Reading on a Rainy Day

The Sunday Salon: Summer Reading Plans (and scrapping the current quarter project)

2012-05-26T23:07:00.000-04:00

I wasn't planning to do one of these, but since everyone else is posting their summer reading lists, I couldn't resist. Blame it on peer pressure.

Couple of months back, I planned to spend the second quarter reading science fiction and dystopian titles. And while I did read a few books from that category (Divergent, Battle Royale, Fahrenheit 451, The Knife of Never Letting Go, currently reading Unwind), I didn't quite get to as many as I had hoped to read. But mostly, none of the books I read so far have wowed me - they all fell far short of expectations. I will probably continue with more science fiction books (I still have Insurgent to read and maybe continue with the Chaos Walking series), but they may not exactly be on top of my pile. For now, I'm looking for something else to focus on.

I know that whenever I make a reading list, I never get to most of the books on that list. Reading lists, to me, are for ogling pleasure. I have no doubt, that history will repeat yet again, but lists are so much fun to make that I don't mind enjoying the whole process and patting myself for coming up with a final result. So rather than make a traditional list, I'm going for more of a project list. Moreover, summer hours are starting in a month, and I'm looking forward to using some of those weekends for reading whole chunks.

NetGalley

One of the first things I want to do is clean up my NetGalley list. I suffer from the out-of-sight-out-of-mind syndrome, so half the time I forget there are a bunch of egalleys waiting to be read. Last I checked, many have expired, but luckily, I usually download the galley files soon as I get the approval notification from NetGalley. Right now I have 12 ebooks waiting to be read or declined, and while I know that some of those don't appeal to me anymore, I know there are many there that I do want to read. I've decided not to request more titles from them until I clear off the pending ones (Ha, right!). In case, you are interested, these are some of the titles I'm looking forward to reading

A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama
Between Gears by Natalie Nourigat
The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel
Smuggled by Christina Shea
White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

I do realize that some of them are past the galley stage and on to the bookstore shelves stage. :)

Personal Library

There are quite a few books on my shelves that I keep glancing at every other minute, wondering when to get to them. I only read one book this year that was already on my shelf - all other books were acquired or borrowed. I don't want to ever reach a stage where I've read 90% of the books I own - I like knowing that I will always have plenty of options to choose from on a blizzard-like evening or in an apocalyptic/zombie/non-'Fahrenheit 451' world. But for now, these are the books I hope to get to this summer:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I'm really wondering what the whole deal over this writer is...)
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (And this writer...)
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (And this book...)

Chunksters

I haven't read a chunkster that wasn't fast-paced or a thriller in a long time. Mostly because I usually read in sporadic bursts, which are not suited to reading books like War and Peace or Ulysses. Not that either are on my bucket list. Just saying. Last year, I tried to read Shantaram during a readalong I hosted. That became an epic failure for many reasons. (I love readalongs! I just don't seem to be reading along.) I'm still reeling from that knowledge but that doesn't stop me from choosing the Big Read for this summer.

One of my top choices is Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, which although huge, may still fall in the fast-paced category. Maybe.
It's more likely though that I will read A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. That ought to be challenging - last I checked the book, I saw plenty of verse in there that pretty much scared me.
My third option is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace that I am adding here just for jest.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - the saga-esque book that's been on my wishlist for ever!
And the much popular A Game of Thrones by George Martin.

I was also thinking of reading a book or two from my PIE list. My personal goal is to read five books from the PIE list every year. I've already read four so far (The Yellow Wallpaper, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Fahrenheit 451, The Knife of Never Letting Go) and I'm going through the fifth one right now (Unwind), so looks like for the first time in three years I'll actually complete one of my personal goals. I've also been itching to reread some of my old favorites (To Kill a Mockingbird, A Christmas Carol, Harry Potter), but the Fall season seems to be the season for rereads. So for now, this is my summer reading list.

Intl Giveaway - Make It Stay (Joan Frank)

2012-05-23T21:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I raved about Make it Stay and today, I'm thrilled to say that I have ONE copy of this book to give away, courtesy of the publisher and TLC Book Tours. I strongly recommend this book to all readers of literary fiction. To enter, simply fill the form below.

The usual stuff:

You don't have to be a follower of my blog to enter the giveaway.
You must be over 13 years of age.
International giveaway - (which means you can be from anywhere on Planet Earth)
The giveaway will stay open until I chose the winner on May 29, 2012.
Fill the form.

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Make it Stay by Joan Frank

2012-05-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

I remember Neil made a show of checking his watch that day; then, facing me as if I were a point-blank gun barrel, shouted his invitation to lunch. The whole staff turned to stare. He must've thought I couldn't hear with my earphones in. Poor fellow blushed so hard I thought his head might pop off.

Neil and Rachel (aka Rae) met and got married when Rae was in her forties - much later than is considered the "normal" age for first marriages. Rae is a writer, an introvert who preferred to stay home in her PJs than meet people. Neil was more outgoing, loved cooking and hosted dinners often for their friends and acquaintances. Into this marriage, Neil brings the baggage of his long friendship with Mike, the owner of an aquarium business in downtown, and the complicated relationship between Mike and his wife, Tilda. At the moment however, something terrible had already happened, involving Mike and Tilda - something hinted at a lot, while Neil preps dinner for a gathering they were going to host soon.

I was pulled into this book mainly because of its blurb, which mentioned something of a dinner involving friends, and built a lot of anticipation over that dinner. The blurb also indicated "a mysterious catastrophe" that "propels all five individuals into uncharted realities". While that's somewhat true, the blurb in itself is heavily misleading - because the dinner in question is really nothing more than a prop for Neil to narrate a story. The crux of the plot happens before and after the dinner. I also didn't find the fifth person (Mike/Tilda's daughter Addie) to be very important to the plot. I don't typically read blurbs, except when checking out review books (so that I can gauge my interest) and the summary that I read of this book felt erroneous to me.

That said, in this one case, I was lucky that the book in itself was very engaging. Although Make it Stay is very short - just 164 pages - it packs a wallop right from the moment Neil and Rae settle down to prepare dinner for friends, until the end, when the fortunes of the characters are presented. Rae urges Neil to tell her the whole story of Mike and Tilda, and through Neil's eyes, we begin to see this dynamic couple that appeared more mismatched than made in heaven.

Mike and Tilda were heavily flawed characters, and that made them all the more believable. Mike had a very Santa Claus'-ish personality - very helpful, a huge HA! that either cracked everyone up or scared them out of their wits. He loved fishes and had an impressive collection of aquatic life swimming away in the aquariums in his shop. He was however a womanizer - a fact that Tilda suspected for very long. Tilda, on the other hand, oozed an air of indifference at all times. She was on booze and cigarettes most of the time, and reeking of bad breath as well. One night, someone commits a horrendous act that forever damages Mike - an act that Rae suspects Tilda to be guilty of, but there are no proofs. This tragedy has several long-lasting repercussions on Mike, Tilda, Neil and Rae, and while it is the turning point of the book, I wouldn't be quick to say that it was the pivotal event.

I enjoyed this book far more than I was expecting to. The underlying theme was that of friendship and how it is affected post-marriage. To any marriage, both members bring in their own friendships - some survive, some don't. Both members wish that their other half will love their friends as much as they do. Neil was always under the impression that Rae didn't care for Mike, who happens to be one of the most important people in Neil's life. Rae defends herself by saying that she prefers books to people. Rae happens to be the narrator, and in most books, the narrator is who I identify with. However, in this case, I really disliked Rae (in fact, more than Mike and Tilda). I found Rae too prejudiced and slightly racist. She was quick to bundle up people into their cultural identities, even going so far as to decorate Tilda as bisexual simply because Tilda preferred to dress in men's clothes, and calling Mike a 200-pound infant for reasons I don't want to mention here, but which I found incredibly bad in taste.

Although the (faulty) synopsis cites the phrase 'love stories', I would rather say that this book is more about a beautiful friendship that defined many of the characters in the book. I did find myself wishing that we got more of Rae's story. I found it hard to believe that only Mike/Tilda were the primary people in their lives - surely Rae had people important to her too? But the character development in this book is truly fascinating and well-done. Except for Addie, none of the characters appeared flat to me.

