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Showing posts from May, 2020

Book Review: Sher Singh and the Hot-Water Bottle by Ruskin Bond

Sher Singh and the Hot-Water Bottle by Ruskin Bond is a very interesting short story placed, as usual, against his favourite backdrop–foothills of the Himalaya. This story, spiraled from his own experience, is placed against the emergency time imposed by then PM Indira Gandhi. It’s around 1979-80, the mood in Landour, a small place in Mussoorie, was little gloomy owing to impose bans on liquor shops. Ruskin lives there in a small cottage that leaks so often. It’s winter and without liquor it was getting difficult for people to keep themselves warm and cozy. One morning a known milkman of the area Sher Singh noticed the somber mood of Ruskin. Next day, Sher Singh asked a bottle of warm water from him. Ruskin gives him only one. Sher Singh, other than being a milkman, also begins preparing local liquor using some castor oil and turnips. It came out something frenzy. As it unfolds, people whosoever consumed it begin acting in clumsy ways, so much so that a retired judge fell in

Book Review: The Burning School by Sandesh Raj

The Burning School by Sandesh Raj is a beautifully etched novel but somewhere it makes us uncomfortable about the current crises of Kashmir. Going by the title, it indicates a lot, yet at the same time stirs inquisitiveness to delve deep into the mainstream story. The story is about Kashmir, however, this time the lead characters are not from Kashmir. This rarely happens in a Kashmir-bound novel. The novel runs up to 400 pages and comfortably builds its backdrop and idiosyncrasies of the characters. Kashmir is the land where there are more issues than most of us think of. At the facade, it’s terrorism that the world sees. Only novels like this will take us close to the reality. It’s apt to say words are powerful, mightier than a sword. The story chugs ahead like an express train, along with taking its mini and subplots collectively. It starts at one point and ends at somewhere totally unexpected loop. The story is about Naved, a young and ambitious man in his mid twentie

Book Review: Arya Dharma by Bollachettira Dhyan Appachu

Arya Dharma is a work of non-fiction by Bollachettira Dhyan Appachu, the book runs over 600 pages. It tries to settle down the dust on one of the most pressing issues the world facing nowadays – conflict of interests due to different religions. The whole world is prejudiced and fighting to prove their mastery and superiority with respect to their religions. The author Dhyan takes a sneak into the matter and comes up with a presumably solution – Arya Dharma. This book is all about Arya Dharma: what does it signify, where does it belong, and what sort of prosperity it can bring to the world. But in the process, the author seemed like vented his anger towards the Western society, he invented something like FUKUS – it means inclusion of France, United Kingdom, and the USA. FUKUS is the full form of these three countries. Based on his experience and research, he is of the opinion that today world is declining, the moral values, compassion, humanity and all due to FUKUS system. In

Book Review: Love, Murder, and Ambition by Vidhi Chauhan

I stumbled upon this book on Kindle while looking for some short reads in the genres of crime, murder, suspense, etc.  Its cover page grabbed my attention and when I found that it’s even less than 100 pages, without a second blink, I have had it in my TBR list. Let me tell you that it’s been penned down by a new author, in fact, this being her debut work. I have always believed that first-time authors put brilliant efforts in their debut work, and here Vidhi Chauhan, based in Singapore, proved it quite elegantly. It's a murder mystery, placed against the fast-paced, yet ambitious, multi-cosmos backdrop of Bangalore. It has been woven using a few decent yet brutally smart characters. The man in the light is Mahesh. His background is something like: confident, smart, manipulative, and have weakness for women's beauty. The story is mainly about the corporate world. Before getting married to a Bengali girl Anupamma, he was with Shobhna, his office colleague. Sobhna was in

Book Review: The 9 Colours of Vibrant Women by Ramya R. Moorthy

I have known the author since her first book 'A Journey in Search of Happiness' – a it was a bang on book to my quest of being happy over roaming for being successful. Now this book, The 9 Colours of Vibrant Women is another great offering to boost up the morale of women across the world. This book in particular details about the colours and its allied values in women's lives. Every colour indicates some or other virtue or trait, for example purple colour suggests Creative, Grandeur, and Wisdom . The author explains the colour traits and virtues to her growing daughter Anila after she is being devastated getting to know the shocking story of Nirbhaya, who happens to be a girl from her neighborhood. If you have read the previous book in the series , you will be then familiar with the mother daughter duo, Shivani and Anila. Mother Shivani wants to instill 9 colours of vibrant women in her daughter Anila. For that, she chooses the occasion of Navratri, so that she c

