~~ Old Post: Year 2014: Books that I read in 2013 ~~

Originally posted on 21 January 2014

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Starting (FINALLY) with posting the list of books that I read in 2013 along with ratings for each of them(yes, it’s definitely not a coincidence that this post comes out on the same day as the book challenge post by the legendary fellow blogger)…I had set a goal of completing at least 3-4 books per month for 2013, but I am quite happy(proud is what I want to say ) to find that I managed to complete reading 65 books this year…. 44 in English & the rest in Kannada…

 

I also tried out a couple of new things by changing my reading habits -

 

–> I have never tried many books by Indian authors till now (till 2013 that is). 2013 was a visible exception with me reading 20 English books (by Indian authors) & 21 Kannada books! Almost 63% of my total reading this year!

 

–> I always wanted to read Enid Blyton’s Famous five series (I know it’s not meant for the age group I am in) as a kid, but somehow couldn’t…I finally got to read a few of it this year!

 

–> I have never been really inclined towards reading “Romance” genre! But again, this year was an exception with most of my books being chosen from that section!

 

So here you go…

 

P.S:- Books are not listed in the order they were read, but are grouped by the author!

 

P.P.S:- Books that I particularly liked and would recommend are in bold 

 

Book	Author	Rating
Puppet on a Chain	Alistair MacLean	2/5
The Immortals of Meluha	Amish Tripathi	3/5
The Secret of the Nagas	Amish Tripathi	3/5
The Rozabel line	Ashwin Sanghi	3/5
Krishna key	Ashwin Sanghi	3/5
The Book of Tomorrow	Cecelia Ahern	3/5
One hundred names	Cecelia Ahern	3/5
Eat, Pray and Love	Elizabeth Gilbert	3/5
Five on a Treasure Island	Enid Blyton	3/5
Five Go Adventuring Again	Enid Blyton	3/5
Five Run Away Together	Enid Blyton	3/5
Doctors	Erich Segal	4/5
CLASS	Erich Segal	4/5
The day of the Jackal	Frederick Forsyth	4/5
Big bad wolf	James Patterson	4/5
A prisoner of birth	Jeffrey Archer	4/5
And thereby hangs a tale	Jeffrey Archer	4/5
Calico Joe	John Grisham	3/5
The Help	Kathryn Stockhett	5/5
One shot	Lee Child	4/5
Moonlight becomes you	Mary Higgins Clark	3/5
Size 14 is not Fat either	Meg Cabot	3/5
The guardian	Nicholas Sparks	3/5
The Wedding	Nicholas Sparks	4/5
The Promise	Nikita Singh	3/5
34 bubblegums and candies	Preeti shenoy	2/5
Life is what we make it	Preeti shenoy	4/5
The secret wish list	Preeti shenoy	2/5
MR Sampath	R K Narayan	4/5
Love stories that touched my heart	Ravinder singh	2/5
First Love	Sachin Garg	1/5
Never let me go	Sachin Garg	2/5
Come on Inner Peace, I don’t have all day	Sachin Garg	1/5
I’m not 24, I am nineteen	Sachin Garg	1/5
DILBERT AND THE WAY OF THE WEASEL	Scott adams	5/5
Shopaholic and Sister	Sophie Kinsella	3/5
Confessions of a Shopaholic	Sophie Kinsella	3/5
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo	Stieg Larsson	5/5
Wise and Otherwise	Sudha Murthy	3/5
Mahashweta	Sudha Murthy	4/5
How I Taught My Grand Mother to Read and Other Stories	Sudha Murthy	3/5
Dollar bahu	Sudha Murthy	3/5
House of Cards	Sudha Murthy	3/5
SIX SUSPECTS	Vikas Swarup	3/5

~~ Old Post: Year 2013: The year that was ~~

Originally written on 07 January 2013.

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Year 2012 has been, by far, the most challenging of all the years in my life, both personally and professionally! I have always believed that every single thing or event in life happens for a reason and it always happens for our own good! This past year did justice to my belief & I have emerged out stronger, happier, peaceful & contented than I was ever before!  

 

I have just jotted down few important personal and professional events of each month which I would want to reminisce in future!