Although this is a small book, I took a long time getting through the first half. The writing was a lot more involved than I expected, but it was still very beautiful. I got the impression that Joan Frank didn't carelessly wield words to form the book, but rather carefully stitched them together to produce this beautiful story. I also loved the themes explored in this book - the role of friendship and marriage, the question of whether to like or hate a person who is guilty of immoral acts but is the most wonderful person otherwise. As Neil says,

When you've known someone that long, after a point it can't matter anymore how crazy they are.

I received this book for free for review from the publisher via TLC Book Tours.

Yet another Monday! (May 21, 2012)

2012-05-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

Sheila @ Book Journey wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige!

A month and a half since the last time I did this, I hate to admit that I have done very little reading in the meantime. A lot of things happened, and a lot of reading just didn't happen. One of those seasonal ruts, I could say. At the moment, I'm going through a few good books so that's always good.

One of the books I'm reading right now is Joan Frank's Make it Stay. The author is new to me and the book is really short. (Short books are really deceptive - they usually take twice as long to read as a bigger book.) The events in the book are supposed to be set within the span of an evening - and a lot of surprising revelations involving 5 people are expected to be made. I find myself drawn a lot to books like these - by the time you are done, you feel like you've read a saga, but in fact, you've only sat through a day or night in the lives of the characters. (On a side note, I didn't notice until now that it's broken glass on the cover!)

Which pages were turned...

I'm also reading Neal Shusterman's Unwind, and can I just say how glad I am that I finally got to this book?

These are the abysmal number of books I finished in the last month:
  Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

...And other news
Review: Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney
Review: Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Review: I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
Review: Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The New Kid on the Block

Happy reading!

The Sunday Salon: Some reading and some petting

2012-05-20T08:30:00.001-04:00

It's been ages since I did the last Salon post and I feel pretty clueless around here for a change. I've been up since two hours ago and the hour hand is only just slowly making its way to the 8 o'clock mark. Dogs and their early morning urges! It's been two weeks since we got Rue, and it's been a lot of revelations, learnings, changes, fun, and anxiety since then. The first week was all lovey-dovey. We loved the dog, she loved us. It was all a big happy family. We were pretty relieved that Rue was turning out to be low maintenance. As with things like these, once the honeymoon ended, the nightmares started. One day I came home to see that she had pretty much upended the recycle bin and started chewing on bottles and cans and strewn the litter in the hall. The neatofreak in me had a terrible panic attack. That same evening she ran out of the house (to do her business) but she didn't return back when I called her. Anyways, the point is, we found she has separation anxiety and I have seen pretty much all the symptoms in her - she follows me around all the time, she hates sitting alone, she jumps over-excitedly when I return from work, she chews crazily, she barks madly, etc. Did I really say low maintenance?

Still, she's already become such a core part of our home that I don't remember much about how things "used to be". I'm just hoping that we can get her to reduce her barking (I sit terrified every day that some neighbor will go and complain. *fingers crossed*) Right now, she barks at every Tom, Dick, Mary and their dog. Drives me mad!

Dog tales aside, my reading is slowly picking up. Or rather, I'm making it pick up. I doubt I'll ever get back to the 'plenty of time to read and blog' kind-of life, so I might as well make the time to do either when I can, which means warming up more to ebooks. Audiobooks have never worked for me, so I doubt I'll rush over to pick them. I'd rather spend my eyes-occupied time listening to podcasts or Lady Antebellum. Last night, I finished the first book of Patrick Ness' wildly popular Chaos Trilogy series - The Knife of Never Letting Go, which has left me with mixed feelings. I plan to read the next book in the series sometime later, after I'm done with the other two reads I started yesterday - Make It Stay for a book tour and Neal Shusterman's Unwind for serendipity. Both are going great, although I'm able to get through the former only in sprints.

At the moment, I'm looking forward to a lazy Sunday and plenty of reading, and some barking frenzy during Rue's training class that we have today.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

2012-05-17T22:44:00.000-04:00

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caeser's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, "Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal." Most of us can't rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book.

Guy Montag is a fireman. Not a fireman that put out fires and rescued people from crumbling rubble, but a fireman who burnt books and even people who chose to be burnt with their books. That's what their system dictated. That's how things have been for as long as he could remember. He's never questioned the system or entertained any curiosity towards books and their contents. That is, until a sixteen-year old girl stops him one day and asks him a lot of questions that are beyond him. These questions make him both curious and angry because he never thought about them before but he didn't want to feel cornered by her questioning either. But then a few days later, he never sees her again and something he does as part of his job (something he has done for many years) makes him pause and question the status quo, thus opening a can of worms.

Fahrenheit 451 is yet another book that a lot of people have read in school but I am only now reading it for the first time. And just like many books that are read by the younger population (Brave New World, Animal Farm, Fountainhead), I wonder if perhaps I might have identified with it more then.

I've always wanted to read this book, because one of the commonest references to this book that I come across is the idea that - if you could save a book, which would it be? There are plenty of challenges around this question and plenty of bookish games as well. The last 40 or so pages of the book are what addresses this question, and when I reached that point, I tweeted this:

And that's exactly what I still feel. Not that the ending was eye-popping-worthy or shocking. It was just impressive and satisfying. It oozed a feeling of respite coming a world that was bent on destroying books. There are plenty of passages that condemn books and even more that indicate the ignorance of the people who question the value of books. Unlike in the other "utopian" societies I have read about, Fahrenheit 451 didn't arrive at its bookless state through the evil State's draconian laws or after some insensible war. People slowly stopped being interested in reading, and began entertaining themselves in front of the television. When the State saw that people were happier without books, they decided to ban reading completely and that's where the definition of firemen changed. Even to firemen in the present world of Fahrenheit 451, the idea of stopping fires is laughable.

Although I enjoyed the concept of the book, and would definitely recommend it to any one, I had issues with the preaching and the stream-of-consciousness flowing through most of the book. Those two aspects sorely reminded me of Brave New World, and while I get the need for the authors to preach to get the point across, I guess I can simply not stand any form of forceful advising. I could also see how the stream-of-consciousness was necessary since Montag gets a shock of awakening and all he could think of was why some people protected books. But his transition from the I-don't-really-care to the Books-are-important felt way too abrupt and unconvincing to me. And that's the other reason why the narration bugged me initially.

Oh, and what's up with all those horrible metaphors that made me cringe terribly?

Her face was fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it.

Eh what?

There were quite a few like that which didn't make for pleasant reading. Despite the issues I had with this book, I do feel that it is one that people should read. Honestly, I don't think such a world would ever come to pass, but I liked the concepts that were explored in this one, even if the book felt poorly executed.

I borrowed this book from the library

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

2012-05-15T21:28:00.000-04:00

When he took a drag his cheeks appeared to cave in. He had become very thin and it seemed to Lee that his father no longer resembled a human being. He was a pipe attached to a head with stick arms and legs. Or he was an inanimate object, a piece of knobbed wood, a walking stick or polished figurine.

Right from the moment Trish mentioned about Narcopolis via the TLC Book Tours, I was hooked. I loved how well the title covers the essence of the book - this truly is about the city of O: about Bombay whose underbelly bore witness to the reign of opium and heroin, and also about the drugs themselves as a metaphorical city. I also loved that this was set in India, but the writing hasn't been "Americanized" so much so that an Indian like me may find it hard to relate to. And on top of it, I was looking forward to reading about this subject matter - about the drug-obsessed sector of Bombay, that I had not yet had a chance to read or learn about, other than always hearing vague hints of how it's all there but not really seeing some concrete proof.

Narcopolis is all about the infatuation with drugs and the lives of the few people whose main occupation involves dealing with them. The setting is 1970s Bombay when the narrator first arrived in the city and becomes drawn towards the drug-induced stupor of the underworld and the slums. Through his eyes, we meet the other characters - Dimple, a eunuch who makes pipes in the opium den; Rashid, the owner of the den; Xavier, a controversial painter whose ideas are not always welcomed; Mr. Lee, a Chinese refugee who takes to Dimple almost as if she were his daughter, and many others. Most of these characters worshiped opium, with some of them staying high all day.

