drficticity

The prodigal daughter
Author – Jeffry Archer
Publisher – Panmacmillan
Pages – 496

Blurb – Sequel to Kane and Able,this book is about Florentyna, who is the daughter of Kane, a Polish immigrant who now has build his own American Deam in the form of the Baron hotels.

Florentyna runs hers fathers business and wants to be the first American female president.

My views

I loved Florentyna. She is very honest & smart,not only her buisness & life but also her politics. I loved the sub plots like the love story because they move the plot rather than just taking the readers time, Also I loved the real historical facts,that are added subtlety with grace,I personally feel such real details blurs the line between fact & fiction and makes the story more believable.

A lot of matter was what I already read in Kane & Able, so felt a little repetitive, but it’s from florentyna view point here & I fell it provide a recap/base for people who haven’t read the prequel.

I didn’t find the book, as good as Kane and Able but still it’s Jeffrey Archer & this is a very good book if you like politics and history fiction

Author – Barry Cheema
Publisher – Notion Press
Pages – 378
Genre – Contemporary
My Rating – 3.5/5

Blurb – The story revolves around the life of Bruno a k9 police dog,who after saving many lives,Now is awarded with a human body, but it is of a terrorist and so is the subconscious mind.

What I liked ?
A fresh story line, with added philosophy.

What I didn’t like ?
This book could have been shorter and still conveyed the whole thing.

My thoughts ?
The book has more action in first part and bends more towards philosophy in the later half,I liked that it didn’t get too boring with the philosophy while still being elaborate.The characters are developed enough to make you care about them, being a dog parent I had my full heart for Bruno and felt his struggle during the ninety day trial & his struggle through Hassan’s mind, I loved the way God is present in the book. This is definitely a book worth reading.

Many hearts one beat

Author – Vindya Ayyar
Publisher – The Write Order
Pages – 100
Genre – Short Stories collection

Blurb – It’s a beautiful collection of heart touching short stories,from various themes all with a touch of realism, and hence not all of them are just happy ending one’s but all have something to take away from.

What I liked?
I read a short story collection after a while and I liked this book for its simplicity and realism, Also this book is definitely a diverse one, and one can definitely find a few stories that hit their cords for sure

Recommended?
Yes especially if you like short stories or a newbie reader

Limerence
Author – Aashna Agrawal
Publisher – The Write Order
Pages – 80
Poems – 75

Collection of 75 short poems, written about varying themes, what’s interesting is none of the poems are named, the writing is pretty simple and basic but full of powerful emotions.

Also its free currently on kindle unlimited.

Author – Sally Rawhey
Publisher – Olympia Publishers
Pages – 94
Genre – Poetry

Blurb – A beautiful collection of poetry, that takes us on a candid journey through the authors interpretations of many magical forms of love.

From the euphoria of falling in love to the pain and despair of losing it,from brevity to lifelong love,from faith and friendship to forgiveness & from longing and loneliness to loving life and the beauty of the world the author has perfectly captured the essence and emotion of love

Definitely recommend if you are a poetry reader and lover

Thank you @olympiapublishers for the book in exchange for a honest review,All opinions are my own.

A long list of 10 books for the 2019 JCB Prize for Literature has been released recently.

Apart from the most famous literary Prize in the country, the recognition and fame comes with a cash prize of ₹25 lakh and an additional ₹10 lakh for translation.

The total of ten book include four debut novels

The debutants

( In no specific order)

1. Ib’s Endless Search for Satisfaction by Roshan Ali Publisher -Penguin Random House
2. Milk Teeth by Amrita Mahale
   Publisher – Westland Publications
3. A Patchwork Family by Mukta Sathe Publisher – Speaking Tiger Publishing
4. The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay
   Publisher – HarperCollins

The next six books are 

1. There’s Gunpowder in the Air by Manoranjan Byapari, translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha (Publisher – Westland Publications)
2. The City and the Sea by Rajkamal Jha (Publisher – Penguin Random House)
3. The Queen of Jasmine Country by Sharanya Manivannan (Publisher -HarperCollins India)
4. Trial by Silence and Lonely Harvest by Perumal Murugan, translated from Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Publisher – Penguin Random House)
5. My Father’s Garden by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (Publisher – Speaking Tiger Publishing )
6. Secret History of Compassion by Paul Zacharia (Publisher – Westland Publications)

The jury included

1. Pradip Krishen (filmmaker and environmentalist )
2. Anjum Hasan (author and critic)
3. K.R. Meera (author)
4. Parvati Sharma (author)
5. Arvind Subramanian (economist)

Described by Mr. Krishen, jury chairperson,as

“These are novels about working-class struggles and upper-class unease, historical evocations and contemporary conflicts, each written in an absolutely distinctive voice.”