 

P.S (or can be considered a warning):- This may be not an interesting read as I haven’t detailed out any events! So please read at your own risk

 January 2012 – Dear God, Can’t this ML (maternity leave) go on forever!! (Of course with no LOP clause)

February 2012 – Dear God, thank you for ending the long separation (well, I should admit, those were the best few months I had spent with my parents) from my hubby!!  Thank you for bringing me to this world, well, you know my age,  years back and for letting me experience it as a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, a mother & I hope you do have plans to let me experience it as a granny too

March 2012  – Dear God, thank you for giving me the courage to be able to cancel my ML-LOP! (Believe me, handing over baby’s responsibility, even if its only from 9am-6pm, and getting back to work is the hardest thing a mom can ever think of & do) .

April 2012       - Dear God, thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend some more time with my baby (search for projects)

May 2012      - Dear God, thank you for the opportunity, it was way too difficult to do it & undergo the repercussions, but I had to do it and I had to let it go. However, at the end of it and during the process, I realized few important things & people in my life! Thank you for the revelation! I also understand now, why I was supposed to be in search all this while, thank you! Everything definitely happens for a reason!!

June 2012     – Dear God, thank you for blessing me with a healthy, beautiful baby and thank you for giving me the opportunity to celebrate it with the entire family!!

July 2012     - Dear God, thank you for this ray of hope through a sweet bro!!!

Many provided moral support at the time of my need, but Dani, a fellow blogger who is also a great friend and brother, stood along with tremendous support...I will be ever be grateful to you for being a pillar of support when I needed it the most... 

August 2012   – Dear God, thank you for this wonderful opportunity & I hope to make the best use of it!! (Major shift in my career path)

September 2012- Dear God, new place, new faces, new challenges, newer responsibilities, feels fresh, feels good! Thank you!!

October 2012 - Dear God, I now understand, the best is yet to come!!  

November 2012 – Dear God, and it has come! Thank you!!

December 2012 - Dear God, I had read somewhere that everything, everyone can change in the blink of an eye, but that God never blinks! Its sooo true!! Thanks to you, that today I believe, any situation, however good or bad, it will change, and it too will pass!!!!!

Well, if you are still reading, let me take this chance to wish you a very very happy new year!!! (I know am a week late, but better late than never is a phrase I have always believed in!!!)

~~ Old post: Year 2013: Just like that ~~

So, am trying hard to sync all my old posts here in this space (I wish I could do it in some order, but I just want to do it one way or the other).. This was originally written on 11 October 2013 in my other blog space!
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As I was going through a fellow blogger's 1000th post & the colorful stats, I felt it’s high time I revisit my blog & post or at least rant about a few things happening in my life(may be someone else’s too) to get my stats look better than what it is right now!!  So this is the result of the momentary inspiration drawn by reading that 1000th post & I do want to warn you that this post will probably be a random collation of my thoughts in the order they pop up

• I am in utter state of confusion w.r.to the choices I need to make to purchase a mobile phone. I have googled endlessly for comparisons, reviews, asked for a recommendation with each and every person I can reach out to. The only thing I have not done yet is go to an actual store as I really don’t like coming out of a store empty handed! This has been going on for a month now & I still am clueless!! I need a mobile phone for a very basic purpose… to be able to reach to my near and dear ones from anywhere anytime!! Well, that’s why we buy a mobile phone in the first place right?  But then, when I login to any website, the following is what usually happens  – Why not go for a better processor,  Why not go for a better memory options, Why not go for a cool look, Why not go for a good camera , Why not go for a phone with a front camera (good MP one), Why not have a better bigger display , Why not opt for a better battery life … this goes on and on until I forget the basic thing a mobile phone is required for & just get sooooo confused to the point where I just look longingly at my current mobile phone and think, I guess, I don’t really need a replacement!! Sigh!!  Well, this is not the case just with the mobile phone purchase, it happens to me whenever I shop for anything which seems to have a lot of options to choose from (nowadays, every single thing that can be purchased has such a wide range of options, I have literally reduced shopping for new things and have learnt to be happy with what I have!!!!)  I end up frustrated of all the research & options and buy something for the heck of it just to lose my sleep later by again looking for good reviews & recommendations of the item that I have just bought! Complicated I know!!                                      

 

