Archive | September, 2010

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours Sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything . It may have been yesterday.”
are the opening lines of the 118-paged, modern classic “The Outsider” authored by Albert Camus. The protagonist, Meresault, soon after he receives the telegram takes leave from work , which his boss reluctantly gives and visits his mother’s funeral but little does he show a feeling of pain neither does he weep to show his emotions.
“The…

Review by Silence Sings (Kamalika C)
“In 17th-century Persia, a 14-year-old woman believes she will be married within the year. But when her beloved father dies, she and her mother find themselves alone and without a dowry. With nowhere else to go, they are forced to sell the brilliant turquoise rug the young woman has woven to pay for their journey to Isfahan, where they will work as servants for her uncle, a rich rug designer in the court of the legendary Shah Abbas the Great. Despite her lowly station,…

Review by LindyLouMacThe Man Booker Prize Winner for 2008 this was recommended to my husband and I by our elder daughter.  What an intriguing first novel this is narrated by Balram Halwai a young Indian entrepreneur, in the form of emails (I think not letters as someone else suggested to me) to a high ranking Chinese official due to visit India.  Over the course of seven nights during one way communication with this official Balram paints a vivid picture of life in India for rich and poor and he confesses via…

What I was reading this time last year - Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard
Review by LindyLouMac

Set in a Spanish ex-pat community this a tense thriller written with sarcastic wit that explores to quote from the text , ‘a social economy based on drug-dealing, theft, pornography and escort services from top to bottom a condominium of crime’.
Charles Prentice arrives in this strange community to discover just why his brother Frank, manager of the local sports club as confessed to a charge of murdering five people in a house fire!…

Rupa Bajwa’s debut book The Sari Shop revolves around Ramchand a salesperson at a sari shop in the old area of Amritsar. Ramchand’s life is chronicled and interwoven with stories and tidbits from the lives of others around him. Ramchand and his colleagues wait on the richest and the most powerful ladies in Amritsar who choose to come to this sari shop for the variety and quality that it promises. From university professors who look down upon money, and rich business people who look down on people who may not…

Here’s a chance to win this book by noted Swedish writer Ake Edwardson ! Free !
The book releases September 28th, 2010. To enter the giveaway, check out details here.  The contest is open to all book-lovers with a shipping address in the US or Canada. You can turn in an entry till the end of September after which I will pick a random comment/email, among the correct entries to receive this book. Check back here or at my blog to see if you have won ! The book be…

This book came highly reviewed by some very good friends and I could not wait to start on it.
A lot of times, when I start a book with high expectations, I end up disappointed. In this case, I am so delighted to say, that I was blown away by the book. Influenced by real life events in the life of the author, is an amazing read. Convicted in Australia, for a series of armed robberies, Gregory David Roberts, escaped from prison and travelled to Mumbai, on a fake passport,…

LindyLouMacPraise from the first word, if you have a love of Italy and or the Italian language whether you are able to speak it or not, this book is definitely not just a must read but a title destined for your private collection.I have owned a copy of this book since the end of last year and I have enjoyed dipping into it frequently. I have not until now though read it in depth enough so that I felt able to write a review.Dianne Hales is an American journalist and…

There are many books out there which never make it. Self-publishing is one way to take things into your own hands.You can say a self-published book is successful when it is taken up by a publishing house for print.
“I had completed “The Rozabal Line” in 2006 and spent the next one year looking for a publisher. I ended up with almost a hundred rejections. That’s when I made up my mind to self-publish it.”

Says Shawn Haigains aka Ashwin Sanghi the author of the book The Rozabal Line.

The…

Author: Nicholas SparksGenre: RomancePages:410My Rating: 4.5/5 , A must read!!
Reviewed by Pratima Jayaram
I am usually very skeptical about trying new authors. I dont pick up a book by a new author without reading a lot of reviews initially. But when I found this book in the library and I ready the summary I immediately grabbed it. There was something that made me feel I would like it and I wasn’t wrong…..I absolutely loved it!! Infact it had been ages since a book had got me in tears (I…