Horrible Geography: Odious Oceans by Anita Ganeri - Book Review

Publisher's write-up:

'Geography with the gritty bits left in!

Does geography grind you down? Fed up with miserable maps, rotten rock piles and gruelling graphs? Wave goodbye to boring geography lessons as you dive into the murky waters of Odious Oceans...

• Deft death! by tucking into a poisonous pufferfish.... and surviving.
• Sudder! at ships lost for ever in the baffling Bermuda Triangle.
• Tremble! before perilous modern-day pirates who terrorize today's seas.
• Quiver! as you chew over the stomach contents of a great white shark.

And if that's not odious enough for you ... read our roving reporter's guide to the seabed, uncover the dreadful details of the Titanic's last day and see if you're nautical enough to join the Navy. It's earth-shatteringly exciting!

Geography has never been so horrible!'

I am a great fan of the Horrible Histories and the Dead Famous (now Horribly Famous) series from Scholastic but little did I know the existence of a series named Horrible Geography till I came across the book at a throwaway price in a book fair and I was even more excited by the fact that the book was written by Anita Ganeri for I used to be a geography enthusiast back in school (perhaps still am) and used to visit the school library to read books on geography and hence, this was a familiar name.

This book was similar to the Horrible Histories series, well illustrated and was filled with very interesting facts. Even when I used to read those geography books, reading about oceans barely interested me but then, the author has done an excellent job to bring that interest, writing about several facts / mysteries known to everyone (Bermuda Triangle!) and also on what is under the sea, which contrary to what is visualised, is not a sand bed but has valleys and mountains and active volcanoes. Moreover, I really loved her 'earth shattering facts' and yes, considering that the book is meant for children, she didn't use too many of these technical terms regarding oceans, which is something that made the book enjoyable to someone like myself, for whom it has nearly been seven years since a geography book was touched.

On the flipside, I found this book emphasising a little too much on history, especially, Magellan's journeys, much as it was a great feat, I really feel it had very little to do with oceans as such though you, as a reader may disagree with me on this. Moreover, this is something that the author could hardly be blamed for, there was too much content on seafood and myself, being a vegetarian, could appreciate what she has written, but hardly understand.

Like any other book in the series, I felt this was an excellent light read for a person like me and a very informative read for kids and yes, certainly more interesting than their geography text books from school.

Rating - 7/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

Ripples in the Pond by V. Kedar Rao - Book Review

Ripples in the Pond is a diverse collection of eleven short stories featuring various different periods from the colonial days of India till present written by V. Kedar Rao. Each story was different in its own right, ranging from certain standard stories about a snake charmer concerned about settling his daughter, certain rather philosophical stories on the importance of death in this world, the debate on vegetarianism vs being a non vegetarian and even to the extent of Sherlock Holmes coming to India.

What I liked about the book was the sheer simplicity of the stories in the book coupled with the impeccably lucid delivery of the same; and despite the simplicity, most of the stories ended with catchy lines, just to quote one from the story Sword is mightier than the Pen on the Maoist rebellion - 'This tussle between the bureaucratic Pen and policeman's sword still continues.' Moreover, notwithstanding the red herring in the introduction of the book about there being no twists, I do believe there are definitely certain twists for the reader to look forward to.

I found the diversity of the stories quite interesting and I'd talk about three stories that I loved; The Elixir of Life talking about a doctor who invents an elixir that prevents death without curing health conditions - elongates lives of everyone and leads to gross overpopulation leading to too many problems and the attempted solution turns even more disastrous (no more spoilers!) and then, the next story that I loved was What happened one summer in Manali which I understood to be quite autobiographical and I really liked the way the author brought out the judgemental nature of the fellow tourist even though the ending was open ended and the reader could construe the conclusion either in favour of the fellow tourist or the one whom they judged. Another story I genuinely loved was When Sherlock visited India and I really liked the idea of bringing the famous detective to India and the story also took place in colonial Bombay and it was an excellent feeling revisiting the old glories of the city I grew up in.

The only trivial concern I had was over an assertion in the story The Great Fire at Moore Market; while I thoroughly enjoyed the story, I found a remark about how many people who were not supposed to consume non-vegetarian food were having it at McDonald's and KFC whereas, considering that the story took place when Madras had Moore Market, it should've been definitely before 1985 when these two fast food chains weren't present in India. As innocuous as it might sound, I guess, reviewers are quite nitpicky.

