Tag: library

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Sunday Blues: Dream House Part Deux

When I wrote the blog post about the house of my dreams I had no idea that I was so close to achieving my dream. We were in the process of moving house around the time that I wrote the post, and all I could think of was how much stuff I needed to get rid of because even though the place was bigger, it has less storage space. My bookshelves have always remained a joke with my husband. He knows how sentimental I feel towards my books, and he’s not above making fun of my attachment.

When we first though about moving, my husband was full of plans to convert the family room downstairs into a gaming/ media room. I thought it was a good idea and accordingly thought up of how I was going to set it all up. I don’t like watching TV and find it hard to concentrate on anything while it is on, even if I’m not watching.

With all this planning going on in my brain, I had no idea what my husband had cooking in his head. The day before we were to start moving our stuff, I asked him which wall he wanted the TV mounted on, and he completely changed his tune! He insisted that he wanted his TV in the living room and nowhere else. I was perplexed by this sudden change in plans and asked him what was I supposed to do with this extra room that would now be useless. He told me to use it for myself and do what I really wanted to do with it in the first place.

I didn’t even get time to think things through before I was directing all the bookshelves into this room. As a result, all our bedrooms got a bit more spacious, and we managed to get all the books in one room.

This is how my dream came true and I got a study in my house. As a thank you to my husband, I fixed up his foosball table in the study too!

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Sunday Blues: Dream House

Growing up, my dream house always had the largest library imaginable. I didn’t know the number of rooms it will have, how big it will, or even if it will have a swimming pool or not. The most important thing was to have floor to ceiling shelves full of books, oh, and a ladder with wheels so that I could access all those books up near the ceiling!

As I grew older, I realized that it might not be possible to have such a library in the house and I might have to settle for a study full of shelves. I resigned myself to my fate and began looking forward to this dream study. I have to admit that in 40 years of my life there have only been two friends whose houses I have envied, both of them because they had a room full of books. I have shamelessly borrowed books from both the friends, and would have continued to do so had we not all gotten married and moved away from each other.

Over the years I have come to accept the fact that maybe I don’t really want a library. It requires too much work, and while I like my books organized and classified, I’d rather not do it myself. So it’s obvious that I need a messy study full of books in my life. Sadly, I still don’t have one. When we moved to our current place three years ago, I had definite plans on turning one of the rooms into a cozy little reading room full of books and easy chairs. Alas, my kids decided that they’d rather have separate rooms than let their mom move all their books to some other room.

And there you have it. My kids are the biggest hindrance to my dream library. They want their books to be close to them at all times. The other night I rescued 13, yes 13, books from the upper bunk of the bed where my second-born sleeps! His excuse: that he needed to have all these books with him because he never knew what he might want to read! facepalm It made me mad because he only goes up there when I turn off the lights, so what he’s reading in the dark, I don’t know.

When my husband told me a few days ago that we might have to move to another place, all I wanted to know was if there’s an extra room for my books. He just gave me that look and never answered my question. It doesn’t matter. Even if this new place has no library or study, I will not give up on my dream to have one some day. Maybe after one of the kids grows up and moves away? I don’t know, but I dream.

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Sunday Venting: Are The Kids Alright?

When my children were little, everyone kept telling me how I was lucky to have had them close together. That way, they said, they will grow up together and you will be free to enjoy your own life. As my children grow older, I have started having serious doubts about this statement. They will probably drive me insane long before they’re old enough to take care of themselves!

I know how almost everything is blamed on the electronic devices and the screen time that kids get these days, and I have always been unable to manage screen time, but for my kids there might be another reason. Over the last few months, I cannot help but feel if it is the books causing all these problems? The books that my kids read currently are nothing like the books that we used to read.

I understand that things tend to change over time, and what was deemed taboo in our times is up for general discussion everywhere now. However, the overall language, stories and setup of most of the newer books leaves me feeling a bit disgruntled. Maybe it’s age catching up on me, but it has become commonplace to use slang and derogatory words in children’s books. The humour is crude and the characters as far from exemplary as possible.

There is also a clear difference between girls’ books and boys’ books. When I was in school, books were books. They were for everyone. Yes, there were some girlish books, like Anne of Green Gables or Nancy Drew, and some books that were more interesting for boys, like Hardy Boys, but overall they had the same feel. Books like Sweet Dreams or Sweet Valley High, while popular with girls, were not the kind of books we generally found in our school library. So it was mostly through second-hand shops and borrowing from other girls that you could get your hands on such books.

Today, children have a much wider variety of books to choose from, yet to me, they all look and sound the same. Girls’ books are all about chasing boys, dressing up, or hanging out with the “in” crowd. It has become very hard to filter books and even harder to stop girls from being influenced by them. Things are not much better for boys. All fictional boys are either full of toilet humour, engaging in very crass behaviour, or chasing aliens. Some even take out the time to moon over girls!