Narcopolis was a strange kind of book, and I mean strange in a good way. It was unconventional, it was different, and it was just as stimulating and entrancing as the characters found themselves to be in after smoking opium. And that is this book's strength. The author was not afraid of taking a path that I haven't seen tread that often. For instance, he describes in many places the experience of smoking opium so well that I almost felt as if I was doing it, even though I don't know anything about what taking drugs feels like. Although he never glorified it in the sense that he was coaxing the reader to try it, he didn't try to mince the descriptions or honey out the language to make it feel less overwhelming or inauthentic.

The setting of this book is a time period well understood to be the time when the hippie movement was in full swing, drugs were the in thing and there were plenty of opium and heroin dens with business booming. Narcopolis is set against that backdrop with the narrator's voice and the actions of the other characters nicely evoked that culture. Thayil's writing is also stellar. It has a poetic and lyrical feel that went very well with the type of story he was trying to say.

At the same time, Narcopolis isn't all dreamy and drowsy and poetry. Since it is set in slums and the red light streets and poverty-ridden areas, the unclean aspects of human lives are also well explored. It is quite fascinating going from the dreamy world of drugs and springing down hard on the messy unappealing real world, but Jeet Thayil makes that transition feel very natural. The vast number of characters all add their idiosyncrasies to the story line - that is shared between them, as each battle their personal demons and troubles with opium being the book's primary character.

I took way too long to read this one. My review was supposed to have come up last month, but first the book arrived here only a few days before the review date and then Rue arrived and messed up every definition of normalcy that I ever had, but whenever I got the time to read the book, I found myself totally hooked by it - right from the 6-page single-sentence prologue all the way to the end.

I received this book for free for review from the publisher via TLC Book Tours.

The Sunday Salon: The New Kid on the Block

2012-05-06T11:14:00.001-04:00

Early last week, a new flyer had come up in the neighborhood. Lynchburg Humane Society was holding a pet fair in our community. The husband had been after me for quite some time to get a dog but I, being the crazy neat freak that I am, held back. But the flyer was too difficult to dismiss. Yesterday morning, we headed over to the clubhouse, met a few adorable four-legged friends and went home wishing to buy one but still terrified of taking that first step (we both have never had pets).

After an hour of browsing online through the list of pets waiting for a home, we both just quickly piled into our car without thinking too much and headed to meet the three dogs that we shortlisted. They were all lab/retriever mixes, but after seeing one of them jump sky-high (and not really come to us when we went to meet her personally), we decided to go to a smaller dog.

Enter Rue, a lovely adorable beautiful year-and-a-half old Jack Russell mix. We both fell in love with her right away and loved how responsive and energetic she was. We were told she doesn't bark much, or chew things, and that she was great with people and kids. We bought her on the spot and took her to PetSmart to do some mega-shopping for her. Being two absolutely clueless new pet-owners, we were completely following our store-helper and buying the things she preferred for her pet. (She was totally awesome!) But Rue was totally going haywire and barking mad at every other four-legged friend or enemy she was coming across. She needs to work on that. The funny thing was when Rue's roommate from the shelter strolled in (the roommate was also just picked yesterday) and the two dogs went mad with happiness.

Her Jack Russell blood sends her crazy when we are outdoors. Right now, we are literally running after her. I am working on slowing her down somewhat and running along with me when I go for my morning jog, but that's going to take some time. She hates her food. She hates her harness. She loves the wind whipping against her face. She sits quietly at home, following us around though. We are not sure if she went through anything abusive in the past (her file doesn't seem to indicate that), but the two moves she made in the past two weeks probably scared her enough that she doesn't like to be left alone. She's also terribly underweight, so we are working on fattening her up somewhat.

After one day with her, we are both still madly in love with her. We were worried we may find she won't take to us, or we may struggle with her, but so far, everything has been smooth. I barely slept last night out of all the excitement and I kept looking at her bed. Since she is generally quieter at home, my reading doesn't look like it will be affected, though over the next few weeks, we will all be learning about each other and figuring out our routines. Can you just say how excited I sound? :-)

I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

2012-05-02T22:40:00.000-04:00

"We're playing Scrabble. It's a nightmare."

"Scrabble?" He sounds surprised. "Scrabble's great."

"Not when you're playing with a family of geniuses, it's not. They all put words like 'iridiums'. And I put 'pig'."

Poppy Wyatt seems to have everything going in her favor - she is about to marry the ideal man - successful Magnus Tavish whose parents are even more successful university professors. But on the very day Magnus' parents are visiting, Poppy loses her engagement ring, which is also a family heirloom. On top of it, she also lost her phone and while she anxiously tries to ponder missing the one message saying her ring has been found, she finds another phone in the bin. Happy to find a functional discarded phone, she quickly tells everyone to text/call her at this number, only to get a call from someone named Sam Roxton asking for the phone back since it belongs to his company.

Sophie Kinsella has done it again. She made me laugh from the first page without making me roll my eyes or feel ridiculous or cry 'cheesy'. I stopped reading light women fiction years ago, but Kinsella is the only author that I still happily read, knowing she won't disappoint me.

I've Got My Number rolls along standard Kinsella lines - the plot is pretty much predictable, the protagonist has low self-esteem, there is a hot guy who we know she will end up with but she is totally clueless about the guy, the guy is some high flying corporate guy with plenty of influence and moolah, things go wrong and then wronger and then even wronger than possible from the first page, there are plenty of laughs and deja-vu moments, and most significantly, the central character knows how to stand on her feet when it matters.

That pretty much sums up any Sophie Kinsella book, and while I typically hate formulaic plots and predictability, there is just something about these books that make me enjoy them more than feel pulled away. As JoV says in her review, "Kinsella is a keen observer of contemporary popular culture." I thought this was very true, because I find her novels set well in environments that I can relate to, and not something that feels more of a historic before-my-days past.

I enjoyed the addition of technology in this book - it was fun reading all the texting that went on and on between Poppy and Sam. Poppy's overuse of X's and O's made me snort - I have a few friends who speak mostly in X's and O's and that annoys me, ha! True, some of the events that happen were a little too convenient, but I knew what I was getting into, so that was fine with me. I didn't really like where Magnus' character ended up - I thought that could have been done better, and the introduction of a corporate scandal towards the end kind of sprung up on me, but otherwise, I've Got Your Number was a truly delightful read.

I received this ebook for free for review from the publisher via NetGalley.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

2012-04-29T00:00:00.000-04:00

And this is how it started. Just with coffee and the exchange of their long stories. Love can be incremental. Predicaments, too. Coffee can start a life just as it can start a day. This was the meeting of two people who were destined to love from before they were born, from before they made choices that would complicate their lives. This love just rolled toward my mother as though she were standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Mother had no hand in this, only heart.

Dana Yarboro always knew she was the other daughter and her mother the other woman. Her father, James Witherspoon already had a wife when he started an affair with Gwen and had Dana with her. Soon after though, his wife also gets pregnant with Chaurisse. Dana and her mother knew about James' real family. But Chaurisse and her mother were entirely in the dark. The knowledge of where they stand in the familial tree however is not without its repercussions. Dana is barred by her father from going to the same place as Chaurisse and she rarely ever gets a gift that was meant only for her. At some point, however, the two worlds begin to interfere when Dana and Chaurisse befriend each other. It's not long before the secrets start coming out in the open.

Ever since Tayari Jones' Silver Sparrow was released last year, I'd been meaning to read it. I loved the way the book started ("My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist"), with intrigue and promise, but my library's copy was forever in the waiting list. So it was relieving to see this title on the Indie Lit Awards nominations and then soon come as the winner. Although I didn't find this book without faults, I did enjoy the read a great deal.

