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Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus!

Brilliant! The master storyteller recreates the first days of Adam and Eve’s descend on this planet. Mark Twain’s incomparable wit and his impressive understanding of differences between functioning of the two genders makes this classic what it is – A Classic.

Twain has written this book in two parts, first as Adam’s diary when he first found himself on earth and then, the same events in Eve’s voice. The stark difference in the behaviors of the two is both humorous and awe inspiring. You thought that you, a millennium girl, faced problems with men? Think again, you daughter of Eve. The first mother has gone through each of those vexations that you find yourself struggling with. Men have always been (and going by this logic, will always remain) their unsentimental self.

Every sentence of this diary is mirthful and recommended for all, regardless of whether you are a son of Adam or a daughter of Eve. Precious.

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The tale of the rich and the flamboyant!

Sisters is a typical Shobha De tale, masala maar ke. True to her style, De portrays the life of Indian high society with minute details. It is a story of two illegitimate sisters brought together by one tragedy after another. The sisters, in a typical movie style, are the prettiest and the sexiest girls in town. The men they meet are gorgeous and scums! Yeah, all of them. The girls have little morals, which makes it a very racy read. From murder, rape, manipulation, politics to romance, sex, and adulatory…De never disappoints.

The story has predictable twists; if you are soap opera viewer, you will see the death, the takeover, the marriage coming just on the next page. However, to the author’s credit, the book is fairly gripping. If you start off, you will finish it. De’s eye for detail and speedy writing style can be seen at its best.

About soul mates and past lives!

More of a reader of fiction, I picked up this collection of entries from Dr. Bryan Weiss’ medical journal dubiously. Dr. Weiss deals with the concept of reincarnation and past lives as learnt through his experience with his patients as a psychiatrist. He chronicles the life of his two patients in this book to explain how he came to believe in the concept of past lives while treating his patients using hypnosis. He constantly refers to his previous works in order to explain and give a logical backing to his statements.

Only Love is Real talks of soul mates. As per Dr. Weiss, every soul has some mates with whom it bonds so well that it is bound to meet them repeatedly, life after life. He believes that a soul can have many soul mates and their gender and relationship does not matter. For example, my mother in this life could be a special soul I bond with and she could have been my daughter or my husband in one of my previous lives! Sounds weird? I know, it does. The author realizes this as well. He constantly backs up his theories with proofs and scientific logic and tries to gain reader’s faith. I am not saying, I agree with him on all points, but the book has made me think and want to believe.

The author also believes that bonded souls are destined to meet each other; sometimes they recognize each other instantly and sometimes the opportunity is lost. The book is worth a read. I suggest you pick it up with an open mind and then, make up your mind only after finishing it. If nothing else, you will enjoy the various examples shared from patients lives.

Sweetness of words, woven with a simple tale of love.

Jean Webber’s classic Daddy-Long-Legs begs to be read by one and all. Regardless of your age, interests, gender, or anything else, you must read it; if you haven’t already as a kid, that is.

This is a story of a young girl who is brought up in an orphanage and suddenly finds herself transported to a college thanks to an anonymous trustee. Knowing the generous trustee only by his lean silhouette, she calls him Daddy-Long-Legs. She writes to him regularly during her four years of college despite his never writing back. The entire story is presented as a collection of letters to Daddy. However, the letters are very wisely composed. They bring out the character of the young girl, her attitude, and her growing up with time poignantly.

The letters are light hearted, expressive, extremely humane, and lots of fun. Although the supposed surprise can be easily guessed after the first 35 pages, the book is still extremely gripping and one tends to flip page after another. Its a quick read but has beautiful expressions that one feels like reading over and over again.

Grab a copy today!

A mystical tale of weird beings.

First of the seven books in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger is supposedly not the best, as per Stephen King himself. This is one of his early-in-the-career books that he is not very proud of. Nevertheless, it is the beginning of something and hence, one reads.

The Gunslinger is the story of a man on a quest. What he searches is not very clear, the importance of the Dark Tower for this man, who claims to be a human in the world of ghosts, spirits, daemons, oracles, and mystical characters I know not, is hazy. Nevertheless, the book is an intriguing collection of curious incidents and adventures in the life of the Gunslinger and several others who cross his path.

But before you make up your mind, let me tell you that the author openly claims to have used two sources as inspiration for the series: LotR and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly! Yeah, and he combines the two well. The story is painted on a cinema scope canvas of The Good… and orphic characters run all over it to create a lot of confusion in the reader’s head. The book raises questions that, hopefully, the following books in the series answer.

King’s writing style is gripping and one reads till the end. Once you get there, you will probably pick up the next book as well. So Happy Dark Tower Hunting. I hope to complete the series some day.

Bitter. Funny. Sweet. Annoying. Funny.

