#BookLove Chowringhee by Mani Sankar Mukherji

 

About The Book

Welcome to the Shahjahan, one of Calcutta's oldest and most venerable hotels.

Meet its newest receptionist and hear of the people who spend their days and nights behind the Shahjahan's grand façade, a world where greed, seduction, and death coexist with love, luxury, and pride.

Chowringhee reveals an irresistible vision of a lost - and loved - metropolis, an homage to an old India of myth and memory.

My Thoughts

My favorite author is Mani Sankar Mukherji, his writing style and the subjects he chooses to write about are unique.

Chowringhee is the second in his captivating read of The Calcutta Trilogy. This book is pure love.

The Book was originally written in Bengali in 1962 and later translated into English in 2007 by Arunava Sinha.

I simply love this book. The way the author portrayed the beauty of the city in its chaos is mastery.

I will never get enough of this addictive tale which has a lingering melancholy that is oddly relaxing. The Shahjahan Hotel's hustle to make the most of the present while remembering the past was all that mattered at its best.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

SANKAR - the pen name of Mani Sankar Mukherji - is one of Bengal's most widely read novelists. He was born in Bongaon, which later became an Indo-Bangladesh border town. His father, a lawyer, moved to Kolkata before the Second World War. Following his father's untimely death in 1947, Sankar gave up his studies and started earning his livelihood - first as a street hawker, then as a typewriter cleaner, and as a part-time school teacher. He then became the youngest clerk in a broking firm at the city's famed Royal Exchange.

A chance meeting provided him with the opportunity to become the last clerk to the last English lawyer, Noel Fredrick Barwell, of Calcutta's High Court.Barwell died in 1953. The following year Sankar began an unforgettable serial in the popular Bengali literary weekly, Desh, in which he recreated the last days of the last 'English Lawyer', his chamber, and his cases. Kato Ajanarey was published in 1955 and remains an all-time Bengali bestseller. Other novels followed, including Chowringhee (1962) and Gharer Madhye Ghar, short stories, travelogues, and biographies. Two of his novels, Seemabaddha (Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman) were filmed by Satyajit Ray. Mani Sankar Mukherji lives and works in Kolkata (Calcutta).

Author on the Web

Wikipedia

#BookReview Bedtime Stories for Kids by Uncle Amon

 

About The Book

This book is especially great for traveling, waiting rooms, and reading aloud at home.5 cute bedtime stories for kids.

Excellent for beginning and early readers. Cute short stories are great for a quick bedtime story.

This story is great for a quick bedtime story and to be read aloud with friends and family.

Your child will be entertained for hours!

My Thoughts

Uncle Amon wrote five short stories for this collection.

When reviewing a children's book, it's crucial to read it through the eyes of a child. This book was read by my daughter, who enjoyed it.

The hard copy of the book is really nice and I also loved the illustrations.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Uncle Amon began his career with a vision. It was to influence and create positive change in the world through children's books. Whether it be an important lesson or just creating laughs, Uncle Amon provides insightful stories that are sure to bring a smile to your face! 

His unique style and creativity stand out from other children's book authors because oftentimes he uses his life experiences to tell a tale of imagination and adventure.

Author on the Web

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#BookLove The Moment of Tenderness by Madeleine L'Engle

 

About The Book

This powerful collection of short stories traces an emotional arc inspired by Madeleine L'Engle's early life and career, from her lonely childhood in New York to her life as a mother in small-town Connecticut.

Almost all were written in the 1940s and '50s, from Madeleine's college years until just before the publication of A Wrinkle in Time. From realism to science-fiction to fantasy, there is something for everyone in this timeless, magical collection.

My Thoughts

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” ― Madeleine L'Engle.

There's an intriguing blend of every day to suspense/horror to Sci-Fi here. Through her stories, we can witness L'Engle working out themes in her own life, from a young girl discovering her identity to ultimate trust in the Science Fiction story.

What I really like is the fact that there are stories that may come across as weird, however, I literally loved them.

The complexity of the characters is what draws me toward them.

This book is food for the soul.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Madeleine L'Engle published her first novel, The Small Rain, in 1945. Four years later, she published her first children's book, And Both Were Young. Her Newbery-award-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time, which was published in 1962, dealt with themes she toyed with in her diaries for years, from personal shortcomings to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. L'Engle wrote fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as poetry. She passed away in 2007.

Author on the Web

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#BookReview Guff by Carole Eglash-Kosoff

 

About The Book

His name is Guff. Nearly seventeen, naïve, and with limited schooling, he’s had enough of being beaten by his father. He walks away from their small Nebraska farm, hops a freight train, and soon finds himself in a Dallas jail.

There, two things occur that will change his life. The first is that he forms an unlikely friendship with a sticky-fingered pickpocket, cellmate, Nick ‘Picnic’ Larson. The second is the realization that he has a unique mental talent, a perfect recall of numbers, and a superb ability at recognizing patterns in strings of characters.

