Sunday, December 17, 2023

Trust By Hernan Diaz

We had gone to the University to pickup our son for Christmas and decided to have lunch there as we sometimes do. There was a 45 minute wait for the table and so we went to checkout the bookstore that was right next to the restaurant. This book immediately caught my eye and I managed to read quite a few pages before we got the call. On the way back I bought the book and came home and finished it. A very novel way of story telling that will catch your attention for sure. The same story is told from four different view points. I was so caught up in the first version that I refused to budge when the second, more sane version came along but warmed up to the idea that the story and characters were changing by the time the third version came along and was fully sold onto the last one. Diaz is quite accomplished in that each of the stories gives the reader a certain closure on the at once enigmatic and pedantic couple around whom the stories are built. You can read this one for sure when you get that urge to read 'something' and want a satisfying read. Almost like a good meal of comfort food.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race By Walter Isaacson

 I am adding this here just to remember this book. As one gets older, memories become more like tiny pieces of cloud that we try to catch before it fades. I had read this fascinating real story in one sitting almost. But now, a month or so later I couldn't quite remember what was that book I had read with such passion. Took some effort but I have managed to grab that memory back and has now deposited it into the core memory. At least I think so.

It is a great read about the long history of research that resulted in the groundbreaking work of gene editing by Nobel prize winner Jennifer Doudna and team at UC Berkeley, California. Isaacson starts at the earliest spot of research done in this field and ties together various coincidences and efforts of the scientific community across the world with surprising clarity. Then he weaves the life of Doudna into this whole scenario to take it to the astounding conclusion that we all know of . A must read.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

A House Without Windows By Nadia Hashimi

I have heard of writer's block but I'd been suffering from a reader's block for a while. Suffice it to say Nadia Hashimi's flavorful prose jolted me out of it and led me to complete her book in under 3 days! Despite a very serious story, Hashimi gently takes hold of the reader's heart with subtly placed details that elicit a craving for more. Who else can describe a plain meal of rice, bread and spinach so well and I quote, "the aromatic steam of the white rice, a blend of cumin and salt" and again, "tore off a piece of bread and shaped it around a lump of spinach, pink threads of rhubarb mixed in". The staunch non-vegetarian that I am, didn't stop me from drooling while reading this even as I worried earnestly about the protagonist's fate. Zeba is the central character who is jailed for killing her husband Kamal on a day described in such refreshing detail that you can feel it as if you were there in person. Through Zeba, Nadia Hashimi tells the story of the women of Afghanistan and to an extent women everywhere who face hardships because of their gender. I have flipped through similarly themed books without picking it up as a read just because of the unavoidable weight it places on one's mood. This book has resolved that dilemma and I find that I can see Zeba's life with a greater awareness. While I think the title didn't do full justice to the superior prose inside, I have gone ahead and ordered "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell" by the same author. Quite telling I'd say as to what I think of the book and the author. 

Monday, March 8, 2021

Two Books

The Ivory Throne By Manu S Pillai
With this book, Pillai has accomplished what many people take years to do. He has become a true blue historian. His well researched book on the last royals of the House of Travancore from the Indian state of Kerala at the cusp of independence is quite expansive and intriguing. Flavored with stories he must have heard from his own ancestors,  the book showcases evidence based research that lends it credence. He had access to British archives from the colonial times while a student in London and seems to have made good use of the State and National archives of India. This is more 'her'story than history as the book is presented around the reign of the last Travancore Queen Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. As a child growing up in post independence Kerala, I had heard a lot about this queen and always wanted to know more of her. The book also starts out with a wonderful chapter on the early history of the Malabar-Kochi-Travancore region with its many kingdoms that were engaged in regular trade with Arabs, Chinese and Europeans from ancient times.  So a big thank you to Pillai for this almost 700 pages long, 2 inches thick paperback that helped satiate a lot of my curiosity. I fervently hope he will come out with a book which further expands on that first early history.

