Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Goldfinch

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff 

"Lauren Groff’s audacious novel, Fates and Furies, is an astounding portrait of a marriage. With all the elements of Greek Tragedy, Mathilde escapes her dreadful childhood when she marries Lotto, who believes his destiny is to fill the Great American Artist archetype. In “Fates” we are seduced by Mathilde’s and Lotto’s inspiring union, but the “two sides of every story” trope is never truer than in a marriage. “Furies” reveals Mathilde’s tempestuous rage boiling beneath the surface." - https://www.nationalbook.org/books/fates-and-furies/

The para above says it well so I will not write a separate review.

14/03/23 
Finished the Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- The book is about a young boy who survives a bomb attack at the MOMA in New York. He leaves the Museum with a valuable painting and the gold ring given to him by a dying victim (some lovely descriptions there). For some reason he does not tell anyone about the painting, and while that was understandable, what was inexplicable was the sudden anxiety about it in the middle of the book. The book became really gripping while describing his life with his abusive father and his (the father's) girlfriend but lost me somewhere after that. I couldn't fathom why he started cheating and duping people when his life was taking a turn for the better, with a loving guardian and a possible girlfriend. I didn't stay with the book long enough to find out what happened at the end, but something surely went awry with the plot.

Glad it was a library book and not something I purchased.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Why we kneel how we rise

 Why we kneel how we rise - Michael Holding - written with so much grace and dignity, even when writing about how human beings can really be horrible to one another. Has some very illuminating interviews with other celebrities and their experience of racism.


Nothing was the same

 Nothing was the same - a memoir by Kay Redfield Jamison - a very moving memoir of how marriage to an absolutely wonderful man helped the author battle and overcome her manic depression. A beautiful description of grief and how one learns to live with it. Definitely a book to keep going back to. More than anything, it is an amazing love story

Accabadora

 Accabadora by Michela Miguela - found this on Ellena Ferrante's selection of favourite books by women - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/21/elena-ferrante-names-her-40-favourite-books-by-female-authors?utm_source=pocket_mylist  - its a lovely story of the love between an elderly caretaker for the dying and a young girl who is left in her care. The young girl grows up learning to understand and accept choices made by Bonaria.

Travelling with pomegranates Sue Monk Kidd

Ann Kidd Taylor and Sue Monk Kidd 

Travelling with pomegranates is very readable, with alternate chapters written by the mother and the daughter. very interesting to see the 2 very different perspectives to the same event/s. They travel through Greece, Italy and Spain during an important phase in their lives, and the descriptions of the places they visit are very vivid.

An interesting takeaway is that the apple in the Garden of Eden could have actually been a pomegranate, as that was a fruit available even in those times in the Middle East, where the birth of Christ and Christianity is said to have occurred. . It is also considered a fertility symbol 

Friday, January 21, 2022

Book reviews by me, for me

 As I go through my list of books based on recommendations from friends all over, I have decided to write myself a short review of books I finish. Whether it is because of age, or because I am reading too fast, I am not able to recall whether I did or did not like a book when someone asks for my opinion. And thankfully, my own opinion is never exactly like any one else's, so this ..... 

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Books to be read

Books
Tagore:
Novels - Gora, Jogajog (translated by Supriya Choudhury OUP)
Short stories - Dui Bon And Malancha (translated by Sukhendu Roy)


Sue Stuart-Smith - Well Gardened mind 
Malina by Ingmar Bachmann 
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff 

Michael Morpurgo - author
Flamingo boy
waiting for anya
in the mouth of the wolf
warhorse

Talks and dialogues - J Krishnamurthy 
Normal people
Early Indians 
Latitudes of longing 
Case of the exploding mangoes 
Em and the big hoom 

Roopa Prabhu
Lonely Monarch - Sunil Gangopadhyay 
Mother wit - Urmila Pawar

Rouayda
Alaa al Aswany - Yacoubian Building 
Marguerite - yourcenar
Asha reco - 
Amulya Malladi : mango season
A separation - Katie kitamura  xx
Britt Bennett - The mothers xx
In the country- Mia alvar xx
Atlas of unknowns- Tania james.xx
Map of home- Randa jarrar. xx
Nawal  al Saadawi.
Rafael campo. Poet.
Taiye Selasi- Ghana must go.
A house of my own- Sandra cisneros. xx

Afzal  friese- 9968255979.
Tender- Belinda Mckeon.
Ross Gay- catalogue of unabashed gratitude.
The heart is a muscle the size of a fist- Sunil Yapa
The heavens we chase - lavanya shanbhogue arvind
The wedding photographer- Sakshama  Puri Dhariwal
The circuses that sweep through the landscape- Tejaswini
Neon noon- Tanuj Solanki
Family planning- Karan Mahajan
The association of small bombs- Karan Mahajan
the two asian Americas by Erika lee.
The other side of silence- Urvashi Butalia
Fathers and Sons- Ivan Turgenev
The conversations- Michael Ondaatje ( with Walter Murch)
Angry housewives eating Bon bons -Lorna Landvik
Half  Gods by Akil  Kumarasamy
That time I loved you- Stories by Carrianne  Leung
The other Americans by Laila  Lalami.
Walking on the ceiling by Aysegul  Savas
 Together  Tea by Marjan  Kamali

till here- Lara Vapnyar xx
The Czar of love and Techno- Anthony Marra xx
The Fortunes
Grief is the thing with feathers - max post xx
Here comes the sun.by Nicole Dennis- Benn.
The liberation of Sita- Volga.
Mohsin Hamid - exit west x
Meg Wolitzer - interestings, the Wife
Anne Tyler - clock dance xx
How to love a Jamaican 
How to write an autobiographical novel - Alexander Chi
Index card - Harold Pollackp
Beautiful boy  -  David cheff
Together tea - Marjaan kamaali 
How not to die - Michael Gregor 
Learning to love - Miranda July
A ghost in the throat - Doireann Ni Ghriofa
Light years - James Salter


Yuganta - iravati Karve
Sam Harris - podcast

Wind sand and stars - Antoine de Saint exupéry
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard
Katy no pocket
Isak Denisen's out of Africa

What you heard is true - pico Iyer recommended

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/books/carlo-rovelli-physicist-book.html

Durgabai Deshmukh who fought for a woman’s right to education
Tarabai Shinde, the author of Stree Purush Tulana (A Comparison Between Women And Men), the first feminist text