85 books in total. Full list of books I read here.
Writing reviews for all 85 is taking too long. Wrote for nearly one-third for now. Hoping to finish everything by mid-Jan.
I am Zlatan - Poor translation but a very entertaining read. Don't really prefer reading biographies of players who haven't retired but Zlatan's is an exception. It details his life in Rosengard and how his career progressed from Malmo FF to AC Milano through Ajax Amsterdam, Juventus, Inter Milano and Barcelona. It's a pity the book ends before his move to PSG. Good read for football fans. 4/5
I Think, Therefore I Play - biography of Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo. I already broke my vow with Zlatan's and then another friend shared Pirlo's biography saying it's a must read. The book is short with content covering hardly 70-80 pages but what a book it was! Right from the first page, I was in tears. Probably the funniest biography I've ever read. The book doesn't include too many details about his childhood or even his playing days. It's more like sitting with Pirlo having a Scotch and cigar on a winter evening talking about random stuff that he went through. I wish he writes a book every year.c4/5
The Green Mile - Stephen King. Don't bother, watch the movie starring Tom Hanks instead. I have the terrible luck of starting a popular and acclaimed author's works with probably their most underwhelming novel. It happened with Agatha Christie (Sparkling Cyanide), Sidney Sheldon (Stranger in the Mirror), Stephen King (this), Michael Crichton (Timeline), Jeffrey Archer (Paths of Glory). Green Mile is a serialized novel with 6 parts with each one covering 70-75 pages each. I dunno how people read it back then when you had to wait for the each successive part to release after a while but when I read all 6 together, I found the story to be extremely slow paced. First part tells about a brutal crime and the criminal John Coffey getting sent to a state penitentiary. And then, not much happens in next parts. I expected it to be a racy thriller with lots of action, mystery, horror (Stephen King, after all), etc but not much stuff happens. Don't really recommend reading it. 3/5
Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith. Recommended by the book club I'm part of, I took this up during a weekend but it took me nearly two days to finish it. Expected it to be an unputdownable-burn-the-midnight-oil-till-it's-dawn kinda book but I took a lot of breaks in between just to get away from the characters. Two strangers Guy Haines and Charles Bruno meet on a train and there's a plan to kill for each other so that suspicion won't fall on the respective guys (police won't be able to find a motive). Charles was constantly drunk and Guy spends more time in his head than Raskolnikov (I had to wiki his name) in Crime and Punishment. Extremely vexing read and when the book finally ended, I screamed "Hallelujah, glory be to the Old Gods, the Seven, R'hllor and the God of Many Faces!" 2/5
The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor. During the (g)olden days when I regularly read The Hindu (lost the habit now), Ramachandra Guha and Shashi Tharoor were my favorite writers. I first heard of this book during one of the Literary quizzes. Based on recommendations there, I immediately bought the book. It's a brilliant book, written in 1989, intertwining Mahabharata with the Indian freedom struggle and later national politics. So we read the Indian history from late 19th century through early 1980s like the story of Mahabharata. Constantly through the book I was reminded of Mrs. Miggins' giggle and her words in Blackadder - III: Oh you've a way with words, Mr. Shelley. Tharoor is a brilliant writer and he's so good with words that I even read the poems that occasionally come in between. Must read. 4.5/5
Govinda - Krishna Udayasankar. Like Amish fictionalized the Shiva trilogy, Krishna decided to fictionalize the Mahabharata. This is the first of the Aryavarta Chronicles and I guess the series is supposed to be a trilogy. The book deals with the start of Mahabharata (Satyavrata, Ved Vyas, Bhishm etc) till the crowning of Yudhishtir. Author tried to write too similarly to Amish and hence the book ends up with Panchali/Draupadi sounding a lot like Sati in Shiva trilogy. There are a lot of things I don't like but listing them would be spoilers for others so I'll refrain. Just one rant though, as I have to get it off my chest: I've read my first Mahabharata when I was 7 and since then, I've read several versions but in no version did I read Panchali and Krishna (neither the author nor me) being lovers. All through the book, this point was constantly nagging in my mind which didn't let me enjoy the book as much as it deserved. I only picked up as I found it lying in my room (all my roomies vehemently denied having ever owned it or even seen it) and since I ran out of books, I picked it up. Now I'll have to finish the series :|. Noticed the 2nd part Kaurava being available in flipkart for only 200 bucks but I just can't find myself to spend any money on it :/. On the positive side: the story flows smoothly. It doesn't get boring any where. 3/5
The Great Train Robbery - Michael Crichton. Book describes in detail the audacious train robbery of 1855. There's also a movie starring Sean Connery & Sutherland based on the same book. This is everything the Green Mile is not - a pulsating page turner. There's not a single chapter where I felt like skimming the lines. I could hardly relate to the story as it was set in Victorian times but Crichton doesn't bore with too many unnecessary details. He keeps the narrative strong, builds each character and leaves a little something after every chapter which makes you look forward to the next. It was so good I finished it in just two nights. When I started reading, I was slightly put off with the Victorian details but the story kept flowing and I couldn't simply put the book down. 4/5
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