Mrs. Funnybones is not that funny

I had wanted to read Twinkle Khanna's book 'Mrs. Funnybones' ever since I came to know of its existence. After an excruciating wait of over a month for the book to be delivered (thanks to the slow Indian postal service) I finally got my hands on it. The reasons for wanting to read this book were two fold. Firstly, I had a little bit of a crush on Ms. Khanna when she was a Bollywood actress and secondly, I always enjoy wit and humour. Sadly, I was disappointed by the book.

Scion of Ikshvaku: First installment of the Ram Chandra Series

I have not been a fan of Amish Tripathi's writing style, although his first novel 'The Immortals of Meluha' did manage to catch my attention. I read the other books in his Shiva Trilogy partly because I wanted to know how he would treat the character of Shiva and partly because of a mild OCD. I was not very thrilled about his new series either: the Ram Chandra Series, but visiting India after 16 months and seeing his book peeping from all the bookshops at New Delhi Airport made me buy a copy. I recently finished reading it and I was disappointed to say the least.

Book Review: All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman

I had the pleasure of reading Andrew Kaufman's novella 'All My Friends are Superheroes' over two metro rides and a lazy Sunday evening in my office. The book is witty, short and fun. Tom is a normal guy surrounded by friends who are all superheroes. He falls in love and marries 'The Perfectionist', only problem is 'The Hypnotist', an ex of his wife hypnotized her into believing that Tom was not there. So he became invisible to her and the whole book is revoled around his efforts to become visible to his wife again.

Book Review: Dead Meat by Ankush Saikia

Ankush Saikia is an Indian author hailing from the North East who has already authored a couple of books, which I have read and enjoyed. So, it was with some expectation that I started reading his latest offering 'Dead Meat', released early this year. And I was not disappointed. Saikia has written an absolutely delightful book which will keep readers hooked till the very end.

Book Review: Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat

I have read all the previous novels of Chetan Bhagat and to some extend I enjoyed them. I understand that his stories are not the ones where you can find the meaning of life or are the ones like the classics of yore. So, it was with not much expectation that I started reading his latest book 'Half Girlfriend' published last year. The title seemed to suggest a soft romantic story and I was right. The feeling you get when you read his novels is like watching a movie. That is understandable as nowadays basically he writes his books in a way so that a big Bollywood blockbuster can be made out of it. In a sense, he reminds me of the novels of Sidney Sheldon which I used to love when I was a teenager.
 

The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: A book review

When I first heard about this book, it seemed like any other biography of a woman apparently unheard of. A chance look at the blurb caught my attention and I suddenly remembered where I had come by that name. Henrietta Lacks was the woman behind the famous “HeLa” cells.

Book Review: Adultery by Paulo Coelho

At the very mention of Paulo Coelho, I envision a book that is of full of wisdom and emotional insight. This new book wishes to do exactly that, but does not quite reach up to the standards set by The Alchemist or Veronika Decides to Die. The book fundamentally talks of how monotony leads to apathy in relationships.

Book Review: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This is a beautiful book. Beauty-full.

Yes, that is exactly how I would describe writer-cum-social activist Arundhati Roy’s 1997 Man Booker Prize winning novel, The God of Small Things. Ms Roy’s brilliant interplay with words gifts the reader entry to a different world that he can see and feel - and that is where the beauty lies. The reader can play the scenes in his mind: the lucid writing ensures the he is seeing the things and not reading about them. The story is not a surprise; the characters could be the ones out of any Hindi prime-time soap that we are so familiar with. Yet, something makes her book different: she creates the extraordinary out of the ordinary.

Book Review: Inferno by Dan Brown

Inferno is Dan Brown’s latest offering in the thriller/adventure genre. This is the fourth novel featuring the famous Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon as he tries to save his life as well as the world. If you are expecting the Da Vinci type fireworks, then you will be hugely disappointed. The book is good, but it is far from great. The reader will be tested in many places with a narrative that seems quite opposite to gripping. There are long instances of just historical ramblings which anyone with an interest can get from an encyclopaedia. But still, Brown does create some magic in certain places and carries forth a very important message for everyone in this book.

Book Review: The Oath of The Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi

Amish’s latest offering in his Shiva Trilogy, ‘The Oath of the Vayuputras’ has been an absolute let down. With high hopes after reading the first two in the set, the seasoned reader is almost sure to feel tragic. The first 200 pages of this unnecessarily long book were boring, to put it mildly. The rest of the 350 pages were made unnecessarily long where a few things could have sufficed. In fact, there are many gaping mistakes and oversights in the whole book, that the reader is left to wonder whether at all the book was edited or not. The first two books ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ and ‘The Secret of the Nagas’ were thrilling and fast paced, where the reader is never allowed a chance to come at a plausible guess, the plot was strong and the characters seemed natural. But the third volume has nothing of that sort. Although Amish has improved his writing capabilities but his work has diminished.

Book Review: The Company of Women by Khuswant Singh

Mohan Kumar is a very rich person who has a single vice- women. He is crazy about them and is willing to spend lavishly to get their company. It started when he was in the United States attending college and then took a new turn after he divorced his wife and felt lonely without a women in his life, more specifically without someone to share his bed with him. This is in essence the story of the book that is the subject of the review, ‘The Company of Women’ by one of India’s most well-known and widely read authors, Khuswant Singh. Singh is well-known for his bold portrayal of the truth and in this case he has not let any stones be left unturned. He has very succinctly and beautifully said what men like Mohan Kumar can and will do if given a chance. However, he still shows the pitfalls of all these by ending Mohan’s life due to the deadly onslaught of AIDS which let him to commit suicide, lest the society and his family know about the truth of his somewhat clandestine affairs.

