Review: More Than This

More Than This by Patrick Ness
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is about three months after I had read the book. I had written a short review but realised I must elaborate.

This book introduced me to Patrick Ness and he shows all signs of being a remarkable author. When I read a book, what I look for isn’t just the story or the plot itself. I look for the way a story is told and the way it unfolds; the words the author uses to tell the story.

This being a young adult book, I didn’t expect it to have fancy words that you might see in bigger tomes. However, I did expect a certain level of profoundness and forceful reading between the lines, and it did mark its attendance.

Ness takes you in a fantasy world, bordering on noir-fantasy genre, confusing you and forcing you to figure out things with the characters themselves. They are as clueless as you are about the world they find themselves in. This isn’t a fun or romantic read, far from it. It is quite dark. And maybe at some level, depressing. There aren’t a lot of characters to speak of, but you do get attached to those that are present. Well fleshed out and adorable. Even though the story does have a protagonist, honestly, I felt more attached to the other characters. Maybe that was how Ness meant it to be.

I would recommend this book though. It is quite quick to read and finish. Give it a read if you don’t mind noir.

View all my reviews

The Curiosity Project

As humans, we are wired to be curious. All of us.

We are supposed to ask questions like why and how when we see something that we don’t understand. All of us wonder about these questions. The difference lies in what extent one would go to find answers to these questions.

Today with so much data relatively easily available, we somehow don’t want to spend time to satisfy our curiosity. Which is not really a problem. However, trying to find answers to such questions helps us spend more time with ourselves and thinking about something unrelated to our jobs, hopefully.

I read quite a bit, as most of you would probably know. I also love knowing about things, as most of you are probably annoyed with. I propose we combine your questions with our need to find answers. Give me your questions about ‘why does it exist’ or ‘how does this work’ or ‘why this way’ and I will try my best to find answers to those whys and hows.

The questions can be about sociology, culture, history, technology or economics. Invariably all questions come down to a few of these basic concepts in any case. All I ask is that it be interesting.

Questions like,

What is the deal with fondue and how did it start? Hint: It’s a Swiss post world-war conspiracy.

Why are the buttons on a woman’s shirt on the left hand side? Hint: There was a time when maids used to dress up women.

Why are the number pads on your phone and your keyboard different? Hint:  Twist-dial phones and Calculators.

Is there an underground sneakers market that behaves like the commodities market? Hint: Yes. In the US.

In Burma, why do they drive on the right of the road but the bus doors are on the left? Hint: History.

See? Fascinating!

I will try as much as I can to find a complete and all-encompassing answer or explanation to your question. I will read books, read journals, listen to podcasts, watch videos, talk to people who know better (I know a LOT of people, and they know a LOT of people) and if need be visit libraries as well (yes, they still exist and are quite lovely places).

The idea is not to make you lazy, but to push you to be more curious and eventually, curious enough for you to find out the answer yourself and not bother waiting for me to find out.

A few ground rules though:

1. Refrain from asking questions on life, love, religion or philosophy. All of these are subjective and I honestly can never have enough knowledge or sense to give a satisfactory answer.
2. Ask one question at a time and please wait for my answer. I have a full-time job and I intend to keep it. You might have to wait for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks. But, we shall try to get the answer together, as long as it is interesting.
3. Ask the question via email only. You probably know my email address already, or know someone who knows it. I am honestly not sure of the response to this and hence would like to keep it constrained to begin with.
4. You are free to ask a question and suggest an answer that you think is the right one. We can weed out and get to the fact together. It will be fun!
5. At times, I might point you to links where you can read/hear/see stuff for yourself. This is just to save our time and effort from reinventing the wheel.

All of this in no way means to imply I know more than anyone else does. And we always have Wikipedia. I am sure you search and read random things as well. But I also want to know those random things you read. Your questions will give me interesting topics to read about. That is my selfish purpose behind this. If you don’t have questions, mail me the last fascinating thing you read somewhere? Just a snippet, maybe.

None of us can know everything. But we can try. I have friends who are doctors, journalists, bankers and lawyers and I am not afraid to ask them your questions. And we will make more friends to get answers.

I am honestly not sure if I will get even a single question, which is fine as well, or if I will even be able to answer the questions one would ask. So, shall we give this a shot?

What say you?

Review: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Every time you tell someone the name of the last book you read or the one you are currently reading, the logical question asked would be ‘What is it about?’ I can assure you Jonas Jonasson’s ‘The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared’ (which is quite a mouthful, and to be honest, we love it, don’t we?) will not raise that question.

It is a great book to go to for some stress free reading. Jonasson follows a tone of dark humour throughout and anyone who takes this book seriously is probably reading the wrong book anyway. Having said that, it does follow a parallel story-line which conveniently chronicles the history of the world over the last century along with one of the best characters I have had the pleasure of meeting in a book, Alan.

It might be unfair to compare this book to any other in a similar genre. The writing is simple and straightforward and assumes the reader to be knowledgeable enough to differentiate between facts and fiction. It does quite well at satarising most of the key events that have occurred in the recent history of our species.

The book has a good mix of characters going through a series of fortunate/unfortunate events depending on the perspective you look at it from. It is a story with an astounding number of coincidences that can only occur in a story.

It is a well written book and I would recommend one to read this just so you get to meet Alan.

View all my reviews

Review: The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a book about books. It is a book about words. It is a book about writing those words. A book about reading books. A book about the love for all of the above. About our first love. About friendship. About war and destruction. But at the end of it all, about love.

As Zafon says, ‘Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.’

The book I read before this one was a light hearted, dark humoured, hilariously fictional story about a 100 year old man and his journey. The Shadow of the Wind managed to rip my soul out of that merry world and slam it right onto the civil war ravaged streets of Barcelona. Do not expect a Barcelona of Gaudi and Naruda or of what you see in any movie. This is version of Barcelona is bordering on being Dickensian.

Having said that, Zafon takes you on a journey of a curious teenager, Daniel, who is just one of us; not brave enough, not old enough, completely in love and trying to fit in with grown ups.

It is a story summed up by Zafon himself when he says ‘Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart.’

The book borders on quiet a few genres and leaves you wondering how you can eventually try and summarise it. But that might be it, not easy to summarise a book which has quotes such as ‘Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not for the merits of who receives them’ and ‘We exist as long as somebody remembers us.’

At a point I was reading the book more to discover such words than to know where Daniel would end up next. The plot might be akin to certain ‘Bollywood’ movies of yore, but you can’t really argue with the way it unravels.

This one is bound to stay with you for days after you finish reading it.

View all my reviews