Sugandhi Enna Andal Devanayaki By TD Ramakrishnan
Let me be upfront. There is a good chance that getting through the second half of this difficult to pronounce book may be tough. But the good news is the first half. The scenes, story and premise are quite refreshing and relatively unexplored in Malayalam or for that matter in Indian lit. Before Ondatje I hadn't read anything on the country that lies so close to the southern tip of India. My first international roommate in the US was a Sinhalese from Sri Lanka. I remember how we used to marvel at the fact that a whole lot of people in those times didn't know that Sri Lanka was a whole country!

I asked for this book on a whim along with the Ivory Throne when my dear book friend offered to get me some books on her way back from India. There is nothing more that I need when a book is coming my way. Truly enjoyed the first half with its enchanting stories of the old and new and it was a privilege to learn of both Andal Devanayaki from the old era and Rajani Thiranagama from the new.  The second half felt like a lengthy repetition of the first but I am still glad I read this. Will be looking for more books from this promising author.

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

The Last Painting Of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith

The other day my son remarked that I had not posted anything here in a while. This was the right remark at the right time as I'd been meaning to add a book post before 2020 finally wandered off. Not that any of us will miss it but it did have some highlights along with the low light. 2020 election results and the arrival of vaccines at the tail end, all four of us together under one roof and the absence of daily commute are a few of the favorite things of last year. I'll note down just one of the few books I managed to finish in this very busy year.

When a book is being read on Kindle, it is not lying face down where you left off, inviting you in on your return. To add to this, past and present lives of two major characters from two different centuries got intermingled enough for me to get lost and leave. That is, until I took it up again when it showed up in my Kindle library as 57% read. 

The key that holds this book came to me on this second attempt. Each chapter is a beautiful painting by Dominic Smith and each word a masterful brush stroke. Every sentence, part of a scene coming together to create that fully framed painting. 

 Dominic Smith created Sara de Vos out of the life stories of many women painters of 17th century that he had gleaned from research. It was so real that as soon as I finished the book, I started searching for Sara de Vos's painting 'At The Edge of The Wood'. I was frustrated that links for the book kept coming up instead of links to the painting. This is how I found that there was no such artist or painting! Apparently this painting provided some inspiration to the author.

The second protagonist in the story is also a woman painter living in New York in the 20th century. Eleanor Shipley restored paintings in the early phase of her career and the one mistake she did was to do a forgery of the single known painting of Sara de Vos. 

Through Dominic Smith, it dawns on us how skilled one needs to be to do a forgery. I had never thought of this angle before so this was very revealing. To faithfully represent the original painter and to pass through many inspections,  a forger has to have in depth knowledge of old paintings and the tools used to create them in those times. Same skills used by a restorer of paintings. Same difference between hacking and cyber security if you ask me. 

Dominic Smith is a painter of words and writes as if he has a scene right in front of his eyes. You don't want to miss any of the words because then you could very well be missing that little hint of sunshine or the shadow from a tree that gives depth to this masterpiece of a book. If you love paintings, then this is your book without doubt.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Two Books. No, Make That 3.

There is always a book waiting in the wings begging to start, midway through or almost done. Of all the books I read these months past, these 3 couldn't be left without giving a mention here. This doesn't mean the rest of them I read were garbage. Many were decent reads if not great, like Christin Hanna's The Nightingale, A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles or The Silent Patient by  Alex Michaelides. But the three books detailed below, reside in my cache memory till I give a formal farewell before shelving them away in the core memory.

Becoming By Michelle Obama
No introduction is necessary for the much admired former first lady's soul inspiring memoir. One thing that stands out is the sheer volume of information imparted with such an economy of words. I envision Mrs. Obama, sitting serenely scanning her entire life, her brain churning all the memories and deftly yielding a comprehensive summary in lucid prose that became this book.

