Picked up the audiobook as I wanted to read Didion's works for a while now. It's a good memoir of her difficult time when she lost her husband and her daughter was in an induced coma. I respect her telling the story but I guess I kind of expected more depth. It felt very repetitive at times and the medical jargon and terminologies could have been less.
Towards the end chapters, the book managed to get better and focus more on her feelings and emotions during this period of grief but it was too late till then to strike a chord with the reader in me.
Maybe I'll pick up some of her other works.
This is poetry at its best! Absolute best! I'm literally out of words to describe the unfathomable genius of Hermann Hesse! I wish I could live inside his mind, just for a day maybe! Poetic excellence which even metaphors will fail to describe!
“The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.”
“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, doesn't it just lie there and rot?”
“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish.”
Oh, I could go on and end up quoting the entire book here. Every Chuck Palahniuk book that I pick up to read, somehow turns out to be a masterpiece. And Survivor is no exception either. I still can't understand how Chuck manages to do. To alter your entire mindset and perception with mere words. To start with, this book is about a guy called Tender Branson who happens to be a member of some Creedish Church. Right fom his childhood he's raised up in the cult's environment. The story moves ahead with Tender Branson rising to fame and then the great fall that comes with it. It's a profoundly cynical take on the world of glitz and glamour and how everything isn't as beautiful as they show it on the screens. About how everything is just a marketing gimmick to rake in the moolah. Survivor for me, is a rather satirical and unabashed take on the capitalistic and contemporary modern American culture. The characters are insanely interesting and weird, like every character Chuck creates.
Overall, Survivor is truly an underrated masterpiece among Chuck's best works!
Okay. This has to be the one of the best books I've read in my life! Absoulute brilliance. Hermann Hesse's is godmode in this one! Classic masterpiece! No words to describe it. I'm definitely going to read this one again! Can't get enough of it!
“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
“If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. The status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”
“We've got a sort of brainwashing going on in our country, Morrie sighed. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it–and have it repeated to us–over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all of this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. ‘Guess what I got? Guess what I got?'Do you know how I interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.”
“I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that's all.”
“Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.”
This is by far the best book I've read in 2019. Right from the moment I started reading it on my Kindle, I had to like highlight almost every word in this book! So to start with, Tuesdays With Morrie is about a professor Morrie Schwartz and his student Mitch, who is the narrator throughout the book.
The story begins with Mitch graduating from college and then promising to stay in touch with Morrie, his favourite professor, whom he fondly referred to as “Coach”
Fast forward a few years and Mitch gets the taste of reality and life outside university doors. He gets busy in the hustle, working as a popular sports journalist, grinding away his days to make it big. Amidst all this, he almost forgets about his beloved professor Morrie and loses contact with him until one day when he spots Morrie on a television show ‘Nightline', where he's giving an interview about his life experiences. The twist here is that Morrie is diagnosed with ‘ALS' and has a very short amount of time left in this world.
Upon seeing this, Mitch is shocked and tries to reconnect with his old professor and eventually succeeds. What follows next is a series of meetings between Mitch and Morrie. They meet on Tuesdays and discuss life in general. Right from society and culture to relationships and death. Every Tuesday meeting is a life lesson from a mentor on his deathbed to his favourite student who's struggling with finding the purpose of his life and existence.
The book is so beautifully written that as a reader you're instantly pulled into Morrie's little world and his wholesome life experiences that he's willing to share. Every word that comes out of Morrie's mouth is pure gold! It's like I found a life guide and mentor in Morrie, through this book. This book is like blended whiskey on the rocks, as you start, you enjoy it gradually but by the time you finish it, you're hit with a wave of optimism and positivity!
Anyway, if I go on writing more, I would probably end up rewriting the entire book as a review here, so I'd conclude this here.
This book is a must read for everyone. In my opinion, it's one of those books that you can't afford to miss out on. Would strongly recommend it especially to young 20 something folks who're out of college and still trying to figure out their lives.
“...her eyes followed his figure until it become a dot and mingled with other dots in the summer crowd.”