Although for the most part, one could write the above story along predictable lines, Silver Sparrow was anything but conventional. Told in two narratives, in the first half, we follow Dana as she reveals her dislike for Chaurisse, even though they have barely met yet, simply because she is always the second one. Rather than interleaving between the two narratives, we hear the first half of the story from Dana's perspective and the second half from Chaurisse's. I found this a very interesting literary device, because there are a few things that appear to be unresolved, and when I approached the end, I felt extra eager to know what Dana was thinking the whole time. But seeing the story from the two different non-interleaving perspectives meant that as a reader, I didn't side with one character just because the author chose that character as the pivot.

Jones has created some really strong characters in Silver Sparrow. On the one hand, there is Dana, who wants her father to notice her and acknowledge her. From a very young age, she knew where she stood - she understood that whether she could attend a school depended entirely on whether Chaurisse also wanted to go to the same place, in which case she couldn't go. At some point, she gets rebellious and that doesn't go down well with her parents either. Her mother makes every effort to protect Dana from the effect of growing up as a sort-of-illegitimate child - one whose father's identity is supposed to remain a secret in public. And then there's Chaurisse and her mother, totally unaware of James' other family but not any luckier for that knowledge.

I also loved that James, the father of the two girls, wasn't painted as a stereotypical bigamist. He was definitely a responsible man (except for the fact that bigamy isn't the act of a responsible man) and did his "best" to be involved in both families. He wasn't abusive or a drunk, like I see many of such characters portrayed in books. Gwen, Dana's mother was also a strong woman, who despite being involved with a man she cannot be seen out with made the best of the situation. I'm not sure that was the right choice (she had at least one opportunity to change things around but that didn't work), still she stayed a strong woman throughout.

I did mention earlier that this wasn't a perfect read for me, and that had mainly to do with the ending. The epilogue set about 10 (? I don't remember how far out it was) years in the future shows how the characters settled in the aftermath of the secrets tumbling out. For me that time frame seemed way too long for any of their actions to make sense to me. In addition, the characters' actions/beliefs didn't seem in sync with what I had pictured of them through the book, until that point.

Overall, I felt that Silver Sparrow totally deserved the honor of being the winner of the Indie Lit Awards. It was intricate, intriguing, fast-paced and holistic enough to be a serious contender as well. The themes it explored - access to and role of contraception (I totally missed out on this theme until nomadreader pointed it out during the discussions), father issues, insecurities arising out of the feeling of not being loved, and an unconventional bigamist relationship - were well conceived and made the book a wonderful read. This was also the first African American book I read that didn't have segregation as the central theme so it was also a wonderful change of flavor (although I do enjoy - a lot - books on the segregation too!)

I borrowed this book from the library.

Making random conversation

2012-04-17T19:03:00.001-04:00

It's been about a week since I blogged, and to be honest, I'm not sure I'm feeling inspired enough to post yet. It's one of those slow phases, you know, when neither reading nor blogging seems to rejuvenate me. Like softdrink, I figured it might just be better to make a stab at a return and then things should probably just look up. There's just been some crazy stuff going on, as always, and on top of that, work isn't slowing down either. I always knew things were going to heat up at the money-churning place this year, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

This year, I slowed down on the review copies I accepted (I haven't had an ARC turn up at my door in at least a month) and it feels really good. I guess part of the reason is because of how much more impulsive my reading has become that it feels nicer not to look at the calendar and mourn about all the books I haven't read. That said, I still have quite a few books I accepted earlier, which are yet to be read, and there are the NetGalley copies as well, which because I can't see them, seem to be absent from my memory as well. And worse, I have a tour date next week, but I haven't got the book yet (I fear it may have gone to my old address). I had been looking forward to reading this one so much that I'm hoping it will turn up somehow.

In the meantime, I have been picking up dystopian / apocalyptic / science fiction books that I had been meaning to read for months. Since I had hoped to read more of such books this second quarter, I have been looking for recommendations as well (sound one below if there's a particular one you liked). It's weird because just this morning I dreamt that I was in an apocalyptic world where people got infected by a strange something and that turned them purplish and murderous, and obviously yours truly was a heroine in the setting and trying to save the world from certain destruction. At some point I did wake up but I found the dream pretty fascinating and started to manufacture my own plot points for it. If only I didn't have to leave for work. Maybe I should write a book, capitalize on the whole dystopian craze, ya know?

Right now, I'm reading Fahrenheit 451, one of those classics that have some really thought-provoking stuff, but also some really crazy passages that are making me roll my eyes. What is it with half these scifi writers who preach too much and write terrible similes? Subtlety, folks, subtlety. Anyways, the concept of the book is making for fascinating reading, although I can't quite imagine such a world (where people just choose to stop reading? Really? Let's see what the news industry or the internet world have to say about that) but in 1953, it was definitely something you could easily imagine.

Some crazy stuff have happened while I was away though. Thu Pulitzers didn't choose a winner for Fiction and J.K. Rowling's releasing The Casual Vacancy this year (and generating too much nasty controversy, as only hype can.)

The return of the Blogger Recommends (March list)

2012-04-10T21:34:00.001-04:00

Every month, I bookmark some of the strongest book recommendations that I come across. Most are books I hear about for the first time, others are books I've previously not been interested in, but this particular blogger has managed to convince me otherwise. Then, I choose one title from the list to read that month.

My Top Five Finds

1. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is not a new-to-me title. When I first heard of it years ago, I was staying in India, where there are plenty of fast food chains, but I rarely ever went to one (there were always other better options pulling me). Fast forward many years, and I'm now staying in the US. Although I still don't haunt fast food places, and am very careful about what I order if I do end up at one (no chips or drinks for me please!), I know that I've been visiting these chains with far less abandon than before. So there - my motivation for being pulled into Marie's review of this book was because 1) her review is awesome, 2) it's time I read this one and 3) I want to scare myself away from these unhealthy places.

2. Having just finished a book by a Japanese author, I'm in mood for more. So when I came across JoV's review of The Devotion of Suspect X, I quickly checked for it at my library. Unfortunately, it's not there, so I'll just have to find some other way to get it. This Keigo Higashino book sounds to be quite a thriller where you already know the whodunnit. I can't say I'm pulled in my the comparison of this author to Stieg Larsson (see cover below), but I'm intrigued enough to want to try it.

3. The Iguana Tree by Michel Stone has an interesting story about illegal immigration. I had seen a few reviews around recently, but Kathy's review was the first I read about this book. Being quite a sensitive topic, I'm very intrigued by books on illegal immigration.

4. I'm not sure what I missed, but last month should probably be called John Green's month. Every blog I visited had a post on one of his books up, especially The Fault in our Stars. I know many who are still reading this one, but I may just wait for you all to forget about it, before I pick it up. Amidst that deluge, I came across Jill's review of An Abundance of Katherines, and I quite liked the premise of the book. I especially like this cover of the book.

5. Helen has been reading Chris Crutcher for quite awhile now and each time she raves about his books, I promise myself to read one of them. Unfortunately, I've never got to any yet. Last month she reviewed Deadline and that's another Crutcher I'm thinking of reading. I'm not much into sports, which is a predominant theme in his books, but I like the sound of the emotional and human side of his stories.

My choice

I'm actually not sure about which one I want to read, so it might be a matter of which one is most accessible to me right now. I do want to read Fast Food Nation, but I tend to take a long time reading through certain nonfiction books. I'm already very curious about John Green and Chris Crutcher, and then there's Suspect X, which is what I'm leaning towards the most, right now, but that's the least accessible one, of course! Iguana Tree's topic happens to be very intriguing. So maybe I'll sleep on this a bit or pick one based on mood.

Which one would you go for?

