Lust for Life by Irving Stone

This is the second biographical novel from Irving Stone that I've read after The Agony and The Ecstasy and I'd say this is too good.

Irving Stone is famous for his style of writing when he write about historical figures from his imagination. The novels are not totally imaginative and it has a solid research behind it. The author has added his imagination to put all the facts together to make it more readable.

This book is based on the life of famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. Vincent had a lots of ups and downs in his life specially he never got love from whom he loved apart from the single most important person in his life his younger brother Theo. The book has been divided into various sections based on the places he lived and how these places affected his creativity.

Even after all the failures Vincent never gave up on what he was most passionate about until the end of his life. He painted in the worst conditions. One fact which really surprised me was that he started serious painting when he was 28 years old. Most of the people will not even think about picking a different profession but painting was not his profession, it was more like breathing to him. It was the reason for staying alive.

Another thing which I'd like to add was that this is this book has shown the relation of two brothers in a best possible way and The Brothers Karamazov comes to a close second in this context.

This book has shown that we're not in this world to fulfill our duty but to chase our dreams. I know this sentence sounds cliche or even a dud but that is the most important part of being alive.

I don't know how many people are sitting out there who could have been a different person altogether if they'd have been allowed to follow their dreams.

Not on all of us can be van Gogh but we all have a van Gogh inside us.

This book is a must read.

Peace

The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P Huntington

This book was pending for long and given the size & content of the book, it took me ~45 days to finish it. Seems like I'm being lazy to take so much time.

The first thing I want to say is that the content is quite heavy and you couldn't just run through the pages. This book needs patience.

Second thing, the book has loads of data from various sources (definitely a great reference). And, you have more options where you want to go from here.

Third thing and I'm not sure how other looked at it, but the book seems to be biased in its totality.

When I started, the data was quite interesting but as I progressed, I realized that most of the data put a particular religion in bad light. Other readers can differ on this point. But after turning the last page it felt like the whole book was more of a propaganda and a biased view rather than putting everything in balance. Huntington is a famous name but there were lot of gaps in presenting the facts. I believe, lots of points were put on the emotional basis rather than backing it by strong facts which ended up portraying rest of the world against Westernization.

One point which I'll like to reiterate here from the book about civilizations' rise and fall. He mentioned that civilizations do fall in the long run and make way for better or worse. Specially, in this case how can anybody judge a civilization. We can't judge it based on the number of wars it had. And definitely, even all good things come to an end.

The book was first published in 1996 and that was a different time, also, I'm not really aware of how many editions with changes have been published since than.

I definitely recommend this book with a word of caution that readers don't get carried away by the tone of the book and have only a lopsided view of the actual scenario.

Peace

Till The Last Breath by Durjoy Datta

Don't even think about it.

Go watch a boring movie, sleep or waste your time anywhere you like but don't read it.

Nothing personal.

Love

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

This book is definitely a tough read. I was reading this book from quite some time and was not really sure where the whole narrative is going.

I started this book with the thought that I want to read Gogol. There was no other thought. I just wanted to know why he is such a prominent writer. I bet he is. But I think I picked his wrong one first.

The book is said to be incomplete because Gogol was writing a trilogy but he burnt most of the second part and so the second part looks like left in the middle of the sentence. However, for a reader I don't think it would be difficult to imagine a climax of their own choice. Only Gogol could have given the best answer.

This particular novel is known as a satire but I think the characters were more like the real people and their dilemma for morality.

The novel revolves around the main character Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov. He seems to be nice guy who is talkative and wants to get rich quick with a loophole in the Russian laws.

I don't think I'll be judging this character but I understand the conditions in which he chose to be a rich man by any means and he is not a Robin Hood. His success is his own personal goal at any cost and he has a good plan. We love it when a plan comes together but most of the time it doesn't :)

You can give it a shot and I'm sure if you love Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, you'll like it too. His writing may not be that great but he has given some great work.

