Sumit
I couldn't help but noticing a lot of Hank coming through in April. Maybe it's coz we know the author so well, but the perceived value & fame of being internet famous bleeds so well in April that you couldn't help but notice the similarities. The story is , in simple terms, a first contact story & as most first contact stories the protagonist is a woman coz, well, the smarter sex. After reading Artemis, I had given up on male authors writing good female leads, but this one is up there. The story is in first person, like a memoir. The end felt too rushed for me. Maybe I'll have to revisit that at a later date.
Gaiman's writings have always (always meaning since I discovered him i.e. earlier this year)fascinated me, the way he is able to create entire worlds and mythologies in a drop of the hat. Sandman was on my wishlist for so long, finally got around to reading the first volume and gotta say it is enticing as hell. The stories, especially the beginning of each issue (8 in total) seem disjointed at first, but some come together in great ways, others are left for the reader to figure out. Characters are spread out like grains of sand (yep!) helping and aiding our protagonist Dream aka Sandman aka other thousand names in his mission for revenge, with a lot of heavy handed biblical themes thrown in to the mix. Also classic DC stalwarts show up, so that's a plus point. I found Vol 1 to be thoroughly enjoyable, although the first issue may confuse some, but stick it out, it's gonna be great.
(Adding a review so that when I go back to the book I'll know how I felt just after I read it)
The first book of the year and what a start. I listened to it, given my dream is for aziz to read a pasta recipe to me at bedtime. Even though this is a review, think of it more like a free writing. I'm probably going to review just the book and not the review. So coming back to the point, this book, like Aziz I presume, goes down easy. The stats are mind-blowing at some points and he doesn't indulge in them too much and moves forward pretty smoothly. At 6 hours, it's a short listen and thoroughly enjoyable.
We get to see romance from ages past till the modern ones, from the erudite men in Japan to the over promiscuous one in Argentina, the perspectives are vast. I wished he covered one from his parents' country of origin, India for the uninitiated, that would have been interesting seeing that we have the ultra-prude and the uber-creeps in the same country, with a dash of the urban and rural romantics to boot. I'd love to see him take this and many more countries and times on his sequel, the name which has stuck with me since I came up with it on the pot today, Post-Modern Romance. hmmm.
Some points of the book hit too close to home. The boring “hey”s sent to girls, the mind games while texting, the herbivore men. All too real. Though this book might be better if you are a straight male reader, but that's just me projecting. I can't know what others can take away from this, but I'd love to hear the thoughts.
Anyway, As you may now know I'm a big fan of him and his work and love how he divides his life into small projects. Looking forward to what he puts up next.
Except for a few clunky romantic dialogues, which, to be fair, might've been a reflection of the time, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. This read way better than Old Man and the Sea, which I have to revisit to see if I've changed my opinion on it. There was the bit about horse racing that went a tad too long I felt, but without that we wouldn't get the gem of a phrase ‘throwing benches'. The action hurts physically sometimes, the deaths come out of nowhere and still you have to perform duties as if it's normal life. Sentences were simple yet carried so much weight, I shudder at how much effort went into editing this book.
It's life, it goes on.
A concise but gripping retelling of India's political history told with a first-hand perspective and anecdotes. I'm woefully ignorant of our post-independence history and this serves as a fantastic primer for anyone wanting to both, wet their feet in the waters and get a brief understanding of what forms our governance. Of why we are where we are now and get a sense of where we would go from here. It's fascinating to see our leaders, past and present, as just humans. Flawed, emotional humans and how their whims affect us massively. After reading this, I'm probably ready to tackle the subject in depth. I hope Vir Sanghvi updates this with the Modi years included.
A very hard read. I found myself slogging through the language used in some of the chapters. Some chapters I wished I could stop reading this book, but it's the magic of Calvino that you know there will be some thing great coming up. All around a great read but in installments, for me at least
Interesting premise to begin with, the story encompasses a myriad of characters around this circus. Some are better fleshed out than others. Some you don't even care about. The story goes lull in the middle but hanging onto it is worth it. Took me days to get to the first half as the pacing was pretty slow, but the second half especially the last third picked up the necessary pace and ended up being the saving grace of this book. Best enjoyed while speed reading, skipping over some lines won't hinder your comprehension that much. All in all, I liked the circus, would love to see it adapted to screen
Mid-way through the story I had guessed the ending and even though the end has been parodied and referenced a hundred times over in pop culture, you're never ready for it.
