Vishwesh
Crouching Tiger Hidden Godfather
What an exciting start to a Jade saga. This book is quite dense, there is a lot of information to take in but it keeps you hooked till the end with some expected, and some unexpected twists. There are no good or bad people both sides are quite human with all shades.
My only confusion is about the era it's set in. Sometimes it feels like the early twentieth century and sometimes like totally modern. Sometimes it feels like a fantasy world, sometimes it feels like a realistic one.
The book is brilliantly written—the kind you don't want to put down.
The entire process of a post-apocalyptic world where Aliens have captured remaining humans is described so well that it keeps you hooked till the end.
Humans really come out badly in comparison to aliens in this and I appreciate Octavia E. Butler's understanding of human psychology, and how selfish and unpredictable humans are.
Overall this book sets you up nicely for the trilogy. It ends on a note that builds great excitement for future books. I am excited to read further to understand what happens next.
“There is a place where times stands still. Raindrops hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid-swing.”
“Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?”
This one is a very thought-provoking take on the concept of “Time”. Each chapter then is a thought experiment. The book is full of original ideas mentioned in every chapter and some of these ideas make you think really hard about how we perceive time and life in general. There are moments of sublime beauty and unexpected humor in the book as well.
Overall, a lot of “What-if” questions came to my mind post this book.
Each and every book in this series has been a joy to read and this one is no different. This one you cannot put down, it is the weird and unique story of Catherine Lundy! We met her in earlier books. This one shows the conflict in Lundy's mind about our ordinary world and one which is always fair. The give and take between Lundy and Moon were beautiful. I hope there is a book about Moon later in the series.
The concept of Fair Value is what I loved the most in this tale. I so wish to visit the Goblin Market once :) in my fairy dreams at least. “What's the Goblin Market?” you ask?
“It is a place where dreamers go when they don't fit in with the dreams their homes think worth dreaming. Doors lead here. Perhaps you found one.”
I am listening to audiobooks and they are fantastically narrated by the author.
Growing up fat had meant an endless succession of diets suggested by “helpful” relatives, and even more “helpful” suggestions from her classmates, ones that suggested starvation or learning to vomit on command.
This is my least favorite so far in the series though I loved some of the world descriptions in this.
Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke their crown.
And Jill came tumbling after.
This should have been the first book in the series. What a fantastic character sketch written by Seanan McGuire. I really enjoyed this book and now I am excited for the remaining books in the series.
This book discusses gender issues, raising children, etc., and gets much deeper into various relationships.
This, you see, is the true danger of children: they are ambushes, each and every one of them. A person may look at someone else's child and see only the surface, the shiny shoes or the perfect curls. They do not see the tears and the tantrums, the late nights, the sleepless hours, the worry. They do not even see the love, not really. It can be easy, when looking at children from the outside, to believe that they are things, dolls designed and programmed by their parents to behave in one manner, following one set of rules. It can be easy, when standing on the lofty shores of adulthood, not to remember that every adult was once a child, with ideas and ambitions of their own.
The book is as cozy as a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun!
“The real treasure is the friends we made along the way” is a lesson many of us must take to heart. This book emphasizes the power of community-building. And Legends & Lattes show us the strength and magnitude that can be gained from having good people in your corner.
Another important lesson in the book is that it is definitely possible to change and become someone new in your life. No matter how deeply entrenched you are in a past life.
A good amount of humor keeps a smile throughout the read. I laughed out loud in multiple places while listening to the audiobook.
“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead, we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”
Eliminating Non-Essential from your life every day is easier said than done but this book provides an excellent framework to get you started. If you could do half of what is recommended in this book it would have a life-changing effect.
Highly recommended read at least to relook at the choices we make every day and do an audit of our lifestyle.
If I have one takeaway from this it is - “If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.”
“We're in the world, not against it. It doesn't work to try to stand
outside things and run them, that way. It just doesn't work, it goes against life. There is a way but you have to follow it. The world is, no matter how we think it ought to be. You have to be with it. You have to let it be.”
This one is a bit darker than most Le Guin books, but truly a mind-bending and profound dystopian masterpiece. I kept getting Philip K Dick vibes reading this book, the central character is so PKD style (an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances).
Overall a very interesting read indeed. I will leave you with this quote from the book -
“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new. When it was made, they lay in each other's arms, holding love, asleep.”
“You get success by having extremely high integrity but absolutely zero prestige. Because integrity is about who you are, whereas prestige is only about what other people think of you.”
Backman does it again! Fantastic book with great character journeys. Nobody writes people so well IMO. It's sad and funny but most important it's real!
Entire Beartown series is a gem!
“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
“Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”
I liked this more than “Man called Ove”. Loved the depth of the characters and the insights into different people's and community's behavior. Backman's writing ultimately draws you in. I could feel what each character was going through and was heavily invested in them. You can feel the pain every character undergoes, you can see every tree, every road, and every scar on everyone.
This book is dark and emotionally compelling. Being a parent, this book hit me harder in multiple places.
“Being a parent makes you feel like a blanket that's always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone, there's always someone who's freezing.”
This was indeed an interesting read. Very well written characters and progression of these characters.
It got emotional towards the end and I did shed a tear or two in the end.
Gaming background made me nostalgic and it never felt as if it was written by a non gamer, all the references were very apt.
Would recommend audiobook version as it is very well narrated.
Echo pushes the boundaries of genre, form, and storytelling. I highly recommend listening to the book rather than reading it because it has fantastic music. It's available on Spotify and Audible.
The book is about the journey of Harmonica and the role it played in different kids' lives across the war period in the 1940s. The audiobook allowed me to experience these different narratives through the voices of Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, Andrews MacLeod, and Rebecca Soler.
“Echo” is a musical. It is the story of how music transcends words or action, how melody and harmony blend to elevate the mundane to the extraordinary.
This was one such book that I could have finished early but I lingered and did not want the book to finish .... and now that I am done listening, I feel empty!
If you have kids (8+) around you, this could be a great listen-together experience.
What a great book. Very gentle but intriguing story arc and what an amazing character building.
This book is about invisible people around us who are quietly living their life without much of a fuss. Hungry Paul and Leonard are two such souls that could easily be overlooked as quiet introverts going with their life where most of us extroverts are busy in self obsessed goal driven life running from one milestone to the next.
This book will make you sit and ponder who you are, people that closest to you are and who those acquaintances you know only vaguely and in passing are.
The book is unapologetically authentic.
We live in social media and it's very difficult to see in the moment but it's very easy to see in the retrospect!
Though work of fiction this book is deeply philosophical and will stay with you really long, will question your beliefs, will make you realise how much our norms have changed over the years.
I am going to re read this 10 years from now to hope that we as humanity choose the right things for us and lot of the things mentioned in the book did not happen because we did not want them happen.
One book where I slowed down my usual listening speed and re listen some of the chapters, because I wanted to comprehend, this never happened!
I'm mighty impressed by writing of Hank Green
So it goes.
This novel IMO is about the living casualties of war.
All the inhuman things happening around the backdrop of world war are bearable because of how Vonnegut has written the character of Billy Pilgrim, he is lovable.
Love how everything ends with hope “And somewhere in there, it was springtime, birds, once again, begin to sing” Vonnegut.
Bonus:
After this, I also discovered the “15 Things You May Not Know About Slaughterhouse-Five” Mentalfloss article where there are some interesting facts about the book.