The Sunday Salon: Thoughts on the first quarter (and plans for the next)

2012-04-07T22:55:00.002-04:00

Considering how busy January was, and how much of February I spent on finding a balance between work, reading and blogging, I didn't really have a good first quarter - I just managed to read a month's worth in three months. The silver lining is that I did have a much better March but I'm hoping that there will be more books in the next few months. Here are the highlights:

Best Books of the Quarter

Other Reads
The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto
American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar
The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn
Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney
Cross Currents by John Shors
I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
Divergent by Veronica Roth
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde

On Reading Goals
Rather than plan challenges or reading projects for a whole year, this year, I decided to do something different - I decided to plan for a quarter. This helped because my interests change so quickly that I hate to be tied to something I decided several months ago. This past quarter, my plan was to read one short story a week. I started this in the fourth week of January, and since then have managed to stick to the goal more or less. These are the short stories I read:

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Loved)
Hell-Heaven by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Moment of Wrong Thinking by Lawrence Block
The Shawl by Louise Erdrich (Loved)
Bohemia by V.S. Naipaul
In the South by Salman Rushdie
A Village after Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro (Loved)
In the Bed Department by Anne Enright
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (Loved)

My Reading in Numbers
Male authors (short stories included): 9
Female authors (short stories included): 12
New-to-me authors (short stories included): 18 / 21 (really?)
Number of pages: 3648
eBooks: 5 / 12
Review copies: 8 / 12
Personal Collection: 2 /12
Library: 2 / 12

Plans for the next quarter
- I plan to keep reading more short stories in the next quarter (I'm really enjoying standalone stories), but I won't be reviewing them as frequently, unless the story moved me so much that I want to discuss it. Or I may just do a single post with mini-reviews.

- I've been craving some science fiction / speculative fiction / dystopia lately. I have several books from these categories wishlisted and rather than shelve them for eternity, I'd love to spend the next few months exploring them.

- I hope to read at least one book from my PIE list, which I've neglected so far this year.

View Traveling with my books (2012) in a larger map

Dance Lessons by Áine Greaney

2012-04-05T18:55:00.004-04:00

Dutifully, the Boisverts traveled south to Boston for a wedding and a funeral service. But during or after either event, Donna has made no comment, no commiseration to her widowed daughter. In Donna's mind, the drive south to a city said what it needed to say.

The wife of a laid-off paper mill worker, Donna Boisvert believes that keeping busy is the best approach to life's surprises or heartaches.

Ellen's husband, Fintan, had just recently passed away, when she meets an old acquaintance from the past - someone who knew both Ellen and Fintan. In that one meeting, Ellen learns some new facts about her husband - such as the news that his mother is actually alive and kicking, and that Fintan was not an orphan as he had let her to believe. This discovery bothers Ellen enough to make her visit Gowna in Ireland and find out what caused Fintan to lie about his mother.

I have to say - when I first came across Dance Lessons (through the many nominations it received for the Indie Lit Awards, I wasn't intrigued at all. The cover, the title and the synopsis all repelled me, but knowing that it came from an independent press, a part of me thought there must be something else to this book that wasn't standing out at first glance. Once I finished it, I could see the merit in this book - it surprised me a lot (and the panel members, I should add) - in fact, I kept going between this and Silver Sparrow, when trying to decide the book I would rate first.

Here's the story I made up before reading the book (we all do that, right? Pretend we know where a story is going?) Ellen would go to Ireland, meet Fintan's mother, find something shocking, resolve the issues, find a local man, fall in love, and voila! Happy Ending! That isn't what happened. Some of it did, but there were enough non-conventional stuff in the book to allow me to enjoy it.

Ellen and Jo, Fintan's mother, are the main characters of the book, and even Fintan, who is already dead from the beginning, is fleshed out well through flashbacks and back-stories. Initially, I saw Fintan as a controlling man, who didn't much value his wife's opinions. But by the end, I really wanted him to be alive, because by then, a whole new side of him had emerged, one which even Ellen didn't know, and one which puts his character in a different light. Jo was a totally different case. She was an mean, inconsiderate old woman, who did make life difficult for a lot of people. Her relationship with Fintan was interesting and domineering and that set the tone for many things that happen later between them. While it could have been a one-dimensional relationship, I loved how the author took care to introduce Jo's own childhood story into the mix. That certainly put a lot of things into perspective, and left me thinking for a while on Jo's character arc. I won't say I said "A-ha!" because some of the actions confused me, but I guess that's how life is - there is a lot of ambiguity when you start thinking cause-and-effect.

The other characters however didn't feel that vivid, and I guess for me, this is where the book didn't do that well. I wished the narration had moved between a few more characters, rather than just Ellen and Jo, for the most part, because there were some characters who could have brought more to the story (based on their recollections).

This was another fast-paced book. (If there's one thing that all the Indie Lit Awards nominees share, it is their pacing.) There's also a good sense of community in this book, and a very strong feel of Irishness. I love books that evoke the culture of the setting, and I felt that this book definitely succeeded on that point. I also liked that the small-town sentiment wasn't dangled in front of me but rather subtly woven into the plot, so that it was more felt than seen.

I received this book for free from the publisher, to review for the Indie Lit Awards.

Yet another Monday! (Apr 2, 2012)

2012-04-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

Sheila @ Book Journey wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige!

What, it's April already?

Last Friday, I went to the Barnes and Noble store in town to do some lazy browsing and pick a book to "sample" while sipping yummylicious coffee at the adjoining Starbucks. Deep within the Science Fiction section, which I don't always visit, I found a single copy of Battle Royale hiding. Having heard more than enough about this book, and curious to see if it will intrigue me, I picked it up, intending to put it back after a couple of chapters. Well, let's just say that after a few chapters, I started scouring my email inbox to see if I had any Barnes and Noble coupon, because, there was no way I would be able to sleep that night while this book stayed in the bookstore. A quarter of my way in through this 600-page tome, and I'm still very intrigued to see how it will play out.

Which pages were turned...

I put Arcadia down ever since I started Battle Royale, but hopefully that's the next on my to-read list.
Short Story of the week - The Lottery (click for my review) by Shirley Jackson.

I finished only one book last week:
When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde

...And other news
Review: Cross Currents by John Shors
Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Happy reading!

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (Short Fiction review)

2012-03-31T10:13:00.002-04:00

With the Hunger Games hype that engulfed us last week, it was hard to avoid all the discussion of similar works that existed. Of the many titles that I came across, two stood out particularly - a short story called The Lottery and a Japanese novel (and movie) called Battle Royale (which I'm reading right now and just cannot put down). The novel will be fodder for another post, so for now, I just want to rave about the awesomeness that was The Lottery.

In contemporary America, villagers across the country are gathering on the 27th of June (and some a day earlier) for an annual event called the Lottery. Children, women, men, all come to the main square of their village or town, where the lottery master keeps a black box full of paper chips. One of these chips is marked has a special mark on it to identify the winner (the person who draws that chip). Not everyone draws however, but only the head of the family. Husbands are viewed as the head of their families/households, and if the husband is absent for some reason, a son above the age of sixteen will be the head. If there is no son, then the wife can be the family head, but of course, she is questioned publicly about whether she didn't have any son who met that criteria before they accepted her for the drawing. There is an air of excitement and nervousness and the general first impression is that of willful acceptance. The lottery begins, and it is then we begin to see some interesting reactions. The winner isn't too happy, but the others are giddy with relief and insistent on the following through with traditions.

Can I begin by saying just how much this story blew my mind? I had heard that it was awesome, and that when it was first published, there was such strong reaction to it - many of them negative of course. On a side note, it's fascinating how people then ridiculed the story and sent the author a lot of hate mail (stuff like this happens now too) but our first reaction is varying degrees of acceptance.

Anyways, like I said, I was totally blown away, even though I knew there was something evil going to happen in the story (which isn't revealed until the very end). But more than that, I loved how multidimensional the story is. The author leaves a lot of hints through the story, so that when I reached the end, I couldn't say that it sprung up on me. The evidence was there all along, but the kind of evidence you don't think twice about, but later makes you go - oh my god, how did I miss that?

But mostly, I loved the people characterizations. The beginning of the story almost gives the impression that this is a million dollar lottery. People were somewhat excited. But there was also an air of restraint - an indication that there is something wrong with this happy American picture - as if people wanted to be there and not be there as well. A few men talk about how the lottery is being canceled in a few towns, and the oldest man in this village scoffs at that, saying it's the young people to blame for that, and that the lottery is the best thing that ever happened. But when the lottery winner is revealed, the winner alone cries how unfair it is despite how participating that person was earlier.

