harish p i
The essays in the book An Odyssey Of The Mind cover a wide range of topics: psychology, philosophy, ecology, economy, sociology, politics, and history, and all of them invariably centre on the challenges of living in the present age of AI, automation, cultural turmoil, and rampant consumerism. Murty has stated his aim as being to provide perspective to the confused person who is stuck in the rut of existence. He certainly makes the reader think and re-evaluate his life and that of the world around him, and that itself I feel is a success. Unlike the books that provide some ready-made and quick-fix solutions to living one's life, Murty makes the reader walk the tough path and come to their own solutions and conclusions about the topics that he raises.
The title, The Deceived Womb, is very relevant to the plot of the novel as it starts with Abhimanyu inside the womb, hearing the martial exploits of his father, and believing that war is like an adventurous reality show to show off skills. When he plunges into the carnage of war, ultimately, he realises the deceit and is overwhelmed by the violence and disregard for every rule and fair play. The novel ends in a full circle when Abhimanyu deceives another soul inside the womb by breaking his promise of a triumphant return to his wife Uttara and his unborn child in her womb.
In this nimble volume titled The Religion of Wonder, writer Narendra Murty explores the history of religions and explains how science turned itself into another religious entity. He proposes a new religious thought that can bring back the concept of an enchanted world, something that we lost on our way when we decided that we were apart from nature and that nature was just dead matter, a storehouse of resources that was meant to be used up for our progress.
The cover of the book offers a gist of its philosophy. You find the silhouette of a person standing on a hill, using a torchlight to light up the dark sky. In the sky, embedded with stars, we find that the light illuminates minor portions of mathematical equations and geometric shapes. A huge part of them is still hidden in darkness, and the torchlight is too weak to fully light up the entire sky. But with the wonder that they have in their soul to uncover the remaining secrets of the sky, we hope they should lead the way forward for humanity.
The Religion of Wonder is all the more special for me because it is able to provide a perspective that ties in several concepts, like nature, religion, and science, that we imagine as being separate. It asserts the importance of preserving the mysticism within us, even when it is science and mathematics that can take us deeper into the religion of wonder, and they aren't antonymous.
Falling In And Out by Nishant Prakash is a novel that explores the possibilities of second chances. It reminds you of movies like Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow. If there is a possibility to go back in time and live all over again, aware of all the good and bad experiences of the previous life, what will someone do? Will such a chance yield better results? Are the choices that we never make the ones that hold the key to happiness?
Vilas Sarang is an Indian writer who flaunts an obvious Kafka affection in his twenty stories collected in the book ‘Fair Tree of the Void'.
Sarang is a writer who writes in both Marathi and English. This book is a collection of stories that's translated from Marathi. The stories extrapolate Kafkaesque landscapes to urban India, where the stories' protagonists are trapped in labyrinths created in distinctly Indian settings. One could also find a clear influence of Albert Camus in the stories, as most of them explore the absurdities of modern life to which humans are so accustomed that they tend to ignore them.
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The Museum of Innocence may not display the ambitious storytelling of Pamuk's previous novels that I read. But it succeeds tremendously in its intentions: to portray the social and cultural structure of Istanbul in the last decades of the twentieth century; to tell a powerful love story of an unlikeable couple, for whom we feel sympathetic by the end; and to assert that it is the small events and articles that constitute the entire life. It tells us to celebrate them and relish in the memories they elicit.
The biggest irony about the life of Conan Doyle is that, he who created the biggest rationalist in literature, had believed in supernatural phenomena, superstitions and the like. So we can find loads of his tales, as novels and short stories that deal generously with such premises. As someone who read a huge volume of stories under the title Conan Doyle Stories, we cannot argue with the fact that he is a master of building suspense and tension even if he don't have the support of his iconic character Holmes.
That is the only positive factor if you are interested in checking out this “Holmes-less” novella. Almost more than half of the story deals with getting to know some quirky characters and a strange village. Once such formalities are done with, Doyle quickly change gears and take us to the partially predictable climax.
It is evident that Doyle didn't do an iota of research for this book. Otherwise how can a Buddhist monk be named Ghoolam Shah... A part for the story happens in Indo Afghan border. Doyle takes much pain to ensure that every instance of history, geography and politics of India that he mentions in passing is totally bull shit.
I believe we are at a crossroads as humans, and the possibilities and dangers of our next step forward are to be known, discussed, and resolved by the time we traverse the point of no return. Robots Through the Ages works as a collection of short stories due to its sheer diversity of themes, which make the reader think about the issues and opportunities created by a technology that has the power to permeate every dimension of human life.
The Last Dance is the upcoming novel by Mark Billingham, who is a best-selling novelist famous for creating the character Tom Thorne. In this novel, he introduces his readers to his new hero, Declan Miller. I have never read any book by Mark Billingham before, and this is a first for me. The Last Dance uses all the usual tropes found in investigation thrillers and introduces a few novel ones.
Find the full review here.
