India From Midnight To The Millennium

Author: Shashi Tharoor
ISBN13: 9780143103240
Edition language: English
My Rating: 4.5/5

If you like non-fiction and can read about India and its political history from a 400 pages book then this book is for you. Its largely written from the view point of an expatriate Indian, a Keralite and that of a Hindu. It was quite surprising for me as I never thought of Shashi Tharoor having such a patriotic inside view of India as he had spent most of the time outside it. Even when he speaks about Kerala its as if he has first hand experience of it.

His writing is very convincing. Each issue is talked about with accuracy and certain places he takes sides too. He always has proper explanation for his stance and expresses it openly.

What was more surprising about this book is that there is a lot of Indira Gandhi bashing and in some places Congress bashing also in it. Now, this was some thing that I never expected from someone who belonged to the same party. And this is what has elevated Shashi Tharoor's place in my mind. He is not criticizing anybody without a reason.

I really did like this book but reading non-fiction that too history is not that easy. I had gotten bored in between because of the genre this book belonged to and not because of the book in itself. The book is very well written.

Sorting Out Sid

Author: Yashodhara Lal
ISBN13: 9789350296912 
Edition language: English
My Rating: 2/5

I have read the author's first book and had liked it a lot. Thought that it was written in a very realistic way and that's why I had bought this book from the bookstore nearby when it was released.

But alas....

This second book of her's misses the non-masala touch of the first book. Maybe because the first book was fairly autobiographical and this is just a piece of fiction. After reading this one I think the author is slipping into the Chetan Bhagat clan. If there is a third book by Yashodhara Lal I might be a little skeptical about buying it.

The story line is about a modern day Sid's life before, thorough and after divorce. A very predictable story flow written in an above average English language (Though the use of the "bad words" unnecessarily did startle me a little bit). When we say modern day there comes beer, a female friend, flirtatious colleague, keeping parents at a distance etc etc. Not to forget the entry of the divorced single mother. Rest of the story can easily be guessed- I guess!!!

Though the author claims to have a good sense of humor, I don't think the book contains much of it. The jokes are really not the "laugh out loud" kind and rather the "shruggable" (if that is a word) kind. 

So bottomline, the book is much better than many of the Chetan Bhagat's books. So if you still want to check it out, do go ahead and buy it.

Pride & Prejudice

Author: Jane Austen
ISBN13: 9789380848051
Edition language: English
My Rating: 5/5

How can anyone not like Pride & Prejudice?? I wonder....

Why I picked up this book?

I read a lot but most of it had been genres other than the classics. So I decided that if I want to be known as "THE READER" then I must start reading the classics. As I had seen some adaptations of "Pride & Prejudice" I thought that it will be the right book to give start with. And thus I started the journey.....

The experience

The experience of reading Jane Austen was a beautiful one. The diplomatic writing, the use of words, the expression of sentiments, the very relatable characters, the silent romance.... ah... I am in love with this book. I love this book so much that I find it difficult to express my love in words. I now wish that I had started reading it earlier.

The storyline

The title of the book relates the adjectives that best suits the main characters- Elizabeth (Prejudice) and Mr. Darcy (Pride). Both are brought up in different family setups. One in an aristocratic family (Darcy) and the other as a free bird by a careless mother and father among a family of 5 sisters.

The book is about their union and how they are made for each other. Their pride and prejudices get in way of their life. Though the story was written in the 18th century, it is applicable even in this modern age. It beautifully explains how the behaviour of each person in a family effects everyone else.

This is a book for everyone.

My Experiments with Truth : An Autobiography

Author: Mahatma Gandhi
ISBN: 9788128013768
Edition language: English
Literary awards: none
My Rating: 4/5

To understand Gandhi through his own words was a wonderful experience. There is a kind of a picture that is painted into our minds during childhood by our elders of Gandhi as an ideal person. Reading this book changed my perception of Gandhiji. Now what I see is a person who has strong principles/belief systems and someone who admits to being a human with a weak side but strives to make it strong by relentless efforts.