And despite how much I sat expecting something crazy to happen, I was still shocked at the ending.

The short of it: Super short story - you guys just have to read it. And let me know if you didn't like it.

I read this story online on the Classic Short Stories.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

2012-03-28T22:27:00.000-04:00

"I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart," she says. "I am, however, rather annoyed that my Tara has left me to suffer you lot alone. I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister. Then at least she would be here to mock my appearance and claim to be the pretty one for a change. We have all lost our Tara, but I have lost a part of myself as well."

The Night Circus is not your usual circus. For one, it arrives without any kind of announcement or hype. One day it is not there, and the next day it suddenly is. On the other hand, it is open only at sunset, and closes at dawn. And thirdly, the tents are all black-and-white striped, and not the usual colorful ruckus you would expect to see in a circus. Against this mysterious setting are two young magicians, Celia and Marco, battling out a challenge made by their guardians, years ago. A battle that brings them closer, sends their imaginations wild with possibilities and may or may not end the way they expect it to.

There. That synopsis probably reveals nothing much about a book that everyone knows enough about and that went viral in the book world sometime last year. I wanted to review this book soon after I read it last year, but initially I blamed it on lack of time, then on a possibly vague recollection, and finally on the fact that it was shortlisted in the Indie Lit Awards. When I posted my brief thoughts on the books in the Fiction category of the awards, I mentioned that this was one of the books I enjoyed a lot, though I said Silver Sparrow was the best of the lot. However, if the Indie Lit Awards had a "Book I am Most Likely to Reread" award, The Night Circus would have been my incontestable choice. In fact, I had half a mind to start rereading it right now when I was writing this review, before I remembered that my copy was with my brother.

I'm not sure what it was about The Night Circus that I loved. I started reading it on the train at 7 am in the morning, when I was going to New York, planning to read a couple of pages and then nap a bit. But instead, I bought a cup of coffee and spent the next couple of days reading the book at all possible opportunities. I usually hate reading books about the circus, but this was more a book of magic than a book of circus tricks.

Celia, a magician by birth, and Marco, a magician by learning were bound by magic to battle out their skills until a clear winner emerged. Unfortunately, the two end up falling for each other, and as they find out, the challenge cannot be broken, nor was a future between them really possible. While part of the story followed their endeavors, another part followed a boy named Bailey in a different time period. Bailey wanted nothing more than to be a part of the circus. He befriends twins Poppet and Widget during his exploration of the circus, and while the friends have fun for as long as the circus is in town, there is something strange brewing - something that will need Bailey's intervention.

The Night Circus slips to and fro between the two time periods. It is necessary to be aware of the dates as you read - I know it has bothered some, but for some reason it didn't bother me in any way. I loved the characters that made up this book - there were so many of them with their own independent minds and thoughts, so much so that I did feel disappointed that some of them didn't have bigger roles. There were a few like the contortionist, Tsukiko, and the tarot reader, Isobel, who intrigued me enough to make me want for their own stories. Unfortunately, this is where the book failed - the characters become a pawn to the plot. In trying to the move the story to the conclusion, the characters that don't matter to the story anymore get sidelined.

When I finished reading this book, one of my first reactions amidst all the thrill and excitement and wonder, was disappointment that there was no explanation of the "theory of magic". For me, one of the pull of Harry Potter was the feeling that it was possible for a world like Hogwarts to exist, if someone developed a means to made a wand that can do spells. To me, that was the only impediment to a world of magic - such was the amount of details J.K. Rowling put into world-building. The Night Circus didn't do that. It was understood that there was magic, but not how. Marco spent a lot of time learning magic, but it was never revealed what he was learning. This disappointed me at first, because I like to look at the theory of anything. But later, I realized that it was all part of the mystery of the book. Even the characters didn't fully understand magic, but their every action echoed magic. In keeping with the theme of the book, some of the actions were deliberately and understandably skated superficially, as if mysterious.

My favorite aspect of the book had to do with the tents themselves. Each tent had something magical about it - there was a tent where the genuine illusionist made you see things, another tent where you got your future told (remarkably accurately), yet another one which was a maze, and another one which was made entirely of ice, and so on. Moreover, keeping with the mysterious setting of the book, even several plot elements of the book take on that air of suspense. This is one of those books you have to read twice if you want to solve all the mysteries within. You know, like one of those rereads, where you go "aha, so that's why she did so-and-so". I haven't read it twice, so I still have a few questions that I don't know the answers to yet. I just know that I will read it twice, soon as I see some breathing space in my review list and I get my hands on a copy.

That's been a long review, and I haven't even talked about the groupies, who wear a red scarf and keep track of where the circus is, each time!

I received this book for free for review from the publisher.

Cross Currents by John Shors

2012-03-26T22:58:00.002-04:00

"What do you know about shame? You walk around fixing roofs and toilets. You don't need to swallow your pride. I swallow mine. Every day. I peddle food, drinks, massages, and anything else I can think of. I clean up messes all day long. So I know about shame. It's with me like my shadow."

Lek and Sarai try to make ends meet, managing a small resort in Thailand's Ko Phi Phi island, but money is short, their buildings and surroundings need maintenance, and their children need to be put through school. In addition, one of their tenants, an American man named Patch, has already been staying at their resort for much longer than is allowed on a normal visa, making Sarai nervous. Patch, however, is trying to stay low after attacking a cop who had busted him when he was buying marijuana. His do-the-right-thing brother, Ryan is on his way to the island to convince Patch to turn himself to the authorities. Ryan, on the other hand, is having difficulties with his girlfriend, Brooke, who has also accompanied him to the island. While the individual characters battle out their personal problems, the readers (we) know that they are running on a timer - the 2004 tsunami is just round the corner.

As a personal policy, I never read books set against a recent catastrophe, like the Katrina hurricane, or the 9/11 or even school shootings, unless it is nonfiction or my memory of the event is vague at best. I find it difficult to get over the feeling that the tragic event is being exploited (it probably is not being, it's just too fresh in my mind to make me feel otherwise). But when John Shors offered me his book Cross Currents, I had to bend my own rule for two reasons - one, the tsunami wasn't the major player of the book. In fact, it could have been any tragedy, but the idea behind the story - how you go by your life and its issues and one day you wake up to see everything gone just like that, was very powerful. And second, the day the tsunami happened, I was sitting with my family on a beach in Chennai, where the water came up to half the beach and we were standing there absolutely riveted! Thank goodness there was no major damage!

Cross Currents started out wonderful. I read it first, sometime last year, but didn't get past the first few pages because I wasn't getting the time to read it. And then, I learned that it was nominated for the Indie Lit Awards. So I decided to wait until it was time to start reading the nominations. However, past that beautiful start, I couldn't find much that held me hooked to the book. I pretty much hate saying that because I had a lot of expectations out of this book, but it just didn't work for me.

None of the characters intrigued me. A few were likable, but I didn't feel like rooting for anyone. Ryan bugged me because of how dominating and stubborn he was, but when he began to get attracted to another woman in the second half of the book, and still expected his 'girlfriend' Brooke to be committed to him, I just about got annoyed with him. The other characters felt too do-goody to me to feel strongly about them.

The narrative didn't score too high with me either. Parts of it slogged for me, and I was anxious to get past that to see what would happen next. I also wasn't too impressed with how many times the characters kept mentioning about 'a good future', or '10 more days' or 'a few more weeks', but then I guess my knowledge of what was coming biased me against that. For me the main draw of the book was the fickleness of life. How you can sit and make plans to do a ton of things, and it only takes an instant for all that to be thrashed to rubble. How you can decorate and redecorate your house, and a tornado whips it to shards. How you can make plans to meet a long lost friend, and an accident makes that an impossibility. All through my reading of this book, that thought was heavily present, and it was very humbling to acknowledge it. With that in mind, I wished things didn't tie up so nicely in the end, because I would never have expected loose ends to get sorted out. But I guess, for closure, it has to be allowed.

