[Books] April, 2015

1. Mark of Athena, House of Hades, Blood of Olympus (#3, #4 and #5 of Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan
I'm finally done with Percy Jackson! As elated as being finally freed from Circe's magic island! Or like getting a sock from my master! ("Dobby is free!"). Just reaffirms that I'm neither young anymore nor an adult if it even comes to that. I'm going to treasure the information from the books though, just like I usually do with Dan Brown's (Lost Symbol still sucks). I could see Leo Valdez ending up with Calypso from a mile away, meh. 4/5 for Mark of Athena, 3.5/5 for House of Hades and 3/5 for Blood of Olympus. Overall Heroes of Olympus series rating: 6/10. Overall Percy Jackson series rating: somewhere between 6 and 7, closer to 6 rather than 7. After watching bits and pieces of Sea of Monsters, it's safe to say I'd be staying away from any future adaptations of this series.


2. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
This was a painful read for the first few pages (around 60-70) and if the cover didn't have Douglas Adams' name, I wouldn't have believed that he wrote it. Once Dirk Gently (Svlad Cjelli?) enters though (somewhere near halfway point), this was such a breeze. I absolutely loved the "holistic" explanation of fundamental interconnectedness of things. And of course Electric Monk was great as well (only interesting aspect in the first 50 pages for me). The book was supposed to be based on Doctor Who series and it might have been a bad idea to pick it up without having any knowledge on Doctor Who or its concept. Funny in parts, but don't compare it with H2G2 as it would only lead to disappointment. 3.5/5


3. Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana by Devdutt Pattanaik
For a book that is titled Sita, I'm disappointed how little we see of her (compared to my own lofty expectations). I heard great things about Pattanaik and raving reviews of his books (especially Business Sutra and Shikhandi) but this felt a little underwhelming. Might be because of all the things I hoped to find. I was hoping to see a lot of character exploration compared to traditional Ramayana tales (the book did come with "retelling" on the cover) and a different take on certain incidents than what we traditionally hear (same incidents but different point of view, if you know what I mean). But this turned out to be just an amalgam of several different versions found from India to East Asia. I already knew around 90% of the tales in the book and I'm thankful to Pattanaik for the remaining 10% :). I have similarly lofty expectations on Chitra Divakaruni's Palace of Illusions (known story from Mahabharata but with a different take) but now I'm afraid if it wouldn't reach to my expectations. 3/5


4. A Damsel in Distress by PG Wodehouse
I wanted to take a break from Jeeves & Wooster as well as Blandings series but that ended up as a no-Wodehouse-March. So I promptly went ahead and bought a standalone book Damsel in Distress in Apr. There's nothing much to talk about the story as we all know how Wodehouse stories are (at least those who're familiar with the author) but the humor is great in parts. A little underwhelming again (boy, how many times did I use it already?) as one of the characters resembled Bertie Wooster, one of them resembled Lord Emsworth (including the sister!), one of them's like Efficient Baxter - so it was like reading a hodgepodge of J & W, Blandings. But it may also serve as an excellent introduction into the Wodehouse world for those who never read his books. I can never bring myself to rate any Wodehouse anything less 4/5 but this is somewhere around 3.5.

5. The Big Four by Agatha Christie
Christie is back after an absence in March! And it was underwhelming again! (at this point you are perfectly entitled to shout at me - your head is underwhelming!) Certain important parts resemble Conan Doyle's Holmes so much that if both the authors were born in 1980s, there would have been law suits accusing plagiarism. Instead of (usually) the one villain, we get four different villains in this one and considering that goodreads tells me this is #7 in Poirot series, I'm gonna assume that Christie wrote this fairly early in her career; and she couldn't handle four villains concept adequately. Guess it wasn't really a bad idea to stay away from Christie for a month. 3/5


Apart from the full length books, I also read a lot of short stories recently -

These are all 4/5 unless specified otherwise -

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl - My first Dahl. The ending was a bit predictable but Dahl is a master story teller. Kept me hooked throughout.

The Interlopers, Open Window by Saki (H. H. Munro) - Two more with unpredictable endings.

The Verger by Somerset Maugham

Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff

After Twenty Years, The Cop and the Anthem, The Ransom of the Red Chief, The Princess and the Puma by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) - Is there a better writer than O. Henry when it comes to stories with unpredictable endings?

The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells - Spooky! And creepy! In the County of the Blind, One-Eyed man is the king. Well, don't be so sure about that.