I have a Dream

Author: Rashmi Bansal
ISBN13: 9789380658384
Edition language: English
Literary awards: none
My Rating: 4/5

I really liked this book. It was so overwhelming to read a piece of work only based on the social service many people have undertaken. This book carries interviews of 20 idealists who have decided to make a change in the world we live in. Some of them have taken social service as a business and make money by applying management principle to it. Some of them belong to the regular class of social workers and yet some others are monks who have taken the path of spirituality.

Reading this book was a very humbling experience. To learn that these people are very ordinary people like us and yet they took the oath of making a change in this world and decided to do so without hesitation actually made me contemplate on what i am doing with my life.

Siddhartha

Author: Hermann Hesse

ISBN13: 9789380005607

Edition language: English

Literary awards: None

My Rating: 3/5

I would not deny the fact that this fiction has wisdom in it but seriously it could not grab my heart. In one line this book is about a boy named Siddhartha who ultimately finds nirvana (or what ever it is) at the end. Thus there is the hero, a Brahman boy, going after a courtesan in search of love, then falling into that kind of a life style and regretting after a long time. Learning from a ferryman about life.... blah blah... seriously speaking there is nothing new that any movie these days does not talk about.


This book was written long back, very long back and seriously back then I am sure this kind of a story might have inspired generations of people, but at this age and time all what is written in this book is totally cliche. I know that lot of people love this book. So please if anyone else has different opinions please enlighten me as I might have missed out something that you probably loved about this book. My opinion is just this: the story in this book has been told in numerous other ways in books/movies. Thus this book really did bore me.

THE DIFFICULTY OF BEING GOOD : on the subtle art of dharma

Author: Gurcharan Das

ISBN: 9780143418092

ISBN13: 9780143418092

Edition language: English

Literary awards: None

My Rating: 5/5

Why be good when being bad is considered to be cool?

Why does always bad things happen to good people?

In a society where people get away by doing bad things, why should people still believe in Non-Violence and Dharma?

Is a "bad person" never good? Does not the "good" sometimes become bad?

Ultimately what is good and bad?

The above questions might have passed through your mind at least once in your lifetime. Thus, what does being good mean? Why be good? It is at this juncture that this book tries to find meaning to the word Dharma by dissecting the characters in Mahabharata one by one and discussing their behaviour patterns. While reading the book, one might often wonder whether a person can be called inherently good or bad? Isn't there a Raavan hiding in each of the righteous Ramas of the world. Or, to put it in the modern version wasn't a part of Voldemort there in Harry Potter himself.

I have never found it so hard to write a review for a book that I absolutely loved. I fear that my review however times edited would not do justice to it. The theme of this book is so close to my heart that after reading the summary given at the back of this book, I just could not hide my happiness in finding a book that talks about some queries that I have had all along my life till now.

For an introvert like me who can easily be outsmarted by others and to have to smile at the same person (cursing myself for my lack of ability to express myself) the theme of this book is relevant in my day-to-day life. The question of "why be good?" has occurred to me many a times in life.

From my experiences in life so far, I have learnt that a person can never be categorized as good or bad. It is difficult to draw a straight line between good karma and bad karma. The matter is subtle: delicately complex. This has been beautifully discussed in this book through various chapters disseminating each character of The Mahabharatha and also including political/corporate figures from everyday news in some places.

Still my favorite chapter is The Krishna's Guile with the tagline "It is the way it is". All through the Gita, "The Krishna" preaches about being righteous but during the Kurukshetra War he makes the Pandavas win by trickery. Duryodhana questions this approach while dying and Krishna replies with a simple "somethings are the way it is". This is my favorite because it helps in finding peace with many situations in life when we fail to find logic in what has happened.

I loved this book and I am sure that this is going to be one of my bibles (books I love and would read, re-read, re-re-read..... and by heart and treasure in life). I would recommend this book to anyone anytime as its relevant in all ages.