To conclude, I would say that the book is a fantastic light read, an excellent companion during a short travel. On a side note, I understood from the introduction to the book that the author started writing when he was 79 years old which is remarkable, gives hope to aspiring writers like myself that there is still a lot of time to catch up. On the whole, I would give the book a rating of seven on ten, could be read by anyone, across age groups.

Rating - 7/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

Dead Famous: Writers and their Tall Tales by Tracey Turner - Book Review

Publisher's write-up:

'You've probably heard of a few writers...

• William Shakespeare and his popular plays.
• Jane Austen and her love stories
• Charles Dickens and his big blockbusters

but have you heard that ...

• William Shakespeare got mixed up in a plot against the Queen?
• Jane Austen nearly became a Bigg-Wither?
• Charles Dickens had his clothes ripped off by his fans?

Yes, even when they're dead, writes are still full of surprises - and the ten in this book are more surprising than most. Now you can get the inside story from their secret diaries, flick through Good Day! magazine for some nineteenth-century gossip, and find out all about the writers whose tall tales have changed the world.'

When I was young, I used to be love the publications, Dead Famous and Horrible Histories, both of them being from Scholastic. While I have already reviewed a few books from Horrible Histories, this is the first one from Dead Famous (though, not the first that I've read from the series). So, the basis of a Dead Famous book is, it features a personality who is famous and dead; so yeah, in this case, the phrase actually carries the literal meaning.

This book is on the life of ten great writers, whom we're all likely to have heard of, regardless of whether we've read their books or not. The authors are Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Bronte Sisters, Dickens, Joyce, Hardy and Orwell. I've heard of each one of them, though, read books of only two of these authors (being Shakespeare and Orwell) and the reviews I have given on those books aren't particularly pleasant but my review shall focus on the book rather than the authors.

I really had the way she had it structured, it was chronological, we all love referring to the olde English as Chaucer's English and hence, starts with Chaucer. This book not only focuses on their life, but also on how their ideas emerged, what brought them to writing and the most interesting aspect of the whole book is, she brought out the rough history of the era in which the authors lived, through the book. So, this book will not only provide knowledge on these authors, but also on a lot of history and also, one could easily see how the society changed over the respective periods in which the authors lived.

The only possible negative that I found is something pervasive across this series, be it Horrible Histories or Dead Famous, being the focus on the British Isles (I'd have just said Britain if not for James Joyce), and here, all the ten authors are from the same region; a bit of diversity could've definitely added flavour to the book. Also, it could have been better if there had been one woman author from the modern era, who didn't face much societal stereotype unlike Jane Austen or Bronte sisters, such as Agatha Christie or perhaps, Virginia Woolf.

On the whole, this was an excellent read, I always love these books because it is not too difficult to read and at the same time, it is highly informative, especially this particular book, which had many facets to it, other than being a biography of the individual authors. So, I'd give the book a rating of eight.

Rating - 8/10

Have a nice day,

Andy   

The Scion of Ikshvaku by Amish Tripathi - Book Review

Publisher's write-up:

'Ayodhya is weakened by divisions. A terrible war has taken its toll.

The damage runs deep. The demon King of Lanka, Raavan, does not impose his rule on the defeated. He, instead, imposes his trade. Money is sucked out of the empire. The Sapt Sindhu people descend into poverty, despondency and corruption. They cry for a leader to lead them out of the morass.

Little do they appreciate that the leader is among them. One whom they know. A tortured and ostracised prince. A prince they tried to break. A prince called Ram.

He loves his country, even when his countrymen torment him. He stands alone for the law. His band of brothers, his wife Sita, and he, against the darkness of chaos.'

The Scion of Ikshvaku is the first book of the Ram Chandra series which is in fact, the prequel of the same author's Shiva Trilogy. In the Shiva Trilogy, a past monarch named Ram Chandra is revered, and this is a series about him.

A word of advice to all readers who have read the Ramayan, treat this as a story distinct from Ramayan as there are quite a lot of changes from the original epic (starting from Dasharath and Raavan being enemies even before the birth of Ram, Manthara being the richest person in Ayodhya, Sukracharya being from Egypt, etc.). I see a lot of criticism on this book owing to these deviations which I find to be rather unfair considering this story is not re-telling but re-imagining.

With that said, Prince Ram is born the day his father, Dasharath, the Emperor of Ayodhya, loses his first ever battle to the demon king of Lanka, Raavan. Hence, Ram is seen as the symbol of misfortune by his father and all the nobles in the kingdom. Notwithstanding that, he still loved his country and the people of his country, had a strong sense of right or wrong and believed in the rule of law being absolute. This story substantially revolves around Ram's student years along with his half brothers - Lakshman, Bharat and Shatrugan under the tutelage of their teacher Vashishta and eventually, goes on to his early adult life; marriage to Sita and the exile.