Peace

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

This is one of the nice books I've read recently.

The book is about a childless couple in Alaska who yearn for a kid. There is a kid too in the story who is a girl and kind of a free spirit.

The story moves on and at one point I thought it was going to be a Vampire saga from Stephenie Meyer but thank god it is not.

I think that the author took too much liberty practically (there are some instances which you feel like are from a fiction movie) but that's how you write a book (with imagination).

The book is a light read and don't expect much. Most of the book is predictable by the end.

Love

The Good, The Bad and The Ridiculous by Humra Quraishi, Khushwant Singh

This is one of the best books written by Khushwant Singh.

If you want to know his personal experience with some people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as a co-worker or journalist than this is a must read.

Khushwant Singh has written everything like in the face. I hope the guys who are still alive may have felt bad but this is him and no one can really stop him. The guys who are not anymore may be trying to strangulating him in heaven or hell, wherever he is.

Definitely without malice :)

The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche

I respect all the religion, and I read this book only out of curiosity. I just wanted to see how Nietzsche has put his views against Christianity.

The book is not a regular narrative, and it looks more like random writings rather then a well thought book. The author has registered his dissent in a very reasonable arguments, and there are a lot of points which people will like to agree irrespective of their religion.

This is the first book by Nietzsche which I've read, and it is more like calling the sham in the name of religion. After reading the book I actually felt that he is not against a religion but the bitterness has been caused by the outlook of the religion. He wants to drive the message that we can be a good/moral human being even without a religion. And most of the things done in the name of the religion actually drive it away from the truth. In fact most of the points raised against Christianity will be valid against any other religion with a different set of words.

I'm not really for this book but if you have an open mind to listen to some reasonable arguments then this book is worth reading.

Inferno by Dan Brown

Robert Langdon again. And again the same problem "So much details". Another problem is that the Dan needs to get out of the Robert Langdon series. Its quite a big dose till now and I'd really like to read something which is a non-Robert.

I love the plot of bio weapon but the whole narrative was too much artistic. There were actually some moments when it sounded like a travel guide book.

One thing I'd like to add here about the plot: I really don't think that we're growing in numbers. We've more longevity but I don't think that we're really a burden, I completely support the judicious use of the natural resources but didn't connect with the population control by any other means. In fact, I believe nature has its own ways of putting things in control.

One more thing I'll confess here is that this is one of the few books where I skip. I actually skipped a lot of paragraphs related to the description of art work in Venice which didn't connect with the plot.

Looking forward to read Dante's Inferno.

Love 

Karna's Wife by Kavita Kane

When I started this book I had this premonition that this book is not going to surprise me and after finishing this book I feel I was quite right.

The whole narrative doesn't have much to offer other then what we already know about Karna. In fact, all the stories are told so many times that there was no surprise element.

Sadly, the Uruvi retelling the story didn't make much difference, and I must say that the author was a bit weak in presenting the narrative. The whole text was quite repetitive.

Karna was a Greek-god type tragic hero. But we can't change our karma. What is said or done is over and there is no way that we can take it back. Karna was destined to die in battlefield, and that was the end of it.

I think I'm too much on this mythological dose from last few books. Will try to pick a different theme this time.

Asura : Tale of the Vanquished by Anand Neelkantan

I heard a lot about this book but when I read it, I was not really impressed how the whole narrative was presented.

I see that the book is full of negativity, and people bashing. I don't believe that there was a single person in the whole book who can be loved or respected. All the characters mentioned are so full of hatred and negativity that we end up hating all of them and justifying that whatever bad happened to them was well deserved.

It started with a story of Ravana but from the beginning to end it was more like a high cast bashing and the author was hell bent to prove that the northern part of India was one of the worst places to be and it subsequently corrupted the southern part of India.

This book has a bad narrative and all the stories are twisted to prove the author's point only. This is not the Ravana's version of story. It sounds more like a personal hate manual (hate list) against north indians and the vaidik rituals.

