Books! Books! And More Books!

Books blog: Of Books and Reading

I invite you to have a look at some of the books (not all of them are listed here) I've read this year (2014) and I strongly recommend them for reading. Following is my personal take on each one of them:

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill:

I looked up Google and found this title as one of the Top Ten Horror Books ever published. That's it I had to read the book! There were many other good ones on the list, and "Heart-Shaped Box" (by Joe Hill) was one of them. I am glad I picked "Heart-Shaped Box" this time and it didn't disappoint. A first few pages into the book and you will deal with the kind of unspeakable Horror! that you might not have read before. Amazing stuff!

I like the way the book has been written. I strongly recommend it. 

I am a die-hard fan of Stephen King’s horror genre and I love his works. Joe Hill, his son; will he be able to do the magic for me? YES! After all, like father, like son. Joe Hill promises everything and he did a wonderful job. He scared me shut! "Heart-Shaped Box" deserves high praise. It is indeed a good yarn and I am giving it a 4- star rating because next time when there’s a new book from Joe I would give it not 5, but 6 stars! Thank you, Mr. Hill, for the “Heart-Shaped Box”.

[A slightly different version of the above book review is published in a previous blog by the name Collected Status Messages - 3. You may choose to click here to follow the link:

http://arindammoulick.blogspot.in/2014/12/collected-status-messages-3.html]

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill:

NOS4A2 is American author Joe Hill's spine-tingling story of supernatural suspense. His hugely popular works like Heart-Shaped Box and Horns sold millions of copies worldwide. 

On a personal note: Since I am a lover of Horror Fiction, I searched on Google for a list of the most famous Horror books ever written. There were many titles of greatest horror books included in the lists, but there were two books such as "NOS4A2" and "Heart-Shaped Box" by Joe Hill that were listed repeatedly in them. The book is gorgeously produced and the imported hard-bound edition of "NOS4A2" (see the cover of the book shown alongside) is to die for. It took me 20 scary, horror-filled days to complete reading it. 

Beware! Some spoilers ahead: "NOS4A2" is the number plate of the Roll Royce Wraith car and Charlie Manx is the owner. He loves to take it for a ride around looking for children to come along with him to a place of amusement called “Christmasland.” Manx has the ability to slip out of the everyday world and vanish into the hidden supernatural world of his creation. "NOS4A2" deserves 6 stars out of 5!

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri:

Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest book “The Lowland” is one of the finest books I have read this year. I picked up “The Lowland” because it was by Jhumpa Lahiri, a novelist whose work I have admired and enjoyed in the past. “Interpreter of Maladies” is one such. I have been to Tollygunj in Kolkata but never had visited the place she writes about in her evocative book, including the Tolly Club and the Technician’s Studio which I have heard about so many times. Tollygunge is sort of the epicenter of the novel. I long to go there now and look for myself.

Jhumpa Lahiri carries a heart of silence, and stillness in her stories, her interpretations of the 1950s and 1960s Calcutta are so evocative that it makes me feel like going to ‘the lowland’ and having a look. There are so many other things that evoke a deep sense of nostalgia for a life gone by in the quiet slinking away of Calcutta’s once-great economics and commerce. A marshy stretch of land abutting the house and the two ponds where two brothers grow up to become two entirely different individuals is the wonderful opening of this novel. I strongly recommend it.

You are Neera by Sunil Gangopadhyay

Sunil Gangopadhyay's novels have a niche following not only in his home state Bengal but all over the country. He is one of the stalwarts of Bengali literature and has written over 200 books. "You are Neera" is a book of love poems and is one of his most famous collections of love poems in this series. I understand there are several poetry collections with the theme of Neera.

Sunil Gangopadhyay, like so many other contemporary authors, especially poets from Bengal, has always been steeped deep in the cultural consciousness of the modern and post-modern Bengali society and its stellar literature. Satyajit Ray made two films based on his works, Pratidwandi (The Adversary) and Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Night in the Forest). Many of his popular works have been translated into English such as "Those Days," "First Light," "The Lonely Monarch," "Ranu and Bhanu," "The Wonderland and Other Stories".

Sample a lovely poem from the book:

"Each day for us was a day of changing birth

Do you remember, when you, like cave-woman suddenly wounding adolescence,

Had tenderly embraced, very early at dawn, the soft, red winter sun

From the kadamba tree on Hari Ghosh Street, at the time, small shards of diamond were slowly falling…”

13 Steps to Bloody Good luck by Ashwin Sanghi:

This is an interesting book. It says the journey of life is not exactly easy. How do you attract luck? If you do not have any answer, then you should be reading this book…like…. NOW! I really liked reading this book about how to attract not just Dame Luck but “Bloody Good Luck”!

The author deals with the profound ideation of luck that luck is always not about your Fate or Destiny (that plays a role in your life), it is more about how you manage your life and what options/alternatives you choose from: Is it through so-called ‘hard work’ and ‘talent’ that counts? Yes, it does though. In any case, some people do not get lucky in spite of all that hard work and talent they have or invest in. This book is packed with highly interesting anecdotes and personal experiences that make it all the more pleasurable to read it. Must say it is a welcome new addition to my reading list this year. Worth reading.

Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat:

KA-BOOM! Who suggested this gory title? KA-BOOM! The suggestion of something like ‘Half-Girlfriend’ (of a person) is such a ridiculous thought process on the part of the author of the book! KA-BOOM! Let me be specific here: according to me, (without the risk of sounding needlessly opinionated here) to be the very idea of something like ‘half girlfriend’ sounds like an illiterate viewpoint. KA-BOOM! You either have a (full) girlfriend or you don’t have one at all. KA-BOOM!

(I’d say the words (the book title, precisely) ‘half girlfriend’ comes across as an illiterate make-believe viewpoint that smacks of full-blown absurdity – a bloodless coup d'état (KA-BOOM!) that sounds like a bugle of committing an unliterary-like butchery on the collective head of its unknown hapless readers for buying the book! KA-BOOM! Needless to say, this writer got infected with nothing but a certain kind of microbial bally-hoo that had, God only knows, upended the apple cart of decorum on reading this pointless book!) Can a girl or a boy be half a girlfriend or half a boyfriend? I don’t think so. KA-BOOM!

Man and His Mind by Swami Nihsreyasananda:

Swami Nihsreyasananda, an eminent monk of the Ramakrishna Order, presents his depth of scholarly thinking in this volume. The book is a collection of editorial articles he wrote many years ago and regularly published in the monthly magazine Prabuddha Bharata. This compendium of scholarly essays reflects upon man’s struggles with his own mind and how if the mind is not disciplined and controlled, it causes numerous problems. And yes, not just for the individuals themselves but also for society in general. The eminent monk illustrates (with helpful quotations from Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Sarada Devi, and the scriptures) the ways and means to keep one’s mind under control. This book was gifted to me. I strongly recommend it.

Personal by Lee Child:

I have been reading Lee Child books for a few years now and I have never been disappointed. 

That's one of the specialties of Lee Child novels. 

I liked a whole lot of them and every time it was a new experience to reading this famous author. 

Personal is not a great addition as far as his genre of crime fiction is concerned but certainly a good one.

His books are on my reading list every year. His compelling thrillers are really great.

By Arindam Moulick

- Dec 2014

Pix courtesy: Internet