What I appreciate about this book is, yet again, the author has come up with a book which takes an ancient story as the premise to come up with something different which is perhaps more interesting to the current generation of readers. Truth be told, I have never been a big fan of Ramayan and I have always considered it to be quite a boring story and yes, so far, this has been a lot more interesting story based on what, in my opinion, is a boring premise.

The ideological conversations between Bharat and Ram were really good, with the former taking a liberal approach focused on freedom akin to the scenario today (or is it?) and the latter being absolutely strict about the rule of law, even if it is seemingly redundant. The places and the events were also described well and his writing has been progressively improving over the course of Shiva Trilogy and this has been no exception; he still uses modern colloquial language but I have learnt to accept that as his style, considering this is the fourth book of his that I am reading.

To talk about the negatives, I have one significant set of events in the book - which was an allusion to the 2012 Delhi gang rape tragedy (including the  and his description of the public execution was absolutely ... grotesque, to say the least and I couldn't stand it beyond a point. There was absolutely no reason to bring this issue into this book and this was just a move to strike a chord with the majority opinion of the public and honestly, one shouldn't write a story with commercial intentions in mind. Coming to the philosophical aspects of the book, I found it rather silly to associate gender with principles of governing a country and there is excessive content on this book as to how the system followed in the story during the time being feminine and how Ram wishes to bring the change by bringing out the best aspects of the masculine system. Moreover, like any other Amish book, there was some appalling use of pseudo science while attempting to rationalise some of the events of Ramayan which very well could've been skipped. 

To conclude, without drawing any reference to Ramayan, for if you do, you'd inevitably form a negative opinion, I would not say this story scores with regard to writing or an excellent case of imagination or anything along those lines but then, it was readable. Hence, for me, other factors ignored, if you just deliver a good story, I award them a standard rating of six on ten and this book is no exception to that principle of mine.

Rating - 6/10

Have a nice day,

Andy 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton - Book Review

Publisher's write-up:

'It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous sum of money has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.'

So far I have read one book from an author who won the Nobel Prize for literature and one book that has won the Man Booker Prize; the latter gave me a reading experience for a lifetime (being Rushdie' Midnight's Children) whereas the former was possibly the worst book that I have read till date (being Herta Muller's The Land of Plums). I have always wanted to read a good mystery novel written by a woman (as I rarely have any, in my shelf and I wanted the diversity) and yes, there came a crime story based during the Victorian Era, a Man Booker Prize winner in the form of The Luminaries and there wasn't any better chance than this one to increase the diversity of my bookshelf.

This story is set in the 1860s in a small town in the West Coast by the name Hokitika, during the period of New Zealand's gold rush. The story revolves around many characters; as given by the publisher in the write-up, twelve men gather at a hotel to discuss these crimes as each of them are directly or indirectly affected by them. These twelve don't have any direct connection with each other and are from varying backgrounds starting from a wealthy magnate to an indentured Chinese labourer. For starters, a drunk hermit has been found dead with a huge fortune in his house, a whore was saved from the brink of death and subsequently charged with attempted suicide and finally, a wealthy young man has gone missing all of a sudden and the twelve men at the hotel are in some way or the other, related to the events or affected by the events and all of them have their own reasons to find answers to these mysteries.

I'd say that to read this book, it requires a lot of patience, it has 832 pages, the longest that I have ever read and it has too many characters and to be very frank, I myself took two spells to complete reading the novel. As I said, with each of these twelve narrating their story from their own view point, by around 180 pages, I completely lost track and took a break from reading this book but then, the mistake I made was, she has given the list of characters at the start of the book and fearing spoilers, I never looked at it; and when I picked up the book again and got the flow, there was no question of putting it down (yes, that list of characters was helpful and contains no spoilers).

To be honest, whenever I have read such awfully long novels, including Midnight's Children, where despite the story being brilliant individually, I have felt that the size of the book is not justified but this was one such book which I felt, that despite the size, every page of the book was justified and there was movement in the story every passing moment with all kinds of twists and turns, exactly what you would want as a reader in a mystery novel. Those who enjoyed watching the picturesque locations in New Zealand in The Lord of the Rings can certainly try this, with Catton describing the Victorian New Zealand beautifully in her various pages and also bringing out the life of all classes of people during that time - a politician, a lawyer, a clerk at the magistrate, an indentured labourer, a hatter, a business magnate, captain of a ship, a hotelier among various others.