If you want to see bad you'll never see good in anything.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

This is an amazing book based on the memoirs of Holocaust.

The story revolves around Sage who is a baker with some bad memories. She has a Holocaust survivor grandmother. In a support group she meets an old man who comes up with a weird request for his own murder.

There is sub plot of grandmother writing the story and you couldn't have asked for more. This sub plot blends so well (I must say keeping in different format really works) that the reader moves in and out of plots effortlessly.

The gist of the plot is about forgiveness. Who can forgive and who can be forgiven?

After finishing the book I took some time to think about this question. And one thing that struck me most was from the book only. The grandmother didn't talk to anybody about her survival in those camps. She didn't want to pass the pain to the next generations and she was not even thinking about revenge or forgiveness.

I think there was always a chance when we can forgive or be forgiven.

I'll go with peace. Easier said than done.

Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

Again a book which makes me think to leave the book after 15 pagers. But I've to do it and see it till the end.

A big waste of time. I could have read some cheap pulp on road side rather than reading this book. This book is an irrational headless erotica which doesn't stand anywhere to be counted as a book.

No story line, no character and definitely no flavor.

This book could have been better titled as "In Search of Long Lost Orgasm".

Not going to say anything else just DON'T READ IT.

If your friends are recommending it then its time to think who are your friends.

River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

This is the second book of Ibis trilogy and after finishing this I crave for more. I'm eagerly waiting for the third book, Flood of Fire, which may be released in 2015.

The story moves forward from the Ibis to the city of Canton. The same characters are moved to canton and story revolves around the opium trade in China which later became the first opium war.

The characters are as strong as in the first book and there was not a single instance when a sequence seemed extra. There were some new characters added out of which I remebered Seth Behram Modi as he seems so natural to me that he looks like a person I know very well.

Another thing was there was a lot of plants and botany included and it actually added to the flow of the whole narrative, I'm feeling like start tending a small garden for myself :)

-Puneet

The Oath of the Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi

This is the third book of the trilogy. I read it after a long time since it was released and I must say that I am disappointed.

The final part talks about how Parvati died and Shiva moved to destroy the whole city with  Pashupathiastra.

The more I got into the book more I realized that the narration was getting shallow and it looked like the end was written for the sake of the formality that the book is complete.

I don't want to sound harsh but after reading the first book I had lot of expectations with the whole series which got lower and lower after the second and third book. This could have been a great series but sadly it is not.

If you're a lover of fantasy and read the previous parts than go for it otherwise it is not something that will be missed.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I want to confess one thing, I love Russian literature. I love Tolstoy,  Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, Turgenev, Gorky, Pushkin and all of them. I simply love the way they've written and it feels like so connected to all there writings. I've never been is the situations of the characters in these novels but definitely these are so strongly created that I automatically feel like I understand them.

The Brothers Karamazov is the latest novel I read. It is quite big and took me almost a month to finish it but it was such a pleasure. After finishing it I came to know that this was the last novel of Dostoyevsky and I must say that this was quite strong in terms of plot as well as narration.

The plot is quite simple. Its a story of three brothers (Karmazov's) and their relationship with their father. The father gets murdered and the blame goes to one of the sons. There are some subplots which are equally engaging like the one of a dying boy, jealousy of two women etc.

The novel if full of philosophy and typical Russian character sketch.

Loved it and a must read for all the fans of Dostoyevsky.

A Virtual Romance

I watch a lot of movies and recently I watched this new movie HER which was well received by the critics and audiences and really brought in a new plot.

But I'm not going to talk about the movie here. I'm more interested in the plot and the thought behind it.

The movie revolves around a person who falls in love with an OS. This is a virtual person which interacts via voice and so programmed that it actually sounds like a real person.