•  Speaking of losing sleep; SLEEP LIKE A BABY – is the most illogical phrase I have ever read! I really don’t know who came up with this & I want to search for him (I have my own reasons that it is a HIM, no offense to any HIM’s reading this though) & demand for the REAL meaning of this phrase. It just seems so absurd to me, as I haven’t seen my baby girl SLEEP LIKE A BABY yet!!  Is it coined just to simply mock the first time mom’s by misleading them to assume that their babies will SLEEP LIKE A BABY(whatever that means)… For me – this phrase translates to SLEEP LIKE A BABY for 15 mins in 2 hour intervals.. You rock your baby to sleep by trying every possible method/drama taught by your elders for 1 hour 45 minutes, the baby finally sleeps at 106^th minute, you hold the baby for some time to ensure no disturbance can make her wake up, then carefully place the baby safely by your side, look at the clock, roll your eyes, look at the baby, feel happy that your effort to put her to sleep didn’t go waste & then close your eyes to get some sleep(believe me, this takes 15 minutes) and then the next thing you get to hear is ‘waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh’ and all you can possibly do is to hope against hope, that the baby is crying in your dream!! Well, guess what, it never is a dream after all!! I am not complaining & I cherish and enjoy every minutest moment that I get to spend with my baby girl. This 2 hour drama usually happens only during the first few months until the baby starts solid food & gradually the intervals increases to 4 hours or so!! Anyways, every time I read this phrase on buses of one of the prominent transport services, I just can’t help rolling my eyes & recall all those sleepless nights!

 

• Speaking of transport services – I am travelling a LOT these days – before you all go green with envy, I would like to clarify that this statement of mine holds good only if sitting in a bus(of the same transport service) for 2 hours to and 2 hours from office can be considered in the travelling category!! I try to catch up on my sleep, but unless I am dog tired (which I rarely am), I just can’t doze off!  Most of you who know me in person or know me from this blog space may know that I love reading!! I have been lazy on that front since my marriage but did manage to read a few till I got busy as a full time working mom! There was no question of spending even a minute doing something else when you can use it to get some sleep/rest!! Now, with things settling in a routine, I use this travel time to read!! I read like I have exams tomorrow & to make up for all the time that has been spent in taking rest and I can’t believe I have read almost 60 books in this year already!  I know it’s nothing compared to the stats that most have & even my own stats few years back!!  But it’s a good start and this is one of the few things I am very happy about in this year!

 

• Speaking of reading – I travel in local AC buses these days & my bus route covers a couple of colleges! So you can imagine the crowd that I am exposed to.  I try as much as possible not to overhear any conversations and just concentrate on the book in my hand, but this goes in vain as at least a few in the crowd manage to grab my attention & mostly it’s because I don’t understand the slangs/jargons being used & I get drawn to those new words.. I also overheard few Indian authors being discussed, praised & based on these recommendations; I went ahead and ordered the whole collection of these authors!! Those novels were not that bad, but since they were supposed to be read in a certain flow, I chose to read them one after the other not to lose the flow… By the time I reached the last one, I just wanted to take a break and not read anything for a while!! The language was pretty good but with no offense to any budding writers, the story line was just repetitive – everyone around seems to want to follow the same style of writing a love story with a disastrous end & claim that they too had a love story.  Most of the events described in these real life stories are quite hard to believe and sometimes too good to be happening in real life or may be it’s just the granny aged me who has rolled over to the next generation of the generation gaps!!    

 

Well, I still do have a lot to write, but I don’t want my longggggg “come back” post to drive away a few who care to comment.. Happy Dasara & a very happy long weekend to you all (Waking up on a Monday morning to the fact that you can choose to sleep for some more time is a feeling that cannot be described in mere words!!) 

