Book Review-1
One of the things most of us are indulging in during the pandemic lockdown is reading. It’s a beautiful thing that channelizes our mental horizons and also ameliorates our propensity to learn and suffuse more into us. So, here are some books out of the ones I read during this time, that I felt worthy of giving a review. Please go ahead and read! More to come.
HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING-DALE CARNEGIE
I am sure this man needs no introduction. In my personal opinion, perhaps one of the best writers of all time in self-help inspirational, motivational books with an avid interest in spirituality, confidence-building, mental health, development, leadership, and other eclectic range of interests for betterment and furtherance of people from all blocks of life. In this book, he expounds on various cornerstones of mental health, with adherence to one of the primeval reasons that every third person fell entrapped into that is Unnecessarily Worrying. We are guiled into imbuing the fact into our innards that worrying about a problem would increase its gravity and solve it. But seldom do we realize that doing so further aggravates the problem and snowballs it further taking a serious toll on our mental health. This incredible book, perhaps the best paperback is written by Carnegie to be published poignantly cruises it, readers, to a plethora of incredible real-life instances and experiences, many encountered by the author himself, substantiating the importance of leading a carefree yet grounded life of fulfillment, happiness, principles, determination and most importantly, peace. This book is indeed a healer with motivational quotes at every chapter. It encompasses nearly all the problems which ensue in the life of an average person and a dramatic one-stop solution about how to counter them. A must-read!
FROM A BUICK 8-STEPHEN KING
Stephen King is indubitably the reigning ‘King’ of his own kind. Many have the delusion that Stephen King is an idiosyncratic ghost or a horror writer, which is not true. He has an innately peculiar and brilliant writing style that circumvents around human psychology, guilt, remorse, trauma, terror, apprehensions, visions, magical realism, and illusions. His motley concoction of all of these in varying degrees and combinations often conjure a vicious scenario of terror and discomfit, with of course some elements of ostensible paranormal, give birth to something as good as or even way more than a top-notch horror genre. This story is not an exception, though it has these ‘paranormal’ and outlandish elements in a way more vivid form that equates it to a ghost novel. The plot, as discernible from the name itself, revolves around a haunted Buick 1953 Roadmaster, one of the very famous cars that ruled the streets of the United States in the 1950s and 60s. The title is inspired by a very famous song of Bob Dylan, From a Buick 6. The car is reportedly deserted by a mysterious figure in a gas station. As the purported owner doesn’t come back to reclaim his vehicle nor does the local law enforcement fails to find any trace of the unidentified person, it remains housed in an enclosed property of the former. Surprisingly enough, it turns out to be not actually much of a ‘car’ itself. The steering wheel is immovable, no controls exist (or are either static), the engine is a weird labyrinth of pipes and valves which seem defunct. Then, for over years, it turns out to be a ‘living misery’ of all the police personnel at the adjoining station. It sometimes makes weird noises, emancipates electric shockwaves and lighting phenomena, radiates light waves, inexplicably opens or closes its boot and the most terrific of them all, ostensibly generates some outlandish, eerie animal-like creatures which die soon after their discovery leaving all the officers bemused. One of them even disappears one day in the shed never to be found again! This embodiment of mystery remains unsullied in the police shed for decades and King in his old style of flashbacks wavers between the past, where an officer who dies in a road accident few years was tantalised by the phantom vehicle and the present, where his teenage son gets suffused by its incredible stories and becomes a part of its haunted legacy itself. Sometimes with frightening instances and sometimes even with funny anecdotes, quite atypical of King, this novel, though initially a bit onerous in the beginning with too many unrelated aspects, happens to live up to the readers’ expectations.
THE FALLEN-DAVID BALDACCI
In the league of modern thrillers, there is always a tooth and nail completion between contemporaries like Baldacci, John Grisham, James Patterson, Jack Higgins, and more. Baldacci is always a master in this genre of crime thrillers, this edge-of-seat thriller, this edge-of-seat novel not being an exception. The plot revolves around the small forgotten town of Baronville, where his brainchild FBI Detective Amos Decker and his young partner, Ms. Alex Jamison come down to spend a few days at the latter’s sister’s house for a ‘vacation’. This ‘vacation’ soon turns out to be a blood-curdling affair with a line-up of murders all in the vicinal area, which gets the duo inadvertently entangled in a quagmire of crimes all related to the geography of the location itself. The town, with a history of mining, lethal drug abuse, laundering, bankruptcy, and a societal hatred amongst each other provides a perfect plot for Decker to plunge into a new challenge of unraveling the secrets and leaving no stone unturned in getting a linkage of all the crimes ultimately reaching the apogee of the chain. A captivating read indeed with a few turns of emotion and subtle shades personal connections and loss.
NORWEGIAN WOOD-MURAKAMI
Murakami is more of an artist than a novelist. He portrays the subtle shades of human nature in a beautiful picturesquely yarn that is always a class apart. He also has a unique style of writing in segues without sapping the main essence of the scenes. A nostalgic tale of loss and burgeoning sexuality, this novel manages to capture the ornate transcendence of events amongst the main characters bound in a common lace of melancholy and an impalpable void in their lacerated souls. It is also a story of love, compassion, respect, friendship and bonding. It is centered on the lives of Toru and Naoko, two childhood friends and later, lovers. It is in a flashback reminiscent sequence from where Toru, by happenstance listens to the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, the namesake of this story, onboard a flight in a very later stage of his life. During school, they are encountered with the tragic loss of their common friend and the latter’s boyfriend, Kizuki. This creates a rift between the two but they soon come close to each other, developing a romantic relationship. Then the entire plot meanders through various twists and turns of fate with the passing years. Other characters also appear in their lives, especially Toru, and have their own share of experiences. It ends abruptly with Toru ostensibly venturing to the invitation of love by another woman in his life, Midori but with a tenebrous climax. Overall, it’s a remarkably etched story and has the fair chance of striking the readers’ hearts to their core.
HIPPIE- PAULO COELHO
Paulo Coelho is an iconoclast who literally has his own ‘institutional’ style of writing down his books. With offbeat plots, characters, and scenes, his novels mainly are based on an eclectic variety of aspects like love, drama, allegory, religion, travel, and most importantly, fiction in its own flavor.
This is an autobiographical novel by Coelho in which he proclaims to be the part of the famous Hippie Counterculture of the Western Countries where he like thousands of them, was a skinny, iconoclast disheveled peripatetic Brazilian who loved to travel, smoke weed, use substance and explore the alternate states of consciousness, relationships, surrealism and spirituality. The entire plot circumvents around the phenomenal spiritual journey which he embarks upon in the ‘Magic Bus’ from across continents Amsterdam to Nepal. There are perils and wonders in this journey with each of the travelers having a story to tell and live. He also comes close with another co-passenger named Karla, with whom he has a strange relationship that involves quest, respect, spiritualism, realizations, sex but not much of a committed romance while en route. The story as incredible as the creator himself.