The question that I asked myself was if it was possible to be in love with somebody/thing of whose physical presence you are not aware of. I've read some stories where the people fell in love with each other only by writing letters (Pan pal is one of my favorite) but even in this condition you know for a fact that there is somebody who is actually writing those letters. You know that there is somebody who is breathing may be on the different side of the planet and in touch with you. I know some people who are friends with people from other parts of world on social networking platforms without knowing them personally.

I'm not saying it is weird but not really able to understand those circumstances when a person falls in love with someone from virtual world (or totally imaginary). For me to fall in love with someone it is required to know the person as a person not as a social networking profile or a mail id.

It is more like a person who is committed to nothing and it literally makes sense.

Pehla Girmitiya by Giriraj Kishore

A hindi book after a long time and this one is really big.

The book revolves around the Gandhiji's stay in South Africa and the activities at that time.

He went to South Africa on a one year permit and after seeing the conditions fo the indians and how they were treated he made a point to fight for a difference and that too with non-violence. We can say that SA was the laboratory for Gandhi to test out his hypothesis of non-violence and it really gave the results with no blood shed. This put the stone for the movement in India which he led later.

The book is a mix of facts and fantasy where he tried to keep the things as close to the reality as the information available. There are some invented dialogues and there are some genuine speeches delivered by Gandhiji.

The book is pretty big (almost 900 pages) and I finished it in 2 months. But somehow I felt that there are better accounts on Gandhi's life other than that and this book can be a stepping stone who wants to explore his philosophy.

If you want to go for a visual account of it than you can go for the movie "Making of the Mahatma".

I wish if you start it and finish it you'll have better understanding of what made him so great.

Peace

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

After reading two books by Reza Aslan on religion this is the third book I read in the sequence and this one actually opposes the religion by all means (rationally or otherwise).

Richard Dawkins is one on the most famous (notorious) writer who proposes the atheism to be followed and validates that any religion is going to create the problems at some point of time.

The best thing I loved about the book is that the author is nowhere  biased towards any religion and opposes all with full force.

The next thing I liked was that he asks to raise the question against anything that has no proof. I can quote that if there is no apparent reason for something happening around you doesn't mean that you start believing anything which convinces you without any proof just because you are conditioned or taught so. Asking the questions and validating the existence of anything is the most important part of being an aware creature.

One thing that I want to quote here is that it is a general understanding that some religions are good and some others are bad, it all depends on where you are standing. But if we think rationally we can clearly see that to be a good person you are not supposed to belong to any particular religion. A good person is good irrespective of the religion s/he follows and that closes most of the doubts.

There are lot of examples and anecdotes from the author which points in the direction of rationality. A thing which can be reasoned with correct examples is the only one that needs to be believed and there are great chances that people may end up believing something which has no base, just conditioning.

Definitely a great book to read even if you are for or against the religion.

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

This is the second book by Reza Aslan that I've read.

I was never very fond of books related to religion but his books are more than the religious books. These books are myth breakers.

This book tells the story of who the Jesus was and the Jesus which we hear about these days in the sermons is the same person who actually started it all.

The book gives a lot of examples from the scripts and letters of the era around which the Christianity evolved and I must say that it is a very well thought and explored narrative on the topic.

I really don't want to get into the debate around the credibility of the whole narrative but I'll really love to see that people agree to disagree and respect the freedom of thoughts.

The books raises very basic questions and justify the whole narrative in a very rational manner.

Must read whether you like religious books or not.

-Peace.

No god but God by Reza Aslan

I'm not really fond of books on religion but this is definitely an exception and the first words are I LOVE THIS BOOK.

The book is about the history, evolution and future of Islam and I must say that it so unbiased and well searched.

Reza Aslan gives a fine print of how the Islam started and later on what were the circumstances that mold it into its current form. He has given a lot of examples about the Islam being the most tolerant religion as founded but the followers and the interpreters twisted all the words of Muhammad Saahab to what fulfills their own interest in the name of God's words.

I can't give the much details here but if you want to know about Isalm this one is a must read.

This book has really made me curious to know more about all the religions. Hope some more will be following soon.

-Peace