The Call of the Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft - My first Lovecraft! And it was amazing. And extremely creepy. This is the first book where Lovecraft introduces Cthulhu and it actually comes only in dreams (mostly) but it's such a scary thing! Imagine something that is huge and resembles a human, an octopus and a dragon. And it has the ability to come into your dreams and screw your mind up. Sometimes it may also feel like meeting you in person and inviting to its home so that it can wreck you. After reading this, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald made more sense btw.

Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff - I'm not gonna shower much love on Wolff's Bullet in the Brain but man oh man, this one's so brimmingly excellent.

Shatranj ke Khiladi by Munshi Premchand (hindi) - Whoaa, great read!

The Last Question, The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov - Asimov with a bit of philosophy and also sci-fi. Great reads!

Uncle Fred Flits By by PG Wodehouse - Re-read this three more times after initially reading it in Feb (I guess). Continues to be funny and none of the characters (err, mainly Uncle Fred and Pongo Twistleton) resemble any famous ones from J & W or Blandings. I'm planning to read more Uncle Fred till I get sick of him and throw Wodehouse away for a month again.

A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf - It didn't make any sense to me. Somebody help?

A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker - What is this, a monologue? Or a rant? Was expecting some funny stuff from Parker (who reviewed Twilight several decades before it came out - This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown away with great force!) but this went on and on and on and on. I pictured the protagonist as the woman from Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder. So if any of you read the Parker story and watched Hitchcock's movie and see any sense of resemblance, I'd be glad. I already feel like I'm losing my sanity and have become El Loco.


Abandoned projects - On Writing by Stephen King (29 pages), Atonement by Ian McEwan (7 pages). (adding them here so that I'd at least be ashamed and motivated enough to read them next month)

[Books] March, 2015

1. The Battle of the Labyrinth & The Last Olympian (#4 and #5 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians) -
The series gets constantly boring for me, though I know it's mostly my fault for not being a teenager. Sorry guv, I grew up even though I really didn't want to. The end is predictable like with most Young Adult series but the journey is kinda fun if you focus constantly on the mythology stuff and pretend not to read the teenager-y conversations between the characters. Oh I loved Mrs. O'Leary ("woof!"). And Hermes. And George+Martha on his caduceus. And Grover when he's nervous. And Blackjack's lingo. For all its adventure, Percy Jackson series could have used a bit of fun, as the target audience is YA. I felt that was a glaring miss from Rick Riordan. Not enough female characters on whom I managed to get a crush on - Annabeth, Zoe, Thalia, Rachel, Silena were all meh. Rating: 3/5


2. The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune (#1 and #2 of Heroes of Olympus series) -
When the Last Olympian ended with yet another prophecy, this time concerning seven demi-gods, I knew we were in for another series. So here goes another 5 books of which the first two deal exclusively with the Roman mythology as much as the earlier series dealt with Greek. I knew about Remus, Romulus and Lupa before I read this series (thanks to AS Roma). Huzzah! Lost Hero was tolerable only for Leo Valdez and Festus. Son of Neptune is where I lost my patience as it gets waaayyyy too emotional teenager-y. My sis lamented last night "I should have picked up LOTR 11 yrs earlier but I thought it would be too dark and it would be too long but now that I've finally read it, it's bestest fantasy series eva!". Of course even if I'd read Percy Jackson series when I was 14, I doubt I'd have it ranked among the best fantasy series - as impressionable as I was at that time. But it's an alright series, not bad considering all the mythology stuff. There are occasions when I mutter "shut up you stupid girl" but Piper, Hazel, Reyna, Annabeth and all would grow up one day. Leo was fun in the first book but his fun quotient keeps going down. At least we still have Coach Hedge who probably fits the meme "all your base are belong to us" better than anyone. Rating: 3/5 (mostly for great mythology stories).