Still, this was a really fast-paced book - the plot moved quickly too, and Shors' descriptive writing made me want to visit Thailand. The description of the deadly waves was also spot-on and vivid. I would have liked to see what happened next in the aftermath, but I appreciated the ending enough to formulate my own what-next and acknowledge the message of the book. I know I wasn't too moved by this book, but I definitely thought it was insightful and thought-provoking.

I received this book for free for review from the author.

Yet another Monday! (Mar 26 2012)

2012-03-25T22:09:00.001-04:00

Sheila @ Book Journey wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige!

It's been a month since I posted this meme!

Right now, I am going through two books. I started Arcadia a couple of days ago, and since then I have come across the book a few times already in other blogs. They have been mostly raving, so I'm eager to see where this goes for me. Though, I should admit that I started it at the wrong time - when I was going to sleep, and Arcadia isn't a book you should start at such times unless you do want to be put to sleep.

Which pages were turned...

I'm also reading Catherine Ryan Hyde's When I Found You. I've been eager to read this one for a while, because the synopsis about an abandoned baby and the man who found the baby in the woods sounded interesting.
Short Story of the week - In the Bed Department (click for my review) by Anne Enright.

Since the last update, these are the books I read:
  Dance Lessons by Áine Greaney
  Cross Currents by John Shors
  I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
  The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu
  Divergent by Veronica Roth
  My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

...And other news
Short Fiction: A Village After Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro
Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Short Fiction: In the South by Salman Rushdie
Review: First You Try Everything by Jane McCafferty
Review: The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn
  Post hunger games mania
  Indie Lit Awards winners
  A long month of books and TV

Happy reading!

The Sunday Salon: Post Hunger Games mania

2012-03-25T12:21:00.000-04:00

Hello Sunday Saloners! After months of teasing, The Hunger Games movie finally arrived at the screens. Did any of you get to watch it yet? The husband and I went for the Friday night premiere, and watched it with hordes of teens and a few adults here and there. I guess I was more excited at this premiere than I was at the premiere of the last Harry Potter movie, because understandably this is just the beginning of a new franchise, whereas the eighth Harry Potter movie was the setting to say the final goodbye!

The Hunger Games movie was so much better than I expected it to be. It was a good thing that I had read the book about 3 years ago and not in the recent past. From experience, I know that can ruin the movie for me, because I am such a stickler for details and I hate to see something from the book missing or some details changed. So, when I walked into the theater, only the main essence of the book and its pivotal elements were what I was looking for.

I was glad that the director stayed (mostly) true to the book. Yeah, he did do some of that artistic license thing that tends to bug me - I sensed a few changes, a few additions, a few sore missing points. But I have to admit that the movie Katniss was much less grating that the book Katniss, probably because we are not in her head. I'm curious to see how they'll address that in the third movie though. I did however love that the movie shows some of the extra stuff - how Haymitch manages to find sponsors for Katniss, what is happening with President Snow while the Games are on, and what Gale's been doing and thinking.

Now I want to reread the books again!

Speaking of reading, I've had a great week of that. I finished three books, a short story, a graphic true crime and am going through two other books right now. Sure, I'm behind on a lot of other things (there's always something to pay, I guess), but it's nice to be reading a lot for a change.

In the Bed Department by Anne Enright (Short Fiction review)

2012-03-24T12:15:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I read a short story. Today morning, I picked Anne Enright's In the Bed Department, mostly because of the title, which I felt quite amusing, but also because I have been seeing Anne Enright's books a lot lately, ever since The Forgotten Waltz was published last year.

In the Bed Department is a story about Kitty, a 40+ year old woman who worked in the bed department (there goes the bed reference) at a store. When the story begins, a pair of escalators had just been installed at the store, and she isn't too happy about it. Initially, it was the filthy and smiling men who built the escalator that bothered her. Sometimes she could be talking about beds and springs to a couple looking to buy one, when a dirty-looking worker passed in front of them, adjusting his zip. When the construction was over, the escalator itself troubled her - its ceaseless ticking and rhythmic movements dizzied her and she kept imagining a chain underneath the escalator.

The escalator is actually a loose metaphor to herself in the bed department at home. After seducing a 60+ year old widower and sleeping with him, Kitty gets pregnant. She begins to see the escalator as a physical representation of the baby inside her - the baby that she believes she is carrying, but isn't too sure of since she did not do any test. When the escalator stops working one day, she begins to fear for her child.

In the Bed Department was an interesting story, but it didn't intrigue me as I hoped it would. There was nothing special about the story, though Enright's writing is quite wonderful. I liked the connection between her baby and the escalators, but Kitty as a character didn't quite call out to me. To be honest, she bugged me, and I'm not sure why. There was little mention of her kids, barring a few passages. Still, this is a really short story (took me about 15 minutes) and it was a great introduction to Enright's writing. I doubt I will be rushing to read her books though.

I read this story online on the The New Yorker.

Indie Lit Awards winners

2012-03-21T21:08:00.000-04:00

On Monday, the winners of the 2011 Indie Lit Awards were announced. Finally, I can discuss the books with you! In the Fiction category, Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones took the cake while Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney was the runner-up, both books I enjoyed tremendously. Another nominee, The Night Circus, was also a huge favorite of mine.

I did have a really tough time deciding between these three. Night Circus was beautiful - the imagery was vivid, the magic was clever, the plot was thrilling. But the characters aren't part of its strengths at all. Still, when I closed the book finally, I knew it was going to be one of my favorite books, even with its faults.

Silver Sparrow was more grounded in reality. The first thought that comes to mind when I think of this book is its strong characters. They were flawed, yet very human, and not at all stereotypical. Even the plot was intriguing. Unfortunately, the ending tripped for me. It was somewhat unsatisfying.

Dance Lessons is what I would like to call the underdog of this competition. I had heard of all the other books in the shortlist before they were nominated. Dance Lessons was the lone stranger, and its synopsis, cover and title didn't interest me at all. But the book was wonderful. Most of the characters were well-etched (there were still a couple that bugged me), the plot was interesting, but here again, I found some things not making sense.

In the end, it was Silver Sparrow's literary merit that won out for me, and I was glad when it won the award in Fiction category. There were two other books in the shortlist that didn't leave me feeling enthusiastic. Cross Currents by John Shors started off well, but the pacing really disappointed me. None of the characters left an impression on me and the ending felt more filmy that realistic. The biggest disappointment, however, was The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene. It took me a long time and some dedicated scheduling to read this book - it might do better as a movie, because it had some aspects that would make it great for the screen but the book didn't appeal to me.

Now that the winners have been announced, I'm eager to read the top books in the other categories. I haven't read any of them, except for one book.

Biography/Memoir
Winner: Little Princes by Conor Grennan
Runner-Up: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

GLBTQ
Winner: Nina Here Nor There: My Journey Beyond Gender by Nick Krieger
Runner-Up: Huntress by Malinda Lo

Mystery
Winner: A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
Runner-Up: Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski

Non-Fiction
Winner: Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
Runner-Up: Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe

Poetry
Winner: Catalina by Laurie Soriano
Runner-Up: What Looks Like an Elephant by Edward Nudelman

Speculative Fiction
Winner: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (one of my favorites from last year!)
Runner-Up: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

A late Monday Salon after a crazy week

2012-03-19T22:40:00.001-04:00

Hello fellow bloggers and readers! It's been a while since I popped my head into the bloglandia! I can honestly say that I haven't even looked at the reader out of fear of all the posts that I have to navigate through. One of those times when the 'Mark all as Read' is dreadfully handy and necessary.

It's been a crazy week out here! My brother and the husband's brother both came to visit us last week for spring break. It was pleasantly busy and fun out here, so much so that I miss the company now that all the fun is over and it's back to the usual ho-hum. It wasn't all fun though. Some of you probably remember (or maybe not) that my brother had once been admitted to hospital a year plus ago after he got some seizures. Although he recovered quickly from it (if you could call 5 weeks quick), one unfortunate consequence of that was that he now has epilepsy. He has been on medication since, but once in a while, he still gets seizures. It's been a really really rough period since (and that's still an understatement). Amidst all the fun of last week, he had a few such episodes that rattled me as usual. Hence the blog absence. I hate to blog when I'm upset - I tend to write whiny/grouchy/grumpy reviews, even if the books were hilarious. Imagine reviewing Tina Fey's BossyPants or any Sophie Kinsella book as if they are such Debbie Downers!