Absolute classic. It has changed my entire perspective about human relationships, love and loneliness, in general. This being my first Fitzgerald book, I found it a bit tedious to read in the beginning. So much that I was about to quit reading it altogether (Now I am glad that I didn't). But as the book progresses, it turns out into a beautifully woven tragic and wistful love story. Usually, I'm not a fan of love stories but this book is just way out of league. I'm in awe and admiration with Fitzgerald's grandiose and royally elegant style of writing. He sure is a master of his words. The character development in this book is just top notch. The way Fitzgerald portrays the protagonist's fall from grace, throughout the novel, is just breath-taking. You end the book with a myriad of mixed emotions. I sort of felt bad for Dick Diver though. Looking at his indignity and his pitiable state at the end, it just strengthened my cynicism about the concept of love. The book is also full of amusing epigrams and aphorisms, which makes it profound at times. Overall, it's a thought provoking masterpiece by Fitzgerald. Will explore more of the genius of F. Scott Fitzgerald!
Disappointed. The story, the characters, the plot. A miserably dull and pathetic read. It may be a classic but I didn't find it amusing at all.
Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. “You got to,” she said. she squirmed closer and pulled his head close. “There!” she said. “There.” her hand moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently to his hair. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.
Damn Steinbeck, why do you do this!
This is the second Steinbeck book for me, after ‘Of Mice And Men' and I'm absolutely welled up with emotions. Steinbeck always makes me struggle with fighting off my tears, after I finish reading his books. This one's a tragic yet beautiful tale of the Joad family who're living through the great economic depression. The writing style is classic Steinbeck, rich, raw and emotionally powerful! You don't read a John Steinbeck book. You live it!
This book taught me that no matter how worse the this world goes. How miserable the conditions are, humanity never dies. And probably it never will. The last paragraph literally blew off my mind! Steinbeck just took it to a whole new level. This book restored my lost faith in humanity and left me with a lump in my throat.
A must read indeed! Do not miss out on this classic.
Another classic! Hesse's books have that rare ability to communicate directly with your soul. Such is the beauty of this genius!
“Age isn't how old you are, age is how old you feel!”
“The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body or soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.”
“and her respiration was so faint, I took her pulse so I could feel she was alive. Blood circulated through her veins with the fluidity of a song that branched off into the most hidden areas of her body and returned to her heart, purified by love.”
“Sex is the consolation when you can't have love”
“In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.”
Oh I enjoyed this book. I haven't explored much of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and then I happened to read this one! Marquez has this uniquely beautiful style of writing that's romantic with a tinge of brash vulgarity. The story revolves around a ninety year old journalist who's the narrator of the novel. He's turning 90 and has this desire to experience love on his birthday. The narrator's past has been lascivious and wild! And now, he has this yearning for a rather 14 year old young girl called Delgadina. He falls in love with her and this is where the entire novel goes on an altogether different level! Some of you might find the story disturbing. It reminded me of Nabakov's Lolita.
The book is emotionally intense and explores the various facets of human behavior and emotions when a person is in love. It also explores the perils of getting old and how age has an impact on life in general with love, salacious passion and desire as the underlying themes throughout the book. The book is as seductive as its title. Read it for Marquez's fascinating writing and a rather different and offbeat story!
I had watched the movie before reading the book. And I got to say, this existential classic by Chuck was equally entertaining. It's witty and profound. It also manages to have that tinge of dark humor in it, which makes it even more fascinating. It has that unique yet gripping narration style which keeps you glued till you finish reading the book. Overall, a great classic!
Absolutely loved reading this! Stephen King here has managed to caputure the whole essence of what writing means in the most honest sense.
It's an insightful read for every aspiring writer out there. From the basics to the most advanced concepts, King narrates how he views and practises writing. The book also delves into his personal life, like an autobiography and illumines the parts that made him into a writer.
This is King's story with “writing” as the main character. The master storyteller breaks down the art and craft of writing for us, in the most simple yet profound manner.
I would recommend this as a must-read book for every writer out there! It's golden advice and guidance straight from the horse's mouth!
What this book did for me is to make me motivated to pick up my laptop and get back to the blank page again & start writing.
A tale so short yet so beautiful! Hemingway strikes the issue of loneliness of the human soul through this brilliant story. Three men, who seek to escape the grip of solitude and nothingness, in their own little ways. Hemingway sure knows his way with the words. This short story is simple yet so profound. Classic Hemingway!
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
“The whole world that sky, that garden, that air, were different from those that I knew. We were walking along an avenue, and it seemed to me, whenever I looked ahead, that could go no farther in the same direction, that the world of the possible ended there, and that the whole scene must remain fixed for ever in its beauty.”