3. Ganapathi by Chilakamarthi Lakshmi Narasimham -
Re-read my review of Gurajada Apparao's Kanyasulkam, reduce the rating by 1, add the parts - "what's the point of this?", "nope, this is too low even for me", "c'mon, this is stupid", "it's not even funny anymore!". Rating: 3/5


4. The Runaway Jury by John Grisham -
The only other Grisham I read was the real life account The Innocent Man, which was very touching and also had its moments of thrill. This book concerns a jury for one of the stand out cases in the modern US history (fictional) which deals with the anti-smoking laws, the smoking companies lobbying, how a jury can be swayed, etc. From around 100th page onwards, it meandered to a predictable ending and though I was impressed with all the statistics, surveys, arguments, counter-arguments, opinions et al both in favor and against smoking companies and their advertising, it felt a little flat in the story telling department. But I kinda liked it though. Rating: 3/5


5. Padava Munaka by Kamalasanudu, a translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Nouka dubi -
I was involved in a discussion recently about books that are translated - whether they help in bringing newer and unfamiliar audience to stories (of course they do) and whether they can keep the beauty of the original intact (some do, some don't). This book concerns with a Law graduate who is in love with one girl (sister of his close friend) but has to marry another girl to respect his father's wishes. The story picks up when the procession carrying the couple over the river on the way back from the wedding to Kolkata capsizes. It is a beautifully written story with a very endearing language and even though I know Tagore's original work is definitely greater, but I can still say that I'd loved the Telugu version too. There were a couple of occasions when it felt like the Bengali phrase was poorly/literally translated and this can be observed even by someone like moi whose Bengali is limited to ami tumi bhalobashi. But of course these mistakes don't take away the effort put in bringing the rest of the story closer to Telugu audience. I heard there's an English translation called The Wreck though I don't know if Gurudev himself wrote it. Rating: 4/5


6. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King -
While reading this book, I constantly thought of King's Hemingway Defense. Was King drunk when he wrote this? Was he high? Was he dreaming? The story is about four childhood friends and their special buddy who "can see the line". I keep turning page after page of King's books and I wonder how he manages to write sooo much! On a typical sunday afternoon, I struggle to write anything coherent and ingenius for more than 2 pages. So yeah, kudos for that special ability. I can't help but wonder if his books can be reduced by nearly 200 pages without losing any major incident in his story. Of course, The Shining doesn't come under this - every page is awe-freakin-some. But Dreamcatcher - I don't know, it felt unnecessarily too long. It has aliens and stuff, so maybe King got drunk while watching ET and then found himself a lot of free time. It has a few gross scenes too. Do not read certain parts after heavy lunch and obviously stay away from this book after dinner. Rating: 3/5

[Books] Feb, 2015

1. What, Ho! By PG Wodehouse
A collection of short stories from various Wodehouse works – Jeeves & Wooster, Blandings, Uncle Fred, Mulliner, Ukridge, etc. It also includes a few letters from Wodehouse which journal his life in US and also his thoughts on several contemporary writers. As a bonus, there’s a couple of really brilliant poems to boot.

Jeeves, Wooster and Lord Emsworth always make me laugh but it’s nice to get acquainted with other characters in Wodehouse world, though Mulliner turned out to be my least favorite as his stories are always about him narrating someone else’s experiences. But of course, only Wodehouse can make me read stories about golf (*yawns*) and actually enjoy them. As this review says, this book is intended for Wodehouse enthusiasts and not beginners. I always recommend Leave it to Psmith or Inimitable Jeeves to start PG W. 3.5/5

2. Feynman’s Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun – by David L Goodstein
This is strictly for people who do not mind a little bit of math, especially geometry. If you're one of those who hated science then better ignore this one. I was previously recommended another excellent book on Feynman’s life – Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman? – but before I go there eventually, I am happy to get a chance to read this book. The book deals with Richard Feynman's impromptu lecture to his grad students and his explanation of why planets move around the sun in only elliptical orbits. The actual material is probably 40 pages long but the author, who was a good friend of Feynman, gives a lot of introduction about Aristotelian world, the successive theories about our star system from Copernicus, Tycho (Brahe), Galileo, Newton before presenting us Feynman’s analysis. Newton actually proved Copernicus’ law about elliptical motion of the planets by using his own famous three laws in his Principia Mathematica, but he used a lot of properties of conic sections and stuff. Instead, Feynman uses simple geometry (congruent triangles, tangents to circle, foci, radius, parallelogram, etc) to prove the elliptical motion. I liked this book very much. The nerd side in me is a happy chappy. 4/5

3. And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
Eoin Colfer is the famous author from Artemis Fowl series but he did a grave mistake of expanding on Douglas Adams' amazing H2G2 series. I blame Hollywood for inspiring Colfer into taking something really awesome and making terrible continuation of the same. If I hadn't come across this name in one of the book club discussions, I'd have been happy with my ignorance that H2G2 is only a trilogy in five parts. But now I read this and my life's a little wretched. This doesn't have my favorite Marvin the paranoid android. This has barely any lines for Arthur Dent. Ford Prefect is always drunk and doesn't make any sense. Random Dent is more a highly annoying teenager rather than cute little teen. I don’t even want to talk about Trillian's role in this. This book was saved solely by Zaphod Beeblebrox, who continues to be his stupid self and Thor the thunder god. The bits about Asgard and all were kinda ok. Don't recommend this to anyone unless you want to spoil your H2G2 experience. 2.5/5