Author Highlight: Jithu Biji Thomas Discusses his Bestseller Book ‘Mumblings from the Depth’ and Stories from his Life

We are delighted to welcome a very promising author Jithu Biji Thomas for a brief Q & A session at our website about his Amazon Bestseller book, ‘Mumblings from the Depth’ . In this Q & A session, he will be talking about his writing aspirations, inclination towards offbeat fiction, and much more. Stay on...while we chat with him. What inspired you to write this book? Well, I wasn’t much into writing in my childhood days. Leaving aside the occasional school assembly speeches that I wrote for my sister, I never had the thought of writing. But I used to read whatever I could get my hand upon. I was a big fan of newspaper articles that told about events that took place in some part of the world. I would spent days thinking what they must be going through and even living in the character of those people for a while. It gave me a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.  I wasn’t that good at academics as maths and science could not en-thrill me but words could. Spe

Book Review: My Ramyeon Girl by Nethra

My Ramyeon Girl by Nethra is a brilliant tale of love, loss, betrayal, and aspirations weaved in a cross-cultural backdrop. It’s a short novel but holds substantial intensity on contemporary romance. As the story chugs ahead, we meet Meena and Jung-Su in South Korea. The latter is a famous actor and Meena just an aspiring writer, living with her brother Arun. Jung-Su stumbles upon Meena in a restaurant when he goes there to have Ramyeon, a sort of Korean noodles. He begins liking her and gradually they get on. First as a friend and then they rope in commitment. The story may sound sweet and simple and moving, but remember this is not India, it’s South Korea .   How did a superstar like Jung-Su fall for an average-looking Indian girl? Jung-Su has tough time to explain his feeling for her to the media and the people around him, including his manager Min-Sik. They both enjoy secret hang outs and clandestine meetings. The character of Jung-Su is portrayed quite naive. Having worked for

Author Highlight: Om Somani Discusses his Novel ‘Peppered Minds’ and Stories from his Life

We are delighted to welcome a very promising novelist Om Somani for a brief Q & A session at our website about his Amazon Bestseller novel, ‘Peppered Minds’ . In this Q & A session, he will be talking about his writing aspirations, inclination towards offbeat fiction, and much more. Stay on...while we chat with him.  What inspired you to write this novel? The inspiration of writing the novel is twofold, one is the strong desire of creativity and second I wanted to bring in all the experiences of work life and type of people seen around with their behavior and impact of their attitude on country’s fate. How did you evolve the concept of chili affecting the human brain? As a matter of fact, concept of chili is my own observation. I have seen many a times when I would consume chili in great amount I would lose sharpness of thinking power and get loose on things. How did you feel when your book became an Amazon Bestseller? It was an amazing feel. How did you

Book Review: Lucid Dream by Atul Mohite

Lucid Dream by Atul Mohite is a work of unfeigned brilliance. Narrated in simple and coherent language, this short novel has the potential to lure the heart of millions of students and people like them who just while away their precious time thinking and planning for big dreams without realizing their true and inherent potential and interests. The subject matter of the novel is a highly discussed topic in every Indian household. The novel is built around dreams and reality that follows in the wake of failure and shattered dreams. The novel features an absolute gripping tale of a student named Suraj from Pune. Like millions of other students his age, he too dreams of becoming an IITian but little did he know that he is consumed by a lucid dreaming than living in reality. It’s one such book that is not only simple to read but also quite engrossing. The book draws praise for its relevance in today's time. Atul has perfectly depicted that young and malleable age of the stude

Author Highlight: Gaurav Sharma Discusses the Sullied Warrior Duology and Stories from his Life

We are delighted to welcome an up-and-coming novelist Gaurav Sharma for a brief Q & A session at our website about his Amazon Bestseller duology, 'The Sullied Warrior' . Gaurav is also the founder of Think Tank Books, a Delhi-based publishing house. In this Q & A session, he will be talking about his writing aspirations, inclination towards offbeat mythological fiction, and much more. Stay on...while we chat with him. How did you evolve the concept of duology over trilogy? I wrote God of the Sullied as a stand-alone novel initially. It was after my friend & editor who works at Penguin Random House suggested that the story could become a trilogy; I decided to write its sequel. I noticed there are fewer duologies in India than trilogies. Thus, I wanted to create a duology. Breaking convention is my thing, you know? That's when I started writing Long Live the Sullied. How did you feel when the first book 'God of the Sullied' became a nation