Tag: Book Review

2023 – I am stuck in a book, be back soon!

One of the favorite parts of the year are here. The Christmas lights are twinkling. There is magic in the air. I get to go back and revel in the books that have made it so. Some books evoke a feeling, and trying to capture that is a joy in itself.

Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year of reading, a year of writing, is to discover a secret map of the mind, revealing the landscape of living — after all, how we spend our thoughts is how we spend our lives.

– Maria Popova – TheMarginalian

This year, I get the strange sense of being in a floating Universe. I seem to have whizzed past centuries reading things in the past, zoomed and ducked out of alternate worlds with all the science fiction and fantasy adventures, while being thoroughly grounded in making sense of today’s world with its AI, and its technological advances.

I get the familiar sense of time slipping through the sieve with extra large holes once again, but then, will it always be like this? I hope so, for in its speed lies its charm.

Here are some of the notable ones – I find the neat classifications all being thrown out – every year, I seem to have a different classification system and therein lies the charm. Nothing is immutable and all that.

the_world_playground

I also see that I have dozens of unfinished posts for some of these books that have never made it to the blog. Oh well! I need to take inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson I suppose.

“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

Peek back into time:

The World Around Us:

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” ― René Descartes

    Non-Fiction:

    Beautiful & Informative:

    • Nanoscale – visualising an invisible world – Kenneth  S Deffeyes, Stephen E Deffeyes
    • Atlas of the Invisible – James Cheshire & Oliver Uberti
    • A celebration of Beatrix Potter : art and letters by more than 30 of today’s favorite children’s book illustrators
    • In the woods / David Elliott ; illustrated by Rob Dunlavey

    Alternate Worlds/ Science Fiction/Magic:

    Tech Tech:

    Inspirations:

    Books that ought to be classified as warm cups of tea 🙂

    • News from Thrush Green – Miss Read
    • The White Lady – by Jacqueline Winspear
    • Much Obliged Jeeves – P G Wodehouse
    • A Song of Comfortable Chairs – Alexander McCall Smith
    • What would Maisie Do? – Jacqueline Winspear

    “Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.” ― Louisa May Alcott

      Children’s Books – my favorite category (just mentioning a few since I don’t keep note of all the titles)

      I hope 2024 continues to be as varied and inspirational in its moments of magic and learning for all of us! I shall put in a comment the complete list of books. I only put in a few in the post here.

      “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

      Dr. Seuss 

      Happy Reading!

      reading_in_a_tree

      Wolf Hall

      One would think that panels of judges are folks with a serious outlook on life. They may be with or without glasses, but all of them with formidable stares. So, to be entrusted with a task as serious as deciding the best book of the year is no mean task.

      I do not think that a senior Assistant Commissioner of Police would burst a balloon under your chair and laugh heartily over your dilemma for example.  In the same vein, I expected an excellent book to win the Booker every year. It is not as if there is a dearth of books.

      Yet, I cannot help thinking that the 2010 panel of judges for the Booker Prize were a fun-loving lot. They seemed to think that having had to read Wolf Hall themselves, why not inflict the same on the rest of the world? The judges idea of a practical joke. I sound harsh, but there are very few books I have left mid way through. I love reading and any author who has spent many hours coming up with something readable, I laud them. Pretty broad-minded what? This broad minded view, however, I was forced to shelve with Wolf Hall.

      At first, I thought I was not concentrating and rapped myself hard on the knuckles and sat down to study. I studiously went back to get the characters names and their relationship to one another. One time, I was thoroughly piqued to find that the character, who had hitherto been mentioned somewhere along with the many Annes and Liz-es, was a member of the domestic staff in either the protagonist’s sister’s family or the king’s lover’s family, and had no relevance to the plot whatsoever.

      I suppose some folks call it style – as for me, I call it bad writing. I look to fiction with a view to enjoying my time. If, while doing so, I also pick up a thing or two about History and the Medieval Ages, I am all for it. But 65% of the book later, if I am still struggling to find the plot, I question the existence of one.

      Sometimes I would be bounding along thinking Thomas is saying something and he also did this, only to realise that midway through the sentence, the “he” had shifted to the Cardinal, who due to unforeseen circumstances (beyond the control of the writer) was unable to actually be among those physically present. A fair bit of dialogue happens in one’s imagination – the protaganist’s imagination I mean.

      I am all for imagination, and actually thought I had to come up with the rest of the story by myself. After the first chapter, the book failed to grip and once it had lost its hold on me, it continued on its path, and I on my own, only to find myself drooling on the story.

      There is one sequel I will not be reading.