Category Archives: Books

Books

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

Tail of the Blue Bird – Nii Ayikwei Parkes

6539537

Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for thousands of years. Here, the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and walk alongside the spirits of their ancestors. The discovery of sinister remains; possibly human, definitely ‘evil’; in a vanished man’s hut brings the modern world into the village in the form of Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries.

But as events in the village become more and more incomprehensible, Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba, find that Western logic and political bureaucracy are no longer equal to the task at hand. Strange boys wandering in the forest, ghostly music in the night and a flock of birds that come from far away to fill the desolate hut with discarded feathers take the newcomers into a world where, in the unknown, they discover a higher truth that leaves scientific explanations far behind.

Harry Potter

Posted on by
2
Source

I first read Harry Potter nearly twenty years back when the books first came out. I remember buying a bootlegged copy (Mumbai is quite famous for these kinds of books) and remember quickly getting hooked on to the series. I read the first three books before I moved to Singapore and remember when book number 5, The Order of the Phoenix, was released, I was pregnant with GG & BB. I was ordered bed rest by my doctor around my eighth month and it was around this time, I got hold of the book. It was a heafty book and I remember thinking it will be a good companion to my week-long bed rest. I finished the book in less than two days!

Source

Around the time BB & GG were 8-9 years old, I started selling the series to them, but faced a lot of resistance, especially when they saw the size of the books. After about a couple of years, during one holiday, I decided to bribe them at the airport. I forced them to buy the first two books of the series and told them to try and read it. If they didn’t like the series after reading the two books, I will give up trying to force them to read. GG got hooked almost immediately and finished both books by the time we were back in Singapore. BB took longer to get involved in the books. I had to compell him to read at least 50 pages each day and by the time we were back in Singapore, he was also hooked in the series, not as much as GG, but enough to fight with her to read a new book first.

Source

GG is a true Potterhead and knows so much more about the world that J.K. Rowlings created than i could ever hope to know! She has a Potterworld account and has been sorted into Ravenclaw. She knows all the trivia and facts and corrects me on more than one occasion. She wants to go to the UK and visit the places where the books have been set, including doing the studio tour, visiting platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station and visiting Alnwick Castle which was used to film Hogwarts in the movies.

Both GG & BB have moved on to other book series now, but I suspect that the Harry Potter series retains a special place in their hearts.

Are you a fan of Harry Potter? I would love to hear which is your favourite book in the series.

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

Dance Lessons – Áine Greaney

10313299

A year after her husband’s death in a sailing accident off Martha’s Vineyard, Ellen Boisvert bumps into an old friend. In this chance encounter, she discovers that her immigrant husband of almost fifteen years was not an orphan after all. Instead, his aged mother Jo is alive and residing on the family’s isolated farm in the west of Ireland.

Faced with news of her mother-in-law incarnate, the thirty-nine-year-old American prep school teacher decides to travel to Ireland to investigate the truth about her husband Fintan and why he kept his family’s existence a secret for so many years.

Between Jo’s hilltop farm and the lakeside village of Gowna, Ellen begins to uncover the mysteries of her Irish husband’s past and the cruelties and isolation of his rural childhood. Ellen also stumbles upon Fintan’s long-ago romance with a local village woman, with whom he had a daughter, Cat. Cat is now fourteen and living with her mother in London. As Ellen reconciles her troubled relationship with Fintan, she discovers a way to heal the wounds of the past.

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

Remedy For Treason – Caroline Roe

1378442

Girona, Spain. 1353. Struggling to save his patients from the plague, and avoiding the even greater danger of his wife’s temper, Isaac discovers that pestilence isn’t the city’s only killer.

A nun dies in the public baths. Then it is revealed that she is not a nun at all, but an attendant to the queen in nun’s disguise.

The Bishop of Girona calls upon Isaac to help determine the strange circumstance of her death–and the purpose of her deception. But Isaac soon finds himself and his family caught in a tightening web of royal intrigue designed to destroy the Spanish monarchy–and whoever else gets in the way…

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

Neither East Nor West: One Woman’s Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran – Christiane Bird

161533

Fusing travelogue, historical inquiry, and interviews with Iranians from all walks of life, Neither East Nor West is a landmark contribution to travel writing and to cultural studies, as well as a timely illumination of a nation deeply misunderstood by most Westerners.

In describing life in Iran today, Christiane Bird, an American who spent part of her childhood there, breaks the silence that has surrounded Iran’s culture — unlike its politics — for nearly twenty years.

Travelling alone and largely by bus, Bird journeys from the modern, bustling capital of Tehran to the medieval holy city of Qom, from the sacred pilgrimage site of Mashhad — visited by more than twelve million Shi’ites annually — to the isolated valley of Alamut, once home to the legendary cult of the Assassins.

She visits mosques, public baths, Khomeini’s former home, and a Caspian Sea resort, and attends prayer meetings and a horse racing meet. Along the way, she talks to muleteers and ayatollahs, Kurds and Turkomans, Westernized and traditional Iranians — many of whom invited her home for a cup of tea.

The result is an astounding, insightful journey into the Islamic Republic of Iran — in all its beauty, ferocity, and contradiction.