This is Mark Haddon’s first published novel and for that I applaud. For it is not easy to write from the point of view of a 15-year-old, autistic boy. The boy, a mathematics genius, takes upon himself to write a book. Since he does not like reading about things unreal, he decides to write about his own life, in his own way. In the process, he also intends to solve the murder mystery of the neighbor’s dog. Fun begins.

Haddon writes in simple language, and explains simple incidents of ordinary days of a not-so-ordinary child. The brilliance of the book lies in the bohemian writing style, use of mathematics to carry the book forward, and linking incidents by most reciting most unrelated thoughts. The book flows as the trail of thoughts in the boy’s mind, which I totally enjoyed. Gets two thumbs up from me!

The best graphical autobiography, ever!

Persepolis is a story of Marjane Satrapi told in two parts: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return. Although both these books are complete in themselves, I suggest reading them together, as one. Persepolis tells a timeless story of life under Islamic Revolution in Iran, from eyes of an extremely aware girl. The story and its extremely effective and brilliantly done graphic representation takes us through various incidents in the life of Satrapi starting at age nine. Satrapi combines pictures and words to describe her life among radical parents, orthodox society, and conformist friends. The book has many humorous moments well blended with the grim subject. The political commentary is superbly woven with the daily events of a young girl’s life.

The first book ends with Satrapi leaving her country to go to Austria in search of a safe and independent future. The second book begins here. It tells an uncomplicated story of complexities of a life of a Third World person in Europe. Caught in the political turmoil, Satrapi learns harsh realities of life by living them. After a certain incident, Satrapi picks the life of restriction in Iran over lonely struggle in Austria. Back home, Satrapi fights to get back to the supposed normal life. The book again discusses dark events of the girl’s life, but in a simple and communicative manner.

This very well told compelling story, which is enhanced by simple but expressive black and white graphics, can get you started on both graphic novels and autobiographies. I urge you to give it a shot.

She lives life on her own terms and barely manages to get through.

This is a story of a young woman with a fighter’s spirit, and of course, an overactive imagination. Olivia is a glamorous but tough spirited journalist. Thanks to her imaginative pursuits, she has been moved from hard-core journalism to fluff writing. During one skin-deep coverage of a face cream inauguration party, she meets a handsome French man that she thinks is actually Osama Bin Laden in disguise. From here, she starts her wild goose chase and plunges into a series of (mis) adventures. She meets cute guys en route and makes the best of all available opportunities.

Helen Fielding has a gripping plot, which has been executed well in some parts. There are some passages where one tends to lose interest. At the same time, the book loses touch with reality after first fifty pages. Fielding fills the book with her usual witty-n-wise one liners but this is not even close to Bridget Jones. If you are willing to let your brain take rest and read it for out and out entertainment, well, go ahead. Else, skip it. You are not missing out anything.

“Consider it. Good books are for consideration after too,” Ted Brautigan says.

Stephen King writes one fascinating tale by linking five unlinked stories. The first story, “Low Men in Yellow Coats” is set in the 60s and lays the ground, as little as it can, for the next four stories. This story, borrows characters from King’s “Dark Tower” series. The rest of the stories borrow at least one character from the first one. The last story provides a closure to all other stories. This strategy alone makes the book worth considering.

“Low Men in Yellow Coats” is a story of an 11-year old boy, his confused mother, his two friends, and his elderly pally neighbor who sees men from the other world. This story is very well told and represents both children and aliens in an intriguing fashion.

The other stories – “Hearts in Atlantis,” “Blind Willie,” “Why We’re in Vietnam,” and “Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling” deal with the Vietnam war, its affects and aftermaths. Each story picks one not so important character from “Low Men in Yellow Coats” and tells the tale of people around that character in latter years. The book ends in 1999.

King does not aim to give you goosebumps this time around. The idea is very novel to me, thought I did not like the second story much. It ran far too long and got into details that did not interest me. I wanted to know more about Yellow-Jacketed Men. The book does not tell me about them. Apparently, I have to read Dark Tower Series now!! As an anthology, this works.

Let me put this straight, this is not close to Five Point Someone, but that does not make it a bad second effort. No, not bad at all.

This time around, Chetan Bhagat tells a story closer to a larger section of the youth population. If you have ever worked in corporate environment, not necessarily a call centre, you can relate to bits and pieces of the book.

This is a story of five friends who work in just another call center in Gurgaon. They do the usual stuff that you and I do, they visit the same places as us, they have similar aspirations and similar problems – well more or less similar problems.

This story of one night takes off pretty well, and grows on you fast. However, as morning approaches, the story begins to stagger. It wobbles and falls flat in the end. No, I did not like the treatment of the last bit. I am not talking about the important call they receive but about how these friends react to the call and save the world. It is very Bollywood-ish.

But in Bhagat’s defense, he manages to give us another easy read. Good to kill time during your train travel to visit your mother.