Of course, all this is a part of life and our children should read about these things, but these are not the only things that matter. Sometimes I find it hard to believe how accepting we have become of bad behaviour in our children. All the shows that my kids watch on TV (and they are only allowed to watch Disney) are about children who have the worst manners and who behave like delinquents in school! They treat their teachers like trash, and their parents don’t seem to fare any better. Similarly, in bookshops, I can find shelves upon shelves of children’s books with protagonists who are a parent’s worst nightmare.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to change things. I can limit the screen time, but cannot ban it altogether, and I can screen the books, but not when I don’t have other options. Things like the home environment matter, as does the relationship between parent and child, but the reality is that your child is spending most of the day with other kids who are being influenced by all this. It has become quite a struggle to keep a balance and not become complete villains in our children’s lives. The uphill battle continues.

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Sunday Issues: Of Reading Slumps And Manic Reading

2018 has been a year full of ups and downs for me personally. In some of the darkest times of my life, it was reading that brought me peace and sanity. At the same time, there were occasions when reading became the most difficult thing for me to do for days and weeks. My erratic reading habits over this year highlight the tumultuous year this has been.

The year started off in the worst way possible, but I was determined to read myself into oblivion; to forget everything and get lost in my books. It was such a good time for my reading that I settled on a GoodReads target of a 100 books in 2018! During the first few months, I was well on my way to achieving this target with an average of 9 books read per month! This went on for a while, me losing myself in fiction, buying new books every week, thinking about books, talking about books, and avoiding real life as much as possible.

As a result of this non-stop activity, I became exhausted. My mind refused to comprehend the words that were once so dear to me. I read, but I couldn’t understand. I kept having to go back and forth in the most simplest of books just to understand what was happening, and that made me lose patience, with myself as well as with my beloved books. I put the books aside and started indulging in mindless reading. I was still a reader, but now I could only read online articles about things that wouldn’t make me think too hard. Things like celebrity gossip, home design, makeup trends, and anything else that I could read and forget the next instant.

In the beginning, I thought, this is how my brain is having a detox. I thought to indulge myself for a few days, and then go back to my books, books that were still piling up while I was not reading them. You see, I was still buying books – online, at bookstores, asking family to get them for me, and any other way that I could get my hands on them. The fact that I wasn’t actually reading them didn’t really stop me from buying more and more books. It was a compulsion, and I just couldn’t stop!

This is not a story about how I overcame my reading slump. I still haven’t. I have devoured books one after another in a week, and have been unable to touch a book for other weeks. This is an ongoing struggle for me. It frustrates me, and makes me irritable. I want to be able to read whenever I want to. Books have been a compulsory part of my life ever since I learnt to read, and not being able to comprehend words is something I cannot come to terms with. I still have days when I love a book, want to keep on reading, but it’s too much work for me.

I know some would say there are definite psychological issues hidden in all this, and I agree, but I’m not willing to give up so easily. Words have been my friends since I was 4 years old, and I’m not willing to abandon them without a good fight. So, take that, Reading Slump! And on that note, I will go and finish the book that I’m currently reading and enjoying so much!

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Sunday Relationship: My Kindle and I. It’s Complicated.

I have a habit of complaining about how I don’t have enough space in the house for my books, and how my shelves are always disorganised. It’s more showing off than an actual concern, I think. However, people who don’t know me think it is a very serious problem, one that I want a solution to. And they have just the right solution for my problem!

The most obvious and easy solution is, of course, to start reading e-books. Get a Kindle, they say. Like I just came out of my cave, and have no idea that there are such things as electronic books now! To all those people, I’m not from another century. I have been reading “e-books” as they’re called, since my teens!

Of course, back then there were no handheld devices, and to read a book, you had to sit on a chair and scroll through the text on the computer screen. I have been crazy enough to do that. I sat all night in my chair to read Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire on my PC. And that is a huge book if you remember. So, I have nothing against reading electronic versions of books.

Except that I had to go get the hard copy of the book as well, because there are times when I want to read some part of it again, and it was a hassle to look for that particular part in the electronic version. Since this is not a problem any more, with iPads and tablets and Kindle coming pretty close to the size of actual books, difficulty of access is a moot point now.

Still, you have to admit, scrolling down a screen is never going to be the same as flipping the pages of a book. I have a habit of playing with the edge of the page while reading, because I’m impatient and want to turn the page as soon as I read the last word. As a result, every time I read something on my Kindle, I invariably turn the page before finishing the previous one, which leads to a lot of back and forth, and a lot of frustration.

Oh, did I forget to say that I do have a Kindle? I got one last year for my birthday, after a lot of grief from my husband. The poor guy has wanted to get one for me for years now but knowing how crazed I am, he never dared surprise me with something I might not be too crazy about. So, finally, last year I gave in, and got a Kindle Voyage which seemed to be a better option for me.

