A Cup of Tea & Biscuits

My brother, ten years my junior, literally bullied me into reading Suzanne Collins ' The Hunger Games trilogy. He ranted and raved about how good the books were and I was convinced that they should be, to have caught his attention! He who doesn't read unless it is for school work or only if he is truly impressed by the novel. I've read my fair share of young adult novels as an adult that occasionally dabbles in a quick read just to keep myself occupied (and the count of books going), so I wasn't skeptical about this book (as I had been about ' The Host '). I read it in two days and was, I must admit, thoroughly taken by it. As gruesome as the summary might sound, this is definitely one of the nicer, better written young-adult books currently in the market. No stupid vampire love triangles or supernatural presences. Just a nice story of adventure, loyalty, love, and survival. ( Since I've read only the first book, as of February, 2012, I shall base this post

It was my grandfather's interest in the Lady Chatterley trial  that first brought my attention to  Lady Chatterley's Lover  by D. H. Lawrence . I was, at the time, too young to even consider reading the novel (I must've been fourteen or fifteen), but, after a bit of research, I was able to ascertain the story and why it was so controversial. The novel concerns the notorious relationship between a lady of the aristocracy and the game-keeper of her invalid husband's grounds. Says it all? Most of the novel explores the necessity/desire for a physical relationship that Lady Chatterley, a young woman, longs for, now that her husband has been paralysed waist down in the First World War. Truth is, he is the one that pushes her towards it because he wants an heir, a boy, to carry on the Chatterley name and take care of Wragby, the family seat. There is the tone of class distinction, how Lady Chatterley, Connie, is rather sympathetic towards the lower classes but her husband, Si

I have loved libraries for as long as I can remember. I have loved books even longer than that. There's just something about the way a library is structured - architecturally and internally - that draws me to them, the sights and smell. Ah! The smell of a thousand books waiting to be read… I've been to my fair share of new cities, and the first place I seek out is the local library (or, God forbid, if there isn't one close enough, the closest bookstore). I’ve carried a library card far more often than I have an ID card! It’s FREE  - You join for free and you get to take books out for free! You pay nothing - well, perhaps you do, by way of tax, but that's different. You have access to a multitude of books and they exist solely for your pleasure! They are just sitting on shelves, waiting to be picked up!! All they want is some indulgence from you, and your time to enjoy what they have to offer :) The collection  – Where else would you find a physical collection of the wri

Written by Khaled Hosseini  and spanning over a period of thirty years, A Thousand Splendid Suns , is about two women, whose lives begin to entwine in the most unrelenting circumstances. Mariam, an illegitimate child of a wealthy man, lives with her rather bitter mother near the city of Herat, Afghanistan. Despite her mother's repeated warnings and insistence that her father, Jalil, will never accept her as his daughter, as he does the children of his three wives, Mariam grows up believing in him. He visits every week, tells her stories, talks to her about the city and the country. He is Mariam's only connection to the rest of the world. But her faith in him is misplaced as he proves to be everything her mother said he was. The simple act of not showing up on her birthday to take her to watch Pinnochio and then refusing to see her when she goes to his house destroys Mariam's life. Essentially. She is married off to a much older shoe maker who takes her away to Kabul where M

One of the earliest works of detective fiction, The Woman in White is an epistolary novel set in the late mid-19th century, written by Wilkie Collins , a man who is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. This is definitely literature, the sleuthing and legal mind at its best. The foreword/preamble to the book sets the tone and pace of the novel, which essentially is a collection of statements of the various important people that figure in it. Much like a trial scene where each witness provides his side of the story, in facts. Walter Hartright, a twenty-something drawing master, receives an offer of employment, to teach drawing to two young ladies that reside in Limmeridge House. As he bids his family farewell and sets off to fulfill his commission, he meets a lady dressed in white. He doesn't realize until later that she was an escapee from a private asylum but thinks nothing of it as he settles in to his role as tutor. His employer, Mr. Fredrick Fairlie, is a middle aged man w

I never realized how much I liked and appreciated history, ancient and modern world, for a very long time. I hated studying for history tests at school, but the stories stayed with me. I admit that I do not recall dates and periods, but I remember, quite accurately, the happenings and most particulars surrounding it. So when I found a bunch of songs relating these tales, I was positively delighted. The first is an instrumental project - E.S. Posthumus . Brilliant compositions, moving sounds. I've listened to and falled in love with all of their compositions, possibly because they are classical and epic! Tikal  - from their debut album  Unearthed On to power metal and Sabaton , not the foot covering of an armor - I didn't have to look on Wikipedia for that :P, I just happen to know it! - but a Swedish metal group that focuses its musical and songwriting abilities on historical wars. Lyrically they cover the World Wars, but there are some other battles too. From their album The

Day 11: A Book I Hate Given the number of books I read it should be that I come across at least one that I absolutely hated reading. If asked, I would immediately say that anything in the 'romance' genre I hate; to be more specific, anything other than historical romances in the romance genre, I hate. And yes, the Twilight series falls into that category. I read the books right after Breaking Dawn came out, and the only reason I even knew of it at the time was because my sister was quite into Edward Cullen at that point. This was before the mad following it eventually garnered. Anyway. So I read the books in less than a week and can honestly say I didn't like them at all. I grew to hate it after the movie came out. The Twilight series is meant to be a young adult series by Stephanie Meyer , who has a style of story telling that can never be called 'literature'. It's just story telling. I'm sorry to be harsh, but it is true. The story is that of a teenage g

I've known of Hermann Hesse 's (1946 Nobel laureate)  Siddhartha for a long time, over a decade probably, but never got down to reading it till last week. As I made my way through this rather short but intense (to me) book, I wondered why it had taken me so long to pick it up! Here is a doubt that must be expelled. I had thought that Siddhartha referred to Gautama Buddha , whose name when he was the prince of Kapilavastu was Siddhartha Gautama. I was surprised that it wasn't him, though the Gauthama figures largely in this magnificent piece of writing. If follows the spiritual journey of Siddhartha, a young Brahmin  and the perfect son. He realizes, soon, that the knowledge he seeks, the thirst for spiritual knowledge that his soul craves for, cannot be attained where he is and doing what he does. He decides to leave his home and join the ascetics, and once he obtains his father's permission by awaiting the abatement of his father's anger through pure resilience, w