Cris’s Book and Blog Reviews

I reached there from another blogger’s post. Found it absolutely hilarious and thought I will share it here. It is not nice to laugh at the misery of others, but the way he has written about a few failed marriage proposals was too good. Great language, and absolutely great humor. The links are these - link1, link2, link3 and link4

Another short Wodehouse done. “Do Butlers Burgle Banks?”
This was a 158-er. Hehe page counting is the first task I perform on getting any book. Typical Wodehouse, with some burglary stuffed into it. Not that it’s anything unusual, Wodehouse characters have always been in the habit of pinching things. Here though burglary comes in the form of a butler. And butlers in Wodehouse novels are imperative.

Hero here, is Horace Appleby, the man who can be a charming butler when he is not plotting house breaks. Horace finds his new target at Bond’s bank and conveniently slips into the Bond household to enter his new role as the efficient butler of the house. And he is proud of his butlery skills.

Read a P G Wodehouse. Small one. Bachelors Anonymous. It is a small package in 139 pages, which was what made its way into my hands. Small books have that kind of attraction with me.

Going into the book, there was something I missed here. From the usual Wodehouse books I mean. There was no butler to set things right, which was made a mess by a young bachelor. There was no older guy who formed the thick and thin of it all, after being exceedingly trouble-seeking for his age.

This time it is about one particular post rather than the whole blog. It is one of the blogs I frequent cause I love the way she writes it.

This is about this post she made titled God. Really appealing. I am agnostic in my religous feelings, but I could appreciate the sentiments of friendship and love rising above everything else in the post and it seemed to be at the right time, with India’s 62nd independence day coming and going.

If I talked about kiddie blogs in the past, I am talking baby blogs now! This time the age has come down to 9! And he is the brother of the kid blogger I talked about before - Adi. His name is Neeraj, but people call him Neeru, in his house :-). Everything about him, including his baby-face photo is there in the sidebar, neatly put there. His posts are as honest as it can be and innocence seems to echo out of every word written there!

“This business about fairy tales having happy endings – that was bull shit. Sometimes people melt. People go away. People die. And we’re left with stories and memories, which, if we’re lucky, will be good stories and good memories and then we get on with our life.”

Realize there are a couple of words here I should enlist in the sensor board but I thought I will leave it as it is. I liked it that way. And the lines are from the book what the title says is, Hard News by Jeffrey Deaver. This is my first Deaver book. Have to admit, I have never heard the name before stumbling up on it in another blog. And this book became the choice because it seemed the shortest of Deaver’s in my library, at 291 pages. Hmm, a little too long for my standards.

Ah another blog. Actually I have been stumbling upon quite a few blogs I end up adding to my Google Reader. This one, though I thought I will put it here straight away. I just found it today and there is no technicality or specification to which I can group it, its just whatever she wants to think or write about. I am putting it here, because I really enjoy reading it! I have only read a couple of her entries now but that was good enough for me. This Lady could write! Amazing language, suits me anyway. Plus in-built humor! What more do I need?

Done with another Agatha Christie murder mystery. And it was my very own favorite fictional character Hercule Poirot starring in it as the mystery solver. Uff I just had to go and check the title! “After the Funeral”. Funny, somehow I don’t place a lot of importance on Agatha Christie book titles, after I have taken one of them.

I have said before there are 2 kinds of novels you read, one you read cause you liked to appreciate the language, another cause it was too thrilling to be kept for later. This book definitely belonged to the second genre. Not that the language was anything non-commendable! I always like Agatha Christie’s narrations, the words are chosen carefully and the lines are connected beautifully. It was not only about suspense and murders, it was also about telling it admirably.

Finished Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. Actually meant to take Helen Somebody-Else but forgot the last name and ended up with Fielding. But no regrets. Enjoyed it.

Having finished the book, the first thought that came to my mind was can your story and your life and your self be extracted from your diary? I wondered now about my diary. I didn’t think anything you write to a diary ever made a lot of sense. You wrote when you wanted to talk, about yourself or what bugs you, or maybe for no reason. But all of it from page 1 to last, would it define your life? The answer, I found is yes, at least w.r.t. BJ. Hmm, point to be taken care of: be careful on what you write to your diary, no knowing what readers may come across it.

Pardon me if this sounds disrespectful, for I know how much the book I am about to write about is worshipped globally. But I did not enjoy Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather’.
There. I said it. Whew!

I took it from my library, no doubt because of its reputation as everyone’s favorite. Such books, I should learn from experience do not work on me somehow. Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist and Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead had similar effects on me. Not that I am proud of it.