~~ Meme: Life According to Movies ~~

-- Originally written on 31 July 2015

 

An interesting meme that I couldn’t stop from trying -

 

Life according to English Movies -

1. Describe Yourself:  Little Miss Sunshine
2. How do you feel?  If only
3. Describe where you currently live:  The Lake House
4. If you could go anywhere, where would you go:  The Bridges of Madison County
5. Your favorite form of transportation: Happy feet
6. What’s the weather like:  Gone with the wind
7. Favorite time of day: Before Sunrise
8. What is life to you?  De Ja Vu
9. Your fear:  The Monster House 
10. What is the best advice you have to give?  Just go with it
11. Thought for the Day:  Pay it forward
12. Your soul’s present condition:  The Pursuit Of  Happyness

Life according to Hindi Movies -

1. Describe Yourself:   Dil toh bacchha hai ji
2. How do you feel?   Hey Ram!
3. Describe where you currently live:    Chak De India!!
4. If you could go anywhere, where would you go:  Chennai Express
5. Your favorite form of transportation:    Bhaag Milkha Bhaag 
6. What’s the weather like:   Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
7. Favorite time of day:  Morning Raga
8. What is life to you?   Talaash
9. Your fear:   Bhoot
10. What is the best advice you have to give? Zindagi na milegi dobara 
11. Thought for the Day:   OM Shanthi OM
12. Your soul’s present condition:   Dil Chahtha hai

P.S:- No tagging! Feel free to pick the meme and pass on

P.P.S:- I have referred to only those movies that I have watched!

~~Book Review: Life after Life ~~

--Originally written on 21 Aug 2015

 

So, I completed reading “Life after Life” by Kate Atkinson recently! I had ordered this book online,  without giving it much thought,   never having heard of the author, nor having read any reviews…..Going by its name, I had expected a gripping “after life” story or theoretically inclined prose on various experiences of people claiming re-birth etc., etc., but well, it was anything, but not that!!! 

 

I started reading this towards the end of May and after going through a couple of pages, with nothing mysterious happening, and the realization creeping in that it definitely was not an interesting mix of people recounting their re-births – I took a break from the book…Though I never stop reading a book, however boring it might turn out to be (exception of course being Mein Kampf), I had to keep this book aside…!  And well, meanwhile, I couldn’t just pick another book to read, since I had already started this one – Yeah, I am like that, eka-book-vratha, if you get what I mean!!  Then one fine day, late July, I finally dared to pick it up again!  And this time, to my surprise, I didn’t, to be honest, I couldn’t keep it aside at all!  Though the initial few pages were a bit ordinary, the book managed to impress me beyond my imagination!

 

I am not sure how many of you have watched 12B in Tamil. It was a movie about how the course of a guy’s life is decided when he, at a point makes it right in time to catch 12B or due to momentary ignorance, misses 12B (12B is a bus, btw)… To draw an analogy, in 12B, the catching/missing of the bus is that one turning point to showcase that, a decision taken at such points, mostly changes the course that life takes!

 

Life after Life, explores such various turning points in the life of Ursula (the main character), and each such different set of decisions, at different turning points leads to a different set of events happening in her life (also impacting everyone else involved) and ending in her death, eventually, every time! She dies at birth, she dies a small baby, she dies a young child, she dies an adolescent, she dies an unwed to-be mother, she dies single, she dies an abused wife, she dies in the London Blitz and on and on, and oh, she dies an old woman too!

 

As we read, there are many instances, where there is this sense of De Ja Vu of going through these experiences already… Most of the times, I just wanted to go back and re-read what had happened, when she(or even someone else) had taken a different decision at that particular turning point!  It’s confusing at times, but brilliantly written, with no loose ends, ending every time with Ursula’s death!

 

Someday, when I am totally free, I would probably sit and jot down each turning point and the set of decisions at each of those points 

 

Well, to put it in simple layman terms, Imagine a tree which has many main branches, and each main branches then have their own set of tinier branches, and then these second set of branches, have their own set of few more teeny-weeny branches and so on.. Right?!!? And now imagine an ant, trying to traverse through the tree starting from the root, has to dig its way through up from the root, encounters the first main branch, it can either take it to traverse to second set of branches or just ignore it and move forward on the main trunk to the next main branch and so on… get a picture? This book takes every single such branch of Ursula’s life & explores it till the end .i.e., until she dies!

 

Apart from the way the structure of the novel is woven, where we are taken through a course of her life till her death & again sent back to the same decision point with a different decision, leading through another course of her life, the novel also showcases , how certain events happening in her life are interlaced with London Blitz, Hitler times, Second world war etc….. 

 

All in All – I would recommend it to anyone, who has all the patience (it’s a huge book) to go through it and sometimes, even go back and forth, just to make coherent sense of absolute brilliant incoherence :)

~~ Book Review: The Winds of Hastinapur ~~

I guess I will be ever grateful to the book reading challenge that I had taken up last year!  I had expected that the challenge will finally help me, build some interest in the non-fiction genre, which sadly didn’t happen, but of many things, it got me addicted to the mythological genre like never before!