Book Review: The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Every now and then you come across a story that has to be shared, that is so extraordinary that you feel the emotions of the protagonist as the story goes along. One such story is that of Prof. Randy Pausch, now deceased due to pancreatic cancer. Prof. Pausch was a distinguished man of science; he was a professor of computer science and a consultant to various companies like Google, Disney, etc. His was a charming and dynamic personality that enthralled everyone who met. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with a serious disease and given a few months to live. Instead of brooding about what he could have achieved or what his family would go through, he decided to devote his remaining time on this planet to plan how his kids would remember him, how he could leave behind a solid legacy for them to follow, and tried to execute his plan, which he did admirably. The book under review, ‘The Last Lecture’ was the result of all these plans.

Book Review: A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer

I have read Jeffrey Archer in the past but this is the best I’ve come across so far.I haven’t read ‘Kane and Abel’ which is proclaimed to be his best novel but if you’re a reader who swears by crime-detective genre of fiction,you’re bound to love this one!

Book Review: The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi

The Krishna Key is supposedly a thriller that will keep you engaged and will be a delight for conspiracy theorists. Well, it is almost all that it claims to be, but just a bit shy of being there at the very top, The book is incredibly well researched and tells the tale of a modern man’s illusion into trying to find Krishna’s great legacy left behind to mankind. In that process emerges a hero, Professor Ravi Mohan Saini who is an expert on Lord Krishna. It is upon Saini that falls the onerous task of trying to save the world from the clutches of a mad man who is falsely led to believe that he is the tenth and final avatar of Vishnu. The rest of the plot of the story is a topsy turvy turn of events where Saini is falsely accused of murdering his best friend and then falls into a trap which he realizes much late. But as even best laid plans may fail, Saini miraculously survives everything that is thrown at him and comes out the winner eventually.

Book Review: Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey Archer’s third volume of his Clifton chronicles contains very little surprises, and would have been considered a great hit had it been penned by someone less illustrious than Lord Archer. Considered to be one of the most talented and extraordinary story tellers alive, this book has at some points let down the reader who expects a lot more from Archer. The book takes off from the point where its predecessor ‘The Sins of the Father’ left. The old characters return and the story of Harry Clifton and Emma Barrington along with Emma’s brother, Giles Barrington takes off with the numerous twists and turns of any Archer classic. The storyline is as usual great, but it becomes too predictable at some points, where the readers anticipates much of what is to come.

Book Review: Doctors by Erich Segal

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like if you were a doctor? What it takes for a person to tick in the time of distress? What does it feel to cut open a human being’s body and then sew it back as perfectly normal? What it takes to have compassion and a sense of duty at the same time? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you should definitely make it a point to read the book “Doctors” by Erich Segal. Even if you have a negative response to each and every question that I asked, then also you should read that book. The reason is simple. It’s a classic!

Book Review: The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi

The recent band of Indian writers in English was joined by Amish Tripathi, an IIM-C graduate who works with the IDBI Bank in 2010 with his smashing hit debut novel “The Immortals of Meluha”. The book is a historical fiction and is part of a 3 volume “Shiva Trilogy”, the second of which was released a few months ago “The Secret of the Nagas”. The book “The Immortals of Meluha” is
based on the imaginary land of Meluha, an Indus valley civilization. It traces the heroic rise of a nomad, Shiva into an almost impossible Godlike stature.

Book Review: The Sins of The Father by Jeffrey Archer

The name of Jeffrey Archer is synonymous with bestsellers, and he is the only author to have been on the best seller list in the fiction, non-fiction and short stories section. Archer combines a tenacity and zeal for writing and storytelling that has not been surpassed by anyone probably since the great Alexandre Dumas. However, the latest offering of Archer titled, ‘The Sins of The Father‘,the second instalment to his Clifton Chronicles fails to amaze us or think that a master story telleris at work. The plot is quite uninteresting as many parts of the book can be guessed by seasoned Archer fans. This is the third time that Archer has disappointed me (the first time when he went to prison and the second time when he wrote Cat O’ Nine Tales). However, in spite of this lacklustre performance there are certain positives of the book. Archer has a sense of characterization that can be sometimes called haunting. In terms of sheer beauty of the scenes recreated probably there is no living equal.

Book Review: Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman

Can an extraordinary scientist be at the same time a really funny man? Can he be a trickster of the highest degree? Well, after reading Richard P. Feynman’s series of biographical anecdotes titled “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman”, I am sure everyone will agree to it. Feynman was one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the 20^th century who got the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. Apart from being an excellent physicist, Feynman was at the same time an extraordinary teacher and a passionate human being. Feynman had a charm and wit that made the world seem so real, so easy. His rugged looks and an extraordinary sense of self-confidence made him a natural with anybody to talk to. This book is a collection of written our taped conversations that Feynman had with his long-time friend Ralph Leighton. The style of the book is not at all autobiographical, but we do see a trait of an autobiography in it.

Book Review: Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer

The latest volume in the mammoth Clifton chronicles by Jeffery Archer was launched in India recently, and I was lucky to read it within 3 days of launch. The book, like all other Archer novels was unputdownable. The story revolves around the second generation Cliftons now, and slowly focus shifts from Harry Clifton to his son, Sebastian Clifton and his life, first as a teenager and then as a young man trying to make his mark in the world.