My Thoughts

I always had a fascination with the 1940s movie world, be it Bollywood or Hollywood.

This book came to me like a lifesaver on a gloomy, rainy afternoon.

The storyline follows Guff, who had enough of his father beating him even if he's only had a short education, is almost seventeen, and is naïve.

He leaves their modest Nebraska farm, boards a freight train, and is soon imprisoned in Dallas. There, two events take place that will alter his life. The first is that Nick "Picnic" Larson, his cellmate and a thief with gooey fingers, develops an unexpected bond.

The second is the knowledge that he possesses a special mental gift, perfect number recall, and an exceptional capacity for spotting patterns in long strings of characters.

Author Carole Eglash-Kosoff's writing style is simply brilliant and engaging.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Carole Eglash-Kosoff is a novelist, playwright, and documentary filmmaker. She lives and writes in Valley Village, California. She graduated from UCLA and spent her career teaching, writing, and traveling to more than seventy countries. In 2006, following the death of her husband, mother, and brother within one month, she spent part of two years teaching in the black townships of South Africa. 

Her first book, The Human Spirit - Apartheid's Unheralded Heroes (www.thehumanspirit-thebook.com), tells the stories of amazing men and women who devoted their lives during the worst years of apartheid to help the children, the elderly, and the disabled of the townships. These people cared when no one else did and their efforts continue to this day. The Human Spirit was adapted as a play and received considerable acclaim when it was presented in 2013.

Author on the Web

Website

#BookReview The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

 

About The Book

Doing well with money is not necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.

Money―investing, personal finance, and business decisions―is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real-world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet.

They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together.

My Thoughts

I had a great time reading this book. Even if some of the advice in this book may not be particularly new to those who have experience with finance, it is nevertheless helpful to be reminded especially for me who is not so aware of how to deal with financial matters.

This book was a lifesaver for my husband and me. We could relate to many of the things Morgan Housel talks about in the book.

Unfortunately, we made multiple mistakes that the author suggested avoiding.

Overall, this book is an eye-opener.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund and a former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal.

He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. He serves on the board of directors at Markel. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two kids.

Author on the Web

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#Bookreview Kalki by Anup Jetty

 

About The Book

‘KALKI’ is a fictional action thriller with a social message. It is basically a tug-of-war between two famous writers for the number one position. It also has a feel-good love story between a writer from Kolkata and a classical dance teacher from Varanasi. The beauty of Varanasi and the holy Ganga aarthi is presented in a splendid manner.

Dev, the main lead character, writes a story based on lord Vishnu’s final avatar, ‘Kalki’ Mysteriously, the fiction he writes becomes reality in his life and gets him stuck in a lot of problems. How he deals with them, gives a message to the society and finds his love by crossing all the huddles is what is the story.

My Thoughts

This is the second book by author Anup Jetty; I had read his first book also, and I can say for sure that Kalki is a huge improvement compared to his previous work.

Though the story started as a rivalry between two writers for the top spot, the story has many layers.

As for the storyline, I have read multiple stories based on the same plot, and being a thriller junkie, the story doesn’t surprise me. However, I enjoyed the ending.

The language of the book is lucid. The book's editing and proofreading are inadequate. There is much information provided in the book that is not correct.

I truly hope that author Anup Jetty will rectify these mistakes in his next book.

Book Links

Amazon India

About the Author

Anup Jetty is an Indian author of fiction. He writes predominantly love stories and action entertainers with a social message. Anup, from his childhood itself, has been very fond of films, and working for films is his goal. He is a big fan of directors Shankar and Maniratnam. Their films influenced him a lot and molded him into a writer.

He has a unique style of narration that gives a visual cinematic experience to the readers. His novels, Howrah Bridge and Kalki, are best sellers and have received highly positive reviews from readers all over India. His novels are placed in many of the oldest and largest libraries. He received the Indian Golden Award for 2022 for his debut novel.

Apart from writing novels, he also writes poems, and short stories, and has directed a couple of short films. He is presently working on a love story, which is likely to release next year.

Author on the Web

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#BookLove Chokher Bali by Rabindranath Tagore

 

About The Book

Mahendra is besotted with his wife Ashalata. Binodini, a young widow of exquisite beauty and sparkling mind, comes to live in his house.

The intense love between Mahendra and his wife inflames Binodini's repressed sexuality. She manages to captivate Mahendra. At another level, the story is an interplay between three women, Mahendra's mother Rajalakshmi, Ashalata, and Binodini.

My Thoughts

This book is a brilliant melodrama (rather a character study) about suppressed/repressed desires and morality.

Mohin is a Jamindar, a self-absorbed capitalist who doesn’t care about anyone else, yet is very charming.