Dead Of Winter is an upcoming thriller novel by best selling writer Darcey Coates, which I got an opportunity to read, thanks to an advance copy by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange of an honest review. I am reading Coates for the first time. The book is a locked door suspense mystery with cabin in the wood kind of horror elements heavily thrown in.
Story is narrated in the first person perspective of Christa. The narrative style of Coates puts the reader in the midst of the events. While reading through the eyes of Christa, we are aware of only that which she knows about. At the same time we are part of all the paranoia and anguish that she feels. This made me as a reader, more immersed and invested in her perilous journey.
My Journeys In Economic Theory is a very interesting book that is short but packed with information. It offers a very concise view into an illustrious career that offered paradigm shifting observations on every area it dealt on. I feel that someone who has a working knowledge on economy will be benefitted hugely by reading this book. For me, who is just a layman as far as economic theories are concerned, it was a bit tough even though rewarding book. I had to refer many other sources to make many points palatable for me and still I will accept that I haven't comprehended it fully. But I am definitely more wiser on economic theories and more inspired after reading about the life of Edmund Phelps.
The Full article is posted here
If I have to sum up the story of this mammoth 736 pages novel in a single sentence, ‘this is an account of the effort of its characters to prevent repetition of history by breaking the cycles to which they are tied to.' Every character finds themselves to be part of a large cycle and are destined to replicate the fate of some predecessor. They are aware of it and are desperate to break the cycle and escape out of it.
In her book ‘28 Disastrous Dates: A (Mostly True) Humourous Memoir', Poppy Mortimer recounts some of her most hilarious adventures in the dating scene. From her twenties to her present forties, the writer has come a long way in the dating game, acquiring a wealth of related wisdom, which she graciously shares with her readers on these pages. As it's mentioned in the title that these accounts are mostly true, we can conclude that a lot of exaggerations from the actual truth are inserted to enhance the comedic effect. But I don't find it surprising to encounter such characters in such a book.
The writer has succeeded in recounting the episodes with wit and in camouflaging some of the creepiness with humour. It is an easy read that may guide young women who are in the dating game and young men to realise the ways in which they destroy their chances with the above-mentioned young women.
To its credit, The Housemaid never tries to disguise that it's a genre piece and relies on a quick plot with sudden plot twists and several saucy situations to give its readers instant entertainment. One needs to keep this intention the writer has in mind while looking at The Housemaid. The novel doesn't attempt to do anything new. It just assembles several tropes from numerous similar books and movies to weave together its plot, style, and structure. I felt a strong sense of Deja Vu while reading it, and the most obvious inspirations that came to my mind were ‘Rebecca' and ‘Gone Girl'.
A detailed review is posted here
Time Shelter, the International Booker winner of 2023 and a Bulgarian novel written by Georgi Gospodinov, deals with the human psychology that craves the certainty of the past and aspires to break the uni-directional behaviour of time. The future is inevitable, ambiguous, and uncertain, and our march towards it is frightening. But the past is familiar and comforting, and our nostalgia associated with the past invites us towards it. Time Shelter explores this craving for the past and the unescapable consequences when we try to modify the present in an attempt to return to the past.
Olga Dies Dreaming is primarily a novel about the Puerto Rican identity. It is a critique of the handling of Maria, a storm that devastated the island, by Trump government, told through the eyes of Olga, a wedding planner and her brother Pierto. The tone of the novel is very uneven and the emotional parts of it never touches the reader as it is intended. But it is worth reading for the interesting characters inhabiting it and it's politics.
It's a crazy ride in this bullet train and a crashing end... Loved the ride while it ended.
Told in a non linear style, it's timeline span more than half A century. We get snippets of World War 2, Vietnam war, Serbian crisis and even the rise of Taliban. Like most of the Forsyth novels, in Avenger also, every action, every spoken word, every situation pays off by the climax. There is a lot of name dropping- of actual personalities and incidents, which again involves us more with the plot. Every character has a back-story, embedded with so much details that we identify with their actions, reactions and decisions. Each back-story has the potential to start a novel of its own.
Read the full take here:
http://diaryofaragingbull.blogspot.com/2016/12/avenger-by-frederick-forsyth.html
You all have a friend who so much likes to recount his/her entire life story to you with all the petty details at the first chance they get. This friend never consider if there is anything that's interesting or relatable to you in their life. Well, this book that friend.
I heard the Audible version and it is superb. The Glasgow accent takes some time to get accustomed to. But once it's on track, the novel grows into you and eats you away. It is a gritty rendering of the toxic relationship between Shuggie Bain and his alcoholic mother and all the hell they go through.
In his book In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics And Reality, John Gribbin tries to make sense of the bizzare world of probabilities, uncertainties, ghost electrons, multiverses and time travel- concepts that are difficult for humans to even visualise.
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There are books that takes an ordinary occurance from life and twist it to render it extraordinary. But Kitchen is a novel that has an extraordinary premise, told very subtly and devoid of any complexity and makes the reader forgets the craziness of all of it. It is just beautiful...