I was planning to take this week off too, but I do miss the blog and catching up with you guys, so off with that plan. Let's talk about some books, shall we?

I didn't read at all last week, but I did finish two books this weekend - kind of a record for me this year, and I am midway through another book that I had been looking forward to for a while. On Saturday, I finished Sophie Kinsella's I've Got Your Number. The timing was perfect (I was either in a car or on the train), the mood was perfect (I desperately needed something that would take my mind off things), and the book was typical Sophie Kinsella - crazy, wacky, implausible, silly, and tons of fun. Sunday, I finished The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu, which was a really wonderful read. I'm looking forward to reviewing both of these.

And I'm reading Veronica Roth's Divergent right now. Just a few pages in, I can see the whole appeal of this book. It does have a Hunger Games-ish and a Giver-ish touch, both books I enjoyed tremendously. Speaking of Hunger Games, the husband and I are going for the premiere this Thursday! Well, it's more like I'm dragging him, but we're both looking forward to it. I've watched the trailer a ton of times already and I still love that moment when the timer counts down and the tributes race to grab their supplies. Makes me want to reread the books.

So, what have I missed during the past one week?

A Village After Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro (Short Fiction review)

2012-03-10T08:39:00.003-05:00

Last night, I picked Kazuo Ishiguro's A Village After Dark at random. Ishiguro's other works are a lot more popular, especially his Never Let Me Go, which I still see on someone's blog every month. Because of all the hype, it could be a while before I read the book, but I saw the story as a chance to sample his writing.

When A Village After Dark begins, an old man named Fletcher is navigating his way through the streets of a village in England, trying to find something that jogs his memory. The village used to be like home to him once, in days of his youth, when he was also a very popular figure in the area. He used to give speeches and get people inspired to do something and work towards a common goal. But it is never mentioned what exactly the nature of his talks were - were they political, religious, or social? When he finally arrives at a door, he decides to knock, just in case it is someone who recognizes him. At the same time, a young girl who had pursued him keeps telling him how much she had heard of him and his friends, and how her friend Wendy was very sure it was Fletcher when he passed them earlier.

Once the door that he knocked at opens, the people inside do recognize him, but they also acknowledge that he has become some sort of a "ragamuffin" and are surprised that they were "ever under his spell". Fletcher however walks straight to the fireplace, stares at it for a while, recognizes the house as a place he had stayed in years ago, and decides that he wants to nap a bit in one of the beds before he even socializes.

A Village After Dark is a very strange story, but it was also a very intellectual one. As I read the story, there was something at the back of my mind saying something was amiss. I couldn't quite put my finger to it - but it sounded to me like a Murakami world, where the rules were different from those we know, and people did anything weird and didn't perceive it as weird. Was this one of those worlds? Where a man can just go barging into some strange house, walk in, and even sleep in that house without the hosts getting antsy?

Or was this an old man who had gone senile, and was thus imagining all his actions from his warped yardstick, and therefore they make sense to him, but the other characters aren't really acting as he claimed them to be? The town that's described sounded very decrepit that it could have been a post-apocalyptic setting or an impoverished village that had seen good times. Many houses looked rundown, and the people were all described as being dressed in tatters. Funnily, most of those people had the sense that they were doing much better than the other person. Fletcher himself kept mentioning many times how he was one of the more important people, and some of his friends weren't and that the people shouldn't really worship his less-important friends so much.

But my strongest feeling was that this was a dream. In dreams, time and space have no meaning. The manner in which time slowed when Fletcher asserted his importance, and how it seemed to speed up at other times was interesting. It was also fascinating how one character appeared to always have been there waiting for him, right when he was left alone and looking for what to do next. Or it could also have been that the real Fletcher is in a coma or in that place between life and death.

I enjoyed A Village After Dark more than I expected to. When I started reading it, I was quite perplexed with whatever felt amiss to me that I considered putting it down. But at the same time, the strangeness of the story intrigued me, because clearly there is something that is not quite right in this world. I also appreciated that we never know what kind of talks Fletcher gave, since it fit well with any of the possible scenarios - how the leaders come and go and how their talks 10 years ago could be inappropriate now. Although it isn't ever stated clearly what kind of setting it was, the story left me thoughtful about all the possible options. If A Village After Dark were a book, it would definitely be a book club worthy one.

I read this story online on the The New Yorker.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

2012-03-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

In 1946, as London emerges from a war-torn history, Juliet, who wrote humorous articles during the war, is now looking for a new subject to write about for a new book. Unfortunately, an idea is nowhere near to be found. Out of the blue, she gets a letter from a Guernsey resident, thus beginning a long and warm association with him and other residents of Guernsey. She learns how they played a role in the war, how books became an important part of their lives, how the literary society came into being and why the potato peel pie was added to the name of their society. What starts off as an innocent exchange morphs into something bigger, something that eventually sends Juliet on a different life path.

Ever since this book was published in 2008, it had been on my radar. Last year, one of my friends read it and wanted to discuss that with me, but unfortunately, my copy was still playing house in my bookshelf. Eventually, I got to it last month, though I don't remember what made me pull it up. Did the news about the movie based on this book with the awesome Kate Winslet in the lead have anything to do with it? Probably. Was the size a motivation? Definitely. I was looking for a light and quick read to occupy my lunch break, so this book was it.

If I had to describe this book in one word, I'd say quirky. The Guernsey Literary was chock full of eccentric and wonderful characters that it immediately brought to mind the cozy Lumby Lines, which I read two years ago. At the same time, it wasn't a trivial read but instead had plenty of anecdotes from the suffering men and women of Guernsey. The war had definitely plonked down its nasty fist on this place. There were curfews, threats of a distant camp for violators, scarcity of food, and lack of support from England, who wanted to protect her borders. So the Germans came and set up shop, and ate all the food that this place produced leaving the citizens to dine on potatoes and turnips daily. Before the Germans came, most of the children were sent off to Britain to live under the care of strangers, because that was considered safer than the unknown impending danger of German occupation.

Despite the lurking darkness in the book, it's very hard to describe this book as gloomy. Most of the characters had a very optimistic demeanor that came through in their letters. (Oh, did I mention that this book is written in an epistolary style?) Juliet remained my favorite character of the lot, and her cheerfulness, innocence, funny bone and can-do attitude were very infectious. She strongly reminded me of Judy Abbott from Daddy-Long-Legs - another one of my favorite characters. Besides Juliet, Kit, a stubborn little girl, Elizabeth, her courageous mother who never makes an appearance in the book, and Amelia, Juliet's main Literary Society correspondent in Guernsey made an impressive bunch of characters.

This is only the second epistolary (story told through letters) book that I've enjoyed tremendously, the first being Dracula. I'm always uncertain about books like these, because it's challenging to develop the book's characters through letters. It's also hard to prevent repetition while maintaining the letters' authenticity. The Guernsey Literary managed to overcome both the issues and keep the book entertaining and fun. There were many points where I laughed out loud, and points when I went all respectfully-mournful and thoughtful. At the same time, the epistolary style made it conducive for reading at work - it was easy to put it down at the end of each letter. The book also didn't have a major plot driver until at least the midway point which, although would usually bother me, worked perfectly here because it went with the coziness and quirkiness of the book.

Some of my best passages in the book were all about reading. Any book lover will want to print out those quotes and paste them up on their work spaces or reading corners. There is one portion where Juliet dumps her boyfriend because he boxed all her books down to the basement and put up his shiny athletic trophies up for display ('You go, Juliet!'). Most of the characters spoke passionately about the books they read, much akin to what happens in book clubs (and blogs). Eventually, I enjoyed the book more than I expected to, and its vivid atmosphere has spawned a desire in me to visit Guernsey.

This book is from my personal library.