4. Dork by Sidin Vadukut
I haven't read a single page of this when I was sober. That's some achievement, surely? This book only reiterated my dislike for upcoming Indian writers aka CB's evil spawn (thankfully this book doesn't have much romance & s). This book was supposed to be funny but I can't remember laughing more than a handful of times and we are talking about my drunk self who's known to giggle too much. Parts of it were boring, parts of it were unnecessary, parts of it were superfluous, parts of it made me want to throttle someone around, parts of it made me kick my neighbour's cat 9 stories high. If you think it's a decent book, I won't disagree with you. You may get a call from my drunk self for some in depth analytical discussions though. 2.5/5

5. The Silver Spike by Glen Cook
This is a continuation of the Black Company trilogy which I reviewed last month. This book deals with the aftermath of The White Rose and is mostly written with Case as protagonist. It does miss my favorite characters like Lady & Croaker completely. It's a spin off and a decent book but the series at this point is getting a bit too tedious with the evil stuff. It’s like the evil just won’t die and that is because Cook wants to write a zillion more books. I hope the next ones (think there are 7 more) get better. 3.5/5

6. The Murder on the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
I don't know if I've overgrown Christie and I don't know if it is ridiculous to expect the mystery authors to put a bit more focus on narration and liberal scattering of clues and I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks a mystery book which ends with the main detective pulling something out of the hat saying "voila" is completely stupid and only underestimates the reader's intelligence. After a thoroughly excellent book Murder on the Links in Jan, this was such a downer. I'm mixing a lot of Christie and I make sure to read at least one every month but a good book is hard to come by. 2.5/5

7. Thank You, Jeeves by Wodehouse
Unlike the previous 3-4 Wodehouse books I read, this one's a complete story where…hold your breaths…Jeeves leaves Wooster's service. This severely reduces the number of interactions between Jeeves and Wooster – and any Wodehouse fan would tell you that the charm in J & W series is the conversations between them, Jeeves is bland without W and Wooster’s got nothing without J. This is still a decent book and it deals with the American Stoker family as well as Wooster's pal Chuffy and there's also the loony doctor Sir Roderick Glossop who provide fun. I watched this episode already and I enjoyed the book more than it was worth purely by imagining Fry and Laurie as J & W. 3.5/5

8. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse
After getting embarrassed in a Mythology Quiz (I think my score was 3/150), this series provided me an excellent chance of reading through Greek mythology. I don't know about others who studied in fancy schools and read fancy mythology stuff, but I didn't do it a decade and a half ago. There are so many references to Greek mythology that I end up spending most of my time on Wiki entries, so the book series is not progressing as fast as I would've liked. Still, I only have 2 more books to finish in this series before taking his other one – The Heroes of Olympus. I'd recommend the books for 12-14 yr kids as the stuff feels very childish and there are too many adventures which I suppose to have come very well on screen (I hear Titan’s Curse is in pipeline now). But the books are getting a bit predictable and I was very angry with Percy's entry into Polyphemus' cave – I knew only a little bit about Cyclopes and they had to repeat Ulysses' exact plan. Damn you, man! 3/5 (I wish I were 12)

[Books] Jan, 2015

A review of books I read in Jan, 2015

1.Tales of Dunk n Egg by George RR Martin (The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, The Mystery Knight) –
Got the books several months ago but had the time to read only last month. Thanks to the unplanned vacations eh. The books deal with a hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall aka Dunk and a mysterious lad Egg. But the real story is about the Targaryen dynasty and the Blackfyre rebellion. These novellas are pretty good fillers for ASOIAF. Lord knows George RR Martin isn't going to release his 6th book any time soon. 4/5

2. The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde is excellent at wit! There must be around 100 quotable quotes in this little 80 page book. 4/5