Binodini is one of the most complex characters ever written in the world of literature. She is greedy, vulnerable, considerate, and definitely not where she belonged. She is a progressive woman suffocating by some ancient rules. What she does to break them follows an epic destruction of lives.

Behari Babu, the optimist, and do-gooder is omnipotent and has a unique ability to see through others.

Ashalata is a naïve, innocent girl who is oppressed due to her illiteracy and innocence.

Talking about this book can be a book in itself. All I can say is that this book is a gem that one cannot miss.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Rabindranath Tagore 7 May 1861[2] – 7 August 1941 was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became, in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Author on the Web

Wikipedia

#BookReview Krishna's Secret by Devdutt Pattanaik

 

About The Book

Krishna's Secret is an extract from his book, 7 Secrets of Vishnu, reminds us that Krishna is an unusual God—the most unconventional, whether as an endearing cowherd or the astute charioteer in the Mahabharata.

His mother is not his real mother; his beloved is not his wife…; his lovemaking is not really lovemaking; his war does not really war. There is always more than meets the eye.

And so, only Krishna, of all the avatars, sports a smile, a mischievous, meaningful smile. There is always more than meets the eye when Krishna is around.

My Thoughts

Devdutt simplifies and presents Lord Krishna's life story, as well as the accompanying values and lessons, in this short book. Perfect for individuals who prefer simple text over time-consuming religious epics.

For me, this book seems to be like a “headline” of Krishna’s life. Nothing is discussed in detail. Too short and too simple for the character who is known to be a “Brilliant Political Mind”.

In his writing, the author employs soft, Whatsapp forward-type analogies. And the information presented is not novel.

Overall, it is just a time pass, boring to read.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist, and author whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, mythology, and also management. He is the former chief belief officer of Future Group, one of India’s largest retailers. He writes a column for the newspaper Mid-Day.

Author on the Web

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#BookReview A Battle for New India: a story to transform Indian political system by Chandan Sarkar

 

About The Book

"Anyone who says they are not interested in politics is like a drowning man who insists he is not interested in water." - Mahatma Gandhi

This book is a fictional story about Srikanta, a singer-turned-politician, who faces the dark sides of the Indian political system and stands up for a battle against the conventional political parties to change the poor situation of the socio-economic conditions.

My Thoughts

"A Battle for New India" is basically a political fiction that comes with a strong message. Corruption in society is quite a common issue these days.

The story revolves around the protagonist, Srikanta, who used to be a singer. Initially, he was pushed into politics by his college senior, Sumana, but later he devoted his heart and soul to it.

His dream was to build a new India—a society free from corruption and poverty. But the path to establishing a new idea is never easy.

Despite being a short read, this story proved to be quite impactful. The ideas and the turn of events felt quite interesting to read. Written in simple language, the book definitely stands out.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Author,  Chandan Sarkar has had a passion for writing poetries since childhood being inspired by so many Bengali writers. He is an Energy and Sustainability Consultant by profession.

He has written many poems and among them selected poems based on the inner self, thoughts, and life is published in his first book “Beyond the Horizon with You and Life” which is a best seller and won the 1st runner-up prize in Amazon KDP pentopublish#4 contest in 2021. He has published a few poetry books and short stories after that.

Other than writing his other creative interests are photography, drawing, and filmmaking.

Author on the Web

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#BookLove Gopi Diaries Finding Love by Sudha Murty

About The Book

'Gopi, I can't believe a year has passed since I met you. You have brought me so much happiness!'In this second book in the bestselling Gopi Diaries series, Gopi is stronger, bigger, and more confident than the little pup he was in the first book, but he is also cheekier and more mischievous!

Written in Sudha Murty's inimitable style, this simple story told from a dog's perspective shows us just why pets are so precious - for their love, devotion, and boundless affection.

This is a book for Sudha Murty's fans of all ages as Gopi paws himself yet again into the hearts of children and adults alike.

My Thoughts

Like all other Sudha Murty books, this book is also pure love.

The book details Gopi's most recent explorations. fresh surroundings, new acquaintances, discussions on the coronavirus, and canine companions.

The narrative is told through Gopi's perspective. The book's pictures are exquisite and colourful.

I read this book to my daughter, and she loved it too.

For our family, this book is joy and family time.

Book Links

Amazon India | Amazon USA

About the Author

Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon in north Karnataka. She did her MTech in computer science and is now the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, she has written novels, technical books, travelogues, collections of short stories and non-fiction pieces, and four books for children.

Her books have been translated into all the major Indian languages and have sold over four lakh copies around the country. She was the recipient of the R.K. Narayan Award for Literature and the Padma Shri in 2006 and the Attimabbe Award from the government of Karnataka for excellence in Kannada literature in 2011.

Author on the Web

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