOOK REVIEW: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

Posted October 7, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 17 Comments

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 […]

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BOOK REVIEW: The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

BOOK REVIEW: The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

Posted October 1, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 9 Comments

There is no better person who understands a reader than Alan Jacobs. And he does well describe that in his book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Alan Jacobs is a Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Honors Program at Baylor University in Texas, USA. He is a prolific author, having written about a dozen books and countless articles for various scholarly periodicals and magazines. He wrote Pleasures of Reading for those who have given up on reading for various reasons, but I think most prominently because of the nature of the world we now live in, a world full of distractions. Distractions are everywhere, smartphone lying on desk, the television in the other room, the computer screen you are […]

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BOOK REVIEW: The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

Posted September 25, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Crime & Mystery, Reviews / 18 Comments

“NOTE: THE LINK TO THE GIVEAWAY IS BELOW” A few critics are claiming the new addition in Stieg Larsson’s famous Millennium Trilogy, The Girl in the Spider’s Web as controversial. Written by David Lagercrantz who previously had two titles named under him: a non-fiction and a fiction, both translated in English language. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy is a huge success worldwide and adaptions are already out there. The previous three novels are gripping, rich in thrill, and intelligent. One who has read any of the three, knows very well what I am trying to express here. And he must be excited about this new addition. There were no pre-review copies or excerpts of this novel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web. […]

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BOOK REVIEW- The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

BOOK REVIEW- The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

Posted September 16, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 10 Comments

The Pale King is David Foster Wallace’s posthumous unfinished book, first published in 2011, still hard to find a paperback copy. It is set in an IRS (Internal Revenue Service) office in Illinois, America. The book is about boredom or how the meaningless rules and regulations in an organisation, added up with monotonous and dullness, fills a person’s life with boredom. After reading Infinite Jest, I was impressed by the writing nonetheless it was a bit disappointing as the whole book. The Pale King on the other hand is altogether a different book. Not only the versatile writing, the in-depth knowledge on the topics such as IRS, the description and build of various characters and their personalities, the tedious routine […]

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BOOK REVIEW: The Color of Water in July by Nora Caroll

BOOK REVIEW: The Color of Water in July by Nora Caroll

Posted September 10, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 4 Comments

I did not remember how I stumble upon Nora Caroll’s The Color of Water in July. I think it was featuring in the kindle application which I had downloaded recently. But I clearly remember reading it. The smooth and calm beginning. Some might consider it under the genre Romance, but I think it will be a fit under Historical Fiction. The story is about Jess, a young woman who returns to a place where she spent the summers of her youth. She finds herself remembering her childhood memories and along with them a twisted and knitted family secret that changes everything, including her own self. The narration is quite exquisite and as the story progress the reader will understand and […]

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BOOK REVIEW: War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

BOOK REVIEW: War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Posted September 4, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, classics, Reviews / 11 Comments

You can go on reading books after books for fifteen days or you can read Tolstoy’s undoubtedly masterpiece: War and Peace. How was it, you ask? Easier than I expected. Choosing the right translation plays a major role when you are reading books written in languages you are not familiar of.  We will talk about that more, later. Saying that I haven’t read Tolstoy before will be an understatement since I remember my failed attempts with Anna Karenina, twice I think. The Confession is a petite novella and is lying on my shelf just like that for months. Not a single attempt-to-read yet. War and Peace is humongous. Lots of characters introduced in first few chapters will seek you attention. […]

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BOOK REVIEW: Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

BOOK REVIEW: Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Posted August 14, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, classics, Reviews / 16 Comments

Notes From Underground is not doubt one of the most challenging books I have read in years. It needs a reader’s attention from the page one and till the last page. It must be read when you aware that you are conscious and you are reading the book. This book needs time absorb in a reader’s intellect. It has the power of to kick you in your guts straightaway from the first line of the book. The narrator introduces himself as a man who lives underground and refers to himself as a ‘spiteful’ person whose every act is dictated by his spitefulness. Many people would say that Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novella marks the beginning of the modernist movement in literature. Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Franz […]

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BOOK REVIEW: Tooth And Nail by Ian Rankin

BOOK REVIEW: Tooth And Nail by Ian Rankin

Posted August 8, 2015 by @amanhimself in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

Tooth and Nail is the third novel by Ian Rankin featuring Inspector John Rebus. Rebus is sent to London to help detectives hunt a serial killer dubbed the Wolfman by the press. In the previous year, in some reviews and an essay on John Rebus, I have talked about Rebus a lot. My love and hate relationship with him and his actions and why he is to be considered as one of the most proficient detectives written in the contemporary world. Rebus arrives in London just as news of a new victim of the serial killer begins broadcasting over the news. Rebus goes directly to the scene of the crime and is shocked to see the brutality first hand of a case […]

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