“Passion, said the other voice and then it was still for a moment. “It is a necessity to me. I cannot live without it. To make life a romance is the one thing worth doing. And with me romance never breaks off in the middle, and this affair I shall carry through to the end.”
This is by far the most beautiful Tolstoy book I've ever read. This book is a gem. A priceless gem in true sense! To start with, the story begins with the narrator, a lady who falls in love with a man who's much older than her in age. And about how her passion and youth yearns for it. The story explores many fascinating and profound themes like love, life, passion, youth, ambition, nostalgia, melancholia, happiness, marriage, society and the meaning and purpose of life. All this woven beautifully in a tale that manages to capture your imagination. And what can I say about Tolstoy, he's indeed the master of human emotions! The story has that existential undertones which make it a delight to read, as I'm a fan of existential works. The book ends with a conclusion about how time changes our lives and how we humans keep changing with it. Evolving and growing with it. And how this affects our relationships and the people around us.
Overall, this is one of the best works of Tolstoy, in my opinion a must read for everyone! One of the best books I've read in 2017!
A book which is a must read for anyone and everyone. Light hearted yet beautifully profound and emotional at the same time. Fredrik Backman at his very best in this one!
There are no words to descibe this book. It's simple yet so profound that it leaves your mind in tatters. The philosophy of Albert Camus regarding this hypocritical society and the way it judges a person who doesn't conform with its fallacies, really changes your perception towards life. This is one of those books that has a deep impact on your mindset, once you've finished reading it. Camus beautifully mocks the absurdity of our futile search for meaning of life!
Fyodor takes you on a roller coaster ride with this one. The narrator is a weird character. He amuses you and irritates you at the same time! In the end, he hands you a mirror to your soul. You may either end up hating him or loving him, it all boils down to how you perceived it. As of me, he fascinated me! Maybe I'll read it once again someday, to grasp the esoteric philosophy of Fyodor.
And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared.
Such a tragic yet beautiful fable! And Steinbeck's raw and eloquent prose style takes it to a whole new level. Like Kino's knife, the tale is bound to strike through your heart. It's a Mexican folk story about how a poor fisherman finds the most beautiful and the greatest pearl in the world. The Pearl of the World as they call it. And what follows is a harrowing tale of luck and greed. There's this line in the book that says, “Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.” That's indeed the bitter truth. The story moves forward with Kino having grand dreams to sell the pearl and educate his kid Coyotito. Wealth always attracts attention. Be it good attention or cruel attention. And the same is brilliantly portrayed in the novel.
It teaches us that how everything comes with a price. And sometimes, the price is too heavy to pay.
Despite being a short novel, it still manages to teach a lot. That's the magic of Steinbeck! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I'm giving it 4 stars just because I expected a happy ending. But never mind!
Franz Kafka digs in deep through your psychology and tickles it with his vague but astonishingly thought provoking storytelling. This one's about how Gregor Samsa, a rather ordinary gentleman suddenly transforms into a vicious insect. And how everyone around him is affected by this abrupt change. Powerful imagery with that added tinge of Kafkaesque narration! This is indeed a classic! The Metamorphosis is sure to amuse you and rattle that little squishy thing inside your skull, for your own good!
A very heartwarming and wholesome short read!
However, I found it a bit too naive for adults. This would be a good book to recommend to pre-teens and teenagers or even young adults. Provides a nice perspective on life and some good advice in there with a bit of humour. Loved the chapter on how to be a man and on religion.
That being said, it does sound a bit preachy and typical at times. But then, that's what the book is about; a dad giving advice to his son on what is life and how best to live it.
Breathtakingly fantastic! This book is one unforgettable journey of survival. Yann Martel has created a masterpiece here.
A teenage boy and a royal bengal tiger stuck in a lifeboat for 227 days. What follows is a story of survival, as their boat drifts off across the vast expanse of the Pacific ocean. The story will make you experience all kinds of emotions and feel them all through its beautiful prose and narration.
I finished it in less than 10 hours and it's one of the best books I have read. Probably the best I read this year. Would love to end the year with it. A must read book that I would recommend that everyone give it a try. If you're looking for a book to shake your soul with some hardcore motivation, this is it.