The jury will announce the shortlist of five titles on October 4 & The winner will be announced on November 2.

The 2018 JCB Prize for Literature was awarded to Jasmine Days by Benyamin, translated from Malayalam by Shahnaz Habib and published by Juggernaut Books, the book was lauded for

“raising profound questions about the relationship between crime, punishment and forgiveness”.

Struggled and Soared

Publisher – Leading Trails
Author – Vipin Chopal
Pages – 80
My rating – 3.5 /5
Genre – Nonfiction

Blurb – The book comprises of four chapters, these chapters are an amazing homage from the author to the life, legacy and struggles of four women who made their mark in the history and hearts of people namely – Lata Mangeshkar, Amrita Pritam, Meera and Rani Laxmi Bai

What I liked ?
The amount of research and hard work that must have went into the book definitely shines through the pages,and so do the impact these historical women had on author, pictures are there, also this book is a quick read and can be read in one sitting,the writing is simple and no unnecessary drama is added.

What could have been better?
This book could definitely do better with some proof-reading

With this book we enter in Gilead,Picking up 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale left off,

Ofcourse after 34 years, it’s bound to feel different, also Atwood decided not to revisit the red cloaks & the houses and streets but also the political hierarchy system.

It’s not a ‘handmaid’s tale’ instead she focuses on women who are serving Gilead’s interests in differentiating ways. Though the Handmaids are never far from the minds and stories of the three narrators in The Testaments,

The Testaments brings together three narrators — Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia — to tell the continuing stories of Gilead.

My favourite was of Aunt Lydia,the cruel woman who have “near-godlike status” & oversaw Handmaids’ training at the Red Center, serves as one of The Testaments’ narrators, & boy oh boy does she have a story for you.

Without giving any spoilers I can tell you Offred’s presence is short and strong.

The book is mainly written to tell us about the downfall of Gilead ( I read it in the acknowledgement page, in the end)

I definitely loved the book, I’ll do a review soon, but I’ll just say if you are planning to get this book, get it only if you have read & loved the first one. .

With the sequel arrived in 2019, after the first book published in 1985 ,I thought I would just brush up the handmaid’s tale, so I read it recently

Most of the people already know about it and have read the book so I thought I would just do a post on why I’m obsessed with this book rather than a review

Margaret Atwood calls this speculative fiction,which can be utopia or dystopia, this one is a dystopia but different from other books here,the central character remains a woman,not as a wife or a lover but as a woman,who remains hopeful and empathetic even after she lost everything,her family,her life and even her name.

She goes by ‘offred’ which indicates she is ‘of fred’ the commander Fred or she is ‘offered’ to make progeny for him.

Throughout the book her subtle heroism shines through like after the ‘ritual’ which is basically a rape, she thinks ‘this it worst for her or the commanders wife’.

Also she empathise with the commander and her friend Moira,for whom she expects to tell a better story but she can’t.

And her hope – when she applies butter to her skin in the hope that one day she will be loved again.

The book ends without her whereabouts but we do know that her story survives

“If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending…
But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone
You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else. Even when there is no one”

For me the unbreakable spirit of offfred make this book a must read,this may be a fiction but if you really think about it women go through alot in many houses and that is no less pain then what offred goes through.

Milkman
Author – Anna burns
Publisher – Faber & Faber
Pages – 368
Genre – Fiction
Rating – 4/5

( Winner of 2018 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the first time a Northern Irish writer has been awarded the prize, also won the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction)

Blurb – A coming-of-age romance, a bildungsroman with the Irish Troubles of the 1970s as a backdrop. The novel is more a psychological and sociological study of a nameless 18-year-old girl rather than an overview of a significant historical period.

My views – The overriding, distinctive quality of the novel is its style,the thing I struggled with the most

368 pages divided into 7 long chapters & overlong, extended paragraphs sometimes unbroken for pages.

I loved it because it was so distinct, all the incidences are narrated in a very ‘rabbit-hole’ way, one incident reminds one another, Author has used no names, all the characters and places are named according to their relationship with the protagonist, and that makes the reader engage with ideas, emotions and a world that aren’t straightforward or coherent.