When I saw Gadar for the first time, the images of bodies on the train scarred me so much that I never revisited that movie and the handpump shenanigans for a long time. Train to Pakistan invokes the same kind of feeling . The book is haunting in its depiction of the partition, elaborate in describing the rural Indian life, frank in showing how religions are viewed in India and walks in a delicate balancing act between all three aspects. There are 2-3 protagonists and some of their plot points do seem contrived, but it takes nothing away from the core idea of the book.
PS: Do not read it before you go to sleep.
Had started this last year but had given up 70% of my way in. Although the story was intriguing, the writing felt too regimented, colouring in numbers. Had made my way through the first book with hopes of continuing here but alas
Then at the start of this year started with its audiobook and surprise surprise, it is a much better experience now! Turns out when you're looking for beautiful prose when the writer has his full focus on the plot and characters, reading it feels tedious, at least for me. In the audio, there's no need to highlight a sentence so the story flows much better and GraphicAudio does a good job of bringing the book to life.
Hopefully this continues and I “read” more sequels of this story.
Not as good as I remembered it to be sadly. The artwork is fantastic but it felt off for some reason. The dialogues felt hammy, the plot contrived. The way heroes and villains are reinterpreted was fantastic but the way it all went about, didn't sit well. Loved the gore and violence though
Read the parts with the boys and skip the uncle's boring-ass diary entries. You'll be in a much better place and have a happy relationship with this book and probably the movie that's coming out.
I liked the concept but it's shoddily & predictably executed. I'll bet that majority of the people here might be able to predict what the end might be based on just the blurb. The philosophy is handpicked from the masters so those lines are the only ones that I've highlighted as the prose was pretty average. It's a fast read though. Could've been better as a short story/black mirror or twilight zone episode.
This is my intro to Vonnegut's work and my, what an intro. If you're just brisking through, the story might seem all over the place, what with all the time-travel stuff. But underneath all that sci-fi, is a pretty stoic person's life(just got off, a couple of days ago, reading Obstacle is the Way, so I have my glasses tinted with stoicism) Vonnegut has brilliantly weaved in the Dresden bombings with the Tralfamadorians' outlook of time. That which is to happen will happen, has already happened, is happening. The dead are always living and the living are always dead. So it goes.
And another thing about this book, if you're the least bit creative, this will turn the gears in your head like a mofo and will beg you to create stuff, because if this guy can blend in WWII, Time travel, Aliens, Philosophy and a optometrist-veteran's life-story into just 175 pages of cohesive awesomeness, you can at least start.
Update 2024: the above review was written in 2017 when I was just a budding writer. Now in 2024 I'm a budding writer 7 years in the making. My depression aside, this book still slaps. All the above points made by the 25 year old me are still valid but I don't know about the stoicism thing. Billy as a main character feels to have a very flat arc. Sure he's supposed to be the everyman who goes on extraordinary adventures whom you can paste yourself onto but still I would've liked some semblance of a personality. Let's see. Only hope is I see this review in 7 more years and at the bare minimum, still am a budding writer. For the alternative, I fear, is much much worse. Happy reading
Unconventional style of writing. It inspired me to write one of own meta stories which I will publish once I get around to typing it
Each chapter has something that can be highlighted. The worlds built here are thought provoking, yes, but entertaining to the point that they can be separate books of their own.
Except for the story which was essentially a long-winded AI version of neopets, I loved all the other stories especially one that dealt with parallel lives, timelines and creationism.
This was a solid 4 stars, was enjoying the world and these characters and the prose a lot until the last chapter and then it suddenly was bumped up to 5. I can't explain how closely it mirrored what I'm going through at the moment. It didn't give me an answer, nor did I expect it to, but seeing what was inside me being resonated on the page gave me a certain sense of solace.
Took a long time to read this but was worth every second. End could've come a good 50 pages before but we won't get the incredible ‘darkness gets before the light' line. I highlighted sentences like a mad man in this one.
Probably the best Discworld book I've read till now, granted I've read only 6-7 but this ranks number one easily. It's always a tricky thing to write about religion and criticise it without being condescending and Pratchett manages it beautifully here.
Learning about the man way after his death, it would be fair that I am smitten with him. The way he describes food and people and how the two are interlinked with each other is something to learn from. Read this and intersperse it with the Parts Unknown TV show and you will go back and forth for about 60 years of this Bourdain's life and career. And knowing what you know now, you can't help but feel sad at certain passages that look like premonitions, even though they were absolutely not meant to be and ideally, shouldn't be read as such. The world became a bit more dark after he decided to take his own life but I hope the work he has left behind and the people that he has touched would be able to show the light to others.
This is more a note about the man rather than a review of the book and I am absolutely fine with it.
Things get broken. Things get lost.