She is extraordinarily gifted and I understand this great nation was blessed to get the Obamas as a package. His brilliance, universality, and love of humanity, blending perfectly with her insight, unbound intelligence and pure energy. They truly complete each other. That the country was governed by this union of spirit and wisdom for 8 years is a matter of simple good fortune. Where I used to think of her as a really smart person, I now believe her to be a pure soul untouched by evil. This is her strength and the bedrock of her personality. The role played by her parents, brother, and extended family is an important one in the making of Mrs. Obama. Her father with the unwavering work ethic, of infinite love laced with the right dose of humor, her mother a watchful, caring, and diligent presence who did everything possible to nurture all aspects of her individuality without interfering and her brother who loved and protected her unconditionally. Together they created their own little heaven with the little they had which then spilled over to the Obama family of four.

I don't like being a fan of anyone.  I am a true believer of personal power so long as one puts in the effort. But I have to say that the universe somehow conspired to give us this true soul and her spouse to be inspired from. Personal tragedies often shape what we become and inspiration is the mantra that can make a difference in that struggle. And lucky for us, we have inspiration in a bottle.. I mean.. a book.

All The Light That We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr
The protagonist in this story is blind and we are shown the world through her inner eyes. The tap, tap of her stick against the pavement keeps us in suspense whenever she is on the move. Anthony Doerr is a painter of words who brings to life this world war II era story in occupied France replete with a museum, secret boxes and keys. The girl's story is intertwined with that of an orphan boy in Germany who became a soldier of the same war on the other side. The two worlds keep colliding and blending, strewn so with pearls from Doerr's bountiful cache of words. Delightfully written, with evocative chapters, this is a must read.

Where The Crawdads Sing By Delia Owens
The book kept popping up every now and then in various booklists but it wasn't until a friend recommended it that I added it to my phone notes. From there it reached the next logical step of purchase with my self prescribed book-a-month allowance. Here is the thinking behind the allowance: at this stage in my life, if I cannot buy a simple book to read and enjoy, then why-oh-why do I exist? There, I am happy we are on the same page:-)

Author Delia Owens grew up in the coastal lands of Georgia which may have prompted the writing of this book about a little girl bringing herself up in the marshlands off the Carolina coast. Every sentence is alive with fantastic critters from this coastal world inhabited by the Marsh Girl. The beauty of a great blue heron is so palpable that I envisioned I touched it. I lived among the gulls and canoed across lagoons looking for fish and digging for mussels, collecting feathers from the myriad of visiting birds, and pocketing shells churned out by the sea from every part of the world. More than the story or the lonely girl child, it is this living, throbbing, coastal life that kept me captivated. More so because it transported me to the rain drenched lush green land of Kerala that I had spent my magical childhood in. Short and sweet. A book to read.


Saturday, December 29, 2018

Jane Smiley's The Duplicate Keys

Note: This too is from an old draft and posting now before 2018 slithers away forever. This year I have read some fantastic books both in Malayalam and English and I'll just post the names in a later post to at least have it as a list here.

I know Jane Smiley of The Thousand Acres needs no introductions. Yet the very fact that a movie got made from her books made me leery of wanting to read her. Yeah, I can be mulish like that. But now it looks like I am ready for a Smiley😊. A winning decision on my part! The Duplicate Keys is a very readable book with some teeth to it. Smiley's expertise in showing a period or time is just enthralling especially since she revels in putting the right kind of people in it. New York is always a haunting place and the period of interest here is the rock and roll era in the music industry. The story is around six friends who moved from the Midwest to the Big Apple with thoughts of making it big and what happened to them when their plans did not pan out exactly as they'd hoped. Of course the cover page proclaims this as a cliffhanger murder mystery and all that but what keeps you going is the characters and their interactions to each other in light of the murders. The murders and the investigation surrounding them  satisfied a certain craving for mysteries in yours truly and made it for lighter reading. Now I know I can come to a Smiley if I want such a combo. Don't get me wrong, this is probably the only murderous book Smiley wrote but a writer who can do it so deeply has my trust.