I also loved Catton's writing style, which was lucid, yet, not drab, long, but had still had the content and of course, the characters, the more you get to know them, the more complex they become with you beginning to suspect every person and there were points where I even suspected the versions of the stories of certain characters eventually, even though I unconditionally accepted them in the beginning. So yeah, I acknowledge the fact that the author could very well manipulate my thoughts regarding the individual characters of the book and that is something that I admire about the book.

The only demerit I found is that I really don't agree with the way in which she closed all her loose ends - I don't deem this information to be a spoiler, but the story ends before the beginning of the last hundred pages and then, she just ties up her loose ends; while it is commendable to leave a mystery novel with minimal loose ends, I feel this is not the best way to have dealt with it.

I wouldn't comment on the metaphorical element of the book as, understandably so, this book has a lot of references to astrology and zodiac signs but then, the reference was too subtle that you don't really need to know them to love the book and appreciate the story and I am one of those readers who has no clue about astrology.

To conclude, I wanted to diversify my bookshelf and ironically, I finished the book and the review on International Women's Day (8th March, 2016) and yeah, reading this was indeed a complete reading experience, in terms of language, a good story to tell and for a history enthusiast like myself, I go back with some knowledge on New Zealand's gold rush and 19th century New Zealand, in general.

On the whole, I would give this book a rating of eight.

Rating - 8/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

East, West by Sir Salman Rushdie - Book Review

Publisher's write-up:

'In these nine stories Salman Rushdie looks at what happens when East meets West, at the forces that pull his characters in one direction, then the other. Fantasy and realism collide as a rickshaw driver writes letters describing his film star career in Bombay; a mispronunciation leads to romance and an unusual courtship in sixties London; two childhood friends turned diplomats live out fantasies hatched by Star Trek; and Christopher Columbus dreams of consummating his relationship with Queen Isabella. The stories in East, West show the extraordinary range and power of Salman Rushdie's writing.'

East, West is a collection of nine short stories, six of them published severally before this book was compiled. The book has three parts, the first being East with three short stories based in South Asia followed by West similarly set in the other hemisphere and the last portion being East, West where the stories feature Indians settled in UK.

This collection, as always, followed the typical Rushdie style of a strong theme delivered through an abstract story and from the first portion, East, I really loved the story The Prophet's Hair, where the author brings out how the lifestyle of a family changes when the head of the family, the local moneylender, ends up finding the sacred relic, a vial containing the hair of the Prophet and I interpreted it as  the author brought out his own views on literal interpretation of religion and how it impacts everyday lifestyle. While first portion followed a more narrative approach, the author begins to experiment with his style in West and here, the story Yorick was my favourite with author presenting a story on the childhood days of Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare's famous play by the same name, I particularly loved the way he started with a roundabout description on something as simple as the word paper and followed by the style of indulging in a conversation with the reader rather than plainly narrating it unlike the first portion. He also continually used this as a platform to bring out his own personal views on various ideas and I'd quote some of my favourites here:

'We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground.' - Page 89 (At the Auction of The Ruby Slippers)

'There is no doubt that a large majority of us opposes the free, unrestricted migration of imaginary beings into an already damaged relaity, whose resources diminish by the day.' - Page 94 (At the Auction of The Ruby Slippers)

With regard to this collection, I was really pleased with the style and the way it was delivered, but then, Rushdie is an author who has never failed to impress me with his writing; but then, I felt, in this case, some of the stories lacked the depth, especially the second portion West creating abstract stories out of an already existing story / incident as the base. I have been silent on the third portion of the book, East, West as it neither disappointed me, nor did I thoroughly enjoyed, it in fact, took the worst of both parts - East had a very good stories narrated in a simple way and West had average stories narrated in a brilliant unorthodox manner whereas, East, West was a collection of average stories narrated in a simple way.

But then, at the end of the day, I wanted a light read and the same time, ingrain the best of writing and I guess I got that satisfied in this book and on the whole, being a fan of Rushdie's works, I did enjoy reading the book, even the stories which I didn't particularly like, I loved the way it was narrated. So yeah, I'd say that it was a good read, but then, owing to the author's past, I guess I tend to set the standard as Midnight's Children and hence, that might probably pull down the rating to six.

Rating - 6/10

Have a nice day,

Andy