 

Mahabharata, the greatest and the longest epic in the world which has been translated and probably re-told many number of times had always been my personal favorite – I had read R.K. Narayan’s “The Mahabharata” and “The Ramayana” long back and I can vouch that those are the best to start with, that is, if you have never read these epics till now!!

 

This book reading challenge thus introduced me to a book which painted this great Epic in Bhīma’s POV, subsequently leading me into an unquenchable quest of reading this epic through different point of views!  I have almost all of the POV’s stacked in my bookshelf at home by now (or so I want to think)!

 

So, when one fine-otherwise-boring Friday, a fellow blogger asked if I would like to be an early reader of Sharath Kommaraju’s upcoming 2^nd book of the Mahabharata series – I couldn’t believe it! Needless to say, I gladly accepted!  

 

I began by reading the 1^st book in the series and so this is the review of the same – The Winds of Hastinapur!

 

This book, to be precise, is about the 2 wives of King Shantanu, who, of course, is the king of Hastinapur! As most of you might already know, Ganga is his first wife and Satyavati, his second!  Most of the renderings of the epic does portray Ganga as the queen bearing & letting go of her 7 sons, before she gives birth to Bheeshma (Devavratha) and then leaves, but then that is all or may be some more!  This book, however, dedicates almost half of its chapters to showcase Ganga’s life as never before! It makes you wonder, how a theft of a holy cow somewhere someplace and a resulting curse from a sage’s wife, results in a major upheaval in Ganga’s life, who is blissfully unaware about any part of it! She, Ganga, the future lady of the River, is chosen to liberate the 8 Elements(Vasus) from the curse, entrusted the responsibility of bearing 8 sons (Vasus), of whom she has to give up 7, and leave her 8^th one to suffer, where in reality, all she craves for is to grow up as soon as possible, be with her mother, the present lady of the river, take over in future someday, and then bear a girl child who would grow up to be the next lady of the river to carry the legacy forward!

 

I immensely liked the portrayal of Ganga as a woman at the core, wondering about her destiny on why she was chosen of all to be a part of this, when she was nowhere involved in the theft, even remotely! The turmoil’s of Ganga as a confused & angry mother, who has to overcome her maternal instincts to prioritize her duty of relieving the curse for the Vasus is worth reading! Apart from these, what intrigued me mostly was the different yet refreshing concept of the balance of life and nature, which is described in an unusual way, indicating that a loss is always accompanied with gain, but, may be just somewhere and someplace else!  As I was reading through these phrases or sections, it somehow gave an “Avatar” movie effect, with strange possibilities to be comprehended!  I must say, Sharath did a great job here with his imagination & yet managed not to change the underlying actual epic that Mahabharata is!

 

The other half of the book, is focused on Kali (Satyavati), who is an ordinary fisherman’s daughter, rebuked for her awkwardly manners with an everlasting fish-odor that lingers on her & how she, emerges out of this awkwardness and grows up to be a maiden, pursued by all and ends up being the queen of Hastinapur!  I particularly liked the part where she feels bad for depriving Bheeshma of something, in her quest of the greater good for her tribe, but then immediately recovers and pursues her aim! I also liked the way in which she broods later, that maybe, things would have been different, if she had actually married Bheeshma instead of Shantanu!  Though the first half was more magical and imaginations galore, the second half was very down to earth!  As I kept reading Satyavati’s tumults of able to bear 2 sons for the kingdom, yet, being dependent on Bheeshma to even win brides for them, her anguish at not feeling anything for her son’s deaths, her search for her long lost son who she had to let go of in the past, as she hadn’t a marital status yet – Oh, I just didn’t want the book to end, but end it did, abruptly, angering me for a while as I was expecting it to continue forever!

 

So, in all, a very interesting read – provided you are not the kind who would want to read the sequel immediately :)

 

Is it too late to reveal that this also was my first successful attempt at reading an online version of a book! To be frank, other than the experience I missed of holding the book in my hands while reading it, I had no other complaints! Once I have the actual book in my hands – I am definitely reading this one again! :)