3. American Gods by Neil Gaiman –
This book has so many Gods that I had trouble identifying at least half of them. But this link here was an excellent companion while reading Gaiman's book. American Gods is about a character Shadow and his travels across America after meeting a mysterious stranger Mr. Wednesday (know how the day got its name?). During his travels he comes across a lot of Gods who were initially brought to America by several migrants but who are forgotten now, in place of New Gods. A fascinating read, albeit a bit lengthy. For those who're interested, here’s an ebook for Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas. 3.5/5

4. The Black Company trilogy aka Books of the North by Glen Cook –
(The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose)
The start of the series is freaking confusing so let me post a brief synopsis for those who are interested to take this up. The Black Company is a group of mercenaries and they’re the last free company from Khatovar. The story starts with the Company situated at Beryl in the service of the Syndic. They get an offer to work for a mysterious stranger but the Captain of the Black Company refuses to break their current contract. After a mysterious attack one night by forvalaka (leopard sorts), the Syndic dies which frees the Company from their contract. They switch over to provide their services to the stranger, who turns out to be someone called Soulcatcher. A few hundred years ago, the Empire was ruled by an evil Dominator and his wife Lady. They took 10 of the most evil into their service and these are called Ten Who Were Taken. But the evil was ended when The White Rose defeated Dominator and his clan but her powers were not enough to kill them all. With the help of powerful sorcerers, The White Rose buried Lady, Dominator and the Ten with enough spells which prevented their escape for several decades. But the evil never stops trying eh. A sorcerer named Bomanz wanted to make contact with this bunch but a mistake in his spells released the Lady, who released the Ten but kept her husband Dominator buried.

And this Soulcatcher is one of the Ten Who Were Taken. Others include Limper, Stormbringer, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, The Hanged Man, etc etc. The Black Company don’t break their contracts come what may. So they start to serve the Lady in her fight against The Rebel. The entire series is narrated by Croaker who is part physician and part Annalist. Goblin, Silent and One-Eye are the sorcerers while the Captain is in command of the company with a Lieutenant under him. Raven is from the clergy at Opal who lost most of his lands and titles thanks to Limper. After he joins the Black Company he plays a major part in the series. The first book has a lot of fights, battles and wars going on between the Lady and Rebel. Just like in every other fantasy series, there is a prophecy that The White Rose will come and save the world from evil. The second book deals with Dominator trying to escape his spells and come out to cause chaos. While the first book is pretty fast paced reading, the second one is a bit flat for the initial half as there’s not a single fight. Makes up for it with a biiig fight in the end between Dominator and others though. And as the title says, the third part of the book is about the savior White Rose.

Major problem with the series is that there is no map provided with the books. But this map here should be enough. The series has 7 more books :o

Series rating: 4/5. The second book was on course for 3/5 but the final chapters were pretty good.

5. Er Ist Wieder Da aka Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes –
I heard that there were a lot of protests in Germany regarding the popularity of this satirical novel on Adolf Hitler. I think we are living in dangerous times if the speech is sanctioned and the artistic spirit is curtailed. This book does not promote Nazism. This book does not incite violence or hatred. This book does not make you fall in love with Hitler. This book mocks Hitler and his policies incessantly. For Timur Vermes, Hitler is not just a hate figure but someone to be ridiculed and mocked for his ideas and views. He achieves this by bringing Hitler back to life in Berlin and making him a TV show personality where Hitler freely airs his (real life) views bringing laughter to everyone. If there is still any doubt about his intentions, one has to only read Hitler’s acceptance speech after he wins the prestigious tv award. The following passage is in the initial pages (after Hitler wakes up in a Berlin park he notices a few kids playing football)

I expect my needs did not appear sufficiently pressing to the Hitler Youths, who looked as if they wanted to resume their game of association football. The tallest of the lads now turned to his friends, allowing me to read his name, which his mother had sewn onto a brightly coloured jersey.

“Hitler Youth Ronaldo, which way to the street?”

And then it continued to make me laugh. 4/5


6. Good Omens: Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman –
I never read any Terry Pratchett before so I didn't have high expectations. Thought the book was pretty good though the sarcasm levels came down alarmingly low in the middle pages. The conversations between Aziraphale and Crowley along with the guest appearance of Mary Loquacious make up for it though. Description for the Dog: Satanical hellhound and cat-worrier. This still makes me fall off my chair. 4/5

7. The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie – a good murder mystery or two after a long time. Loved it. 4/5

8. Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie – half of the stories are crap, what with Poirot getting secret inside information fooling the readers. At least the other half's pretty good. 3/5

9. Very Good, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse – Very good, Wodehouse. Excellent collection of short stories. 4.5/5