Unfortunately, I have only managed to read two books on my device in the last 1.5 years! Firstly, because I have a Middle East account on Amazon, and it keeps telling me that the book I want is not available in the Kindle Store, and secondly, because it irritates me to no end that I cannot flip the pages over to see how much of the book is left. Or, if it’s too boring, to cheat and read a bit of the ending to see if it’s worth it to read all of it!

Then, there’s this whole insane thing about smelling the books. Yes, I know. All bookworms do it. At least the ones I know do. Just like some people love the smell of petrol, I love the smell of books and bookstores. Apart from smell, there is the weight of a book. A light as air device can never fill the void of a big heavy book in my hands. I can not put weird and funky bookmarks in a Kindle either. Just another one of my eccentricities.

My dear Kindle, I love you very much (after all you didn’t come for free, did you?), but while you’re like a newer, shinier car, my old car is still the first love of my life. I cannot leave my first love (that’s my books) for the new one, though that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. Love, T.

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Sunday Talks: …But What About The Classics?

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of the ability to read, must be made to read The Classics (with due apology to Jane Austen. Pride And Prejudice remains a favourite of mine).

Ever since I can remember, people have been telling me to read classics and learn to appreciate them. In school, these books were stuffed down our throats until we wanted to tear our hair out. Whenever I asked for suggestions about what to read, the answer would invariably be some classic or the other before even asking me if I was interested. That was only because it is considered unthinkable that you haven’t read at least some “Classic” authors.

Later on, it became a matter of pride to tell people how you have read the most difficult books and love them to no end. Unfortunately, I have never learned to appreciate the “Classics” bar a few which took my fancy at an early age.

Shakespeare has never been a favourite. It might have something to do with reading the abridged form of all his plays for school, but even after reading a few full plays, I have never been impressed. Same goes of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. The only Dickens that I have ever liked is A Tale of Two Cities, and as for Hardy, I admit to having fallen asleep while reading Far From The Madding Crowd.

I can go on and on about books that everyone swears by and that have failed to move me. There have been a few books that have managed to touch me as well, but as a rule I have failed to find an author about whom I can say that I like all their work (unless they have only written one book, and I have liked that book).

It has taken me almost four decades to admit that I have lied about having read a book simply because I was afraid of being judged. Even when I was a kid, I never admitted to anyone how I didn’t find Black Beauty interesting at all, or how Heidi seemed to be a very boring little girl! I think I’m still a bit afraid to say it out loud.

I’m not saying I don’t like classics at all. Some have stayed close to my heart, and even now I don’t know why I like them. Alice In Wonderland, Pride And Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca to name a few.

The reason I thought about all this is that my kids refuse to read any “old” books that I tell them to. They want to read what they like, and they’re unapologetic about it. If my daughter doesn’t like Charlotte’s Web, and my son finds Pinocchio insufferable, they don’t hesitate to say it. Over the years, I have learned to stop nagging them about what they “should” read, and started paying more attention to what they “want” to read.

There was a time I used to fill the kids’ shelves with books that I had been given to read when I was their age, forgetting about how I myself felt about these books at that age. Then, when the kids didn’t read them, I got angry because I had spent so much money. I screamed and shouted, and swore never to get them another book again, yet not being able to stop buying more of the same.

My children have made me realize that there is no such thing as a classic. Any well-written book that holds their attention, is a classic for them. And that is how it should be. I shouldn’t expect a 10-year old to care about 19th Century England, when he lives in 21st Century Middle East. I shouldn’t expect a 9-year old to want to know about travelling in horse carts when she has never even experienced public buses. They will get there in due time…if they want to.

Reading books should be about your own likes and interests. It shouldn’t be about what others think you should read, nor should it be about showing off to the world how well-read you are. It is only when we let them enjoy the experience, that people will turn to reading and books. Read and let others read in peace.

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Review: The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

Rating: 4 Stars

In The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, Neil Gaiman shows us the world as seen by a 7-year-old boy. The world that children live in is not the same as our adult world. Their realities are different from our realities, and it is a fact that as they grow older, they forget the perspective their childhood gave to their world.

An older man comes back to his hometown to attend a funeral and decides to take a walk down memory lane. Something seems to pull him towards the home where he lived for seven years, from age 5 till age 12. He knows that the house had been demolished a long time back, and that he has no fond memories with that place.

As he passes the house, he realizes that his destination is actually the farmhouse at the end of the lane, where he had become friends with a girl when he was 7 years old. Lettie Hempstock was 11, and the two had become best friends immediately. When he reaches the house he starts remembering things that he has forgotten a long time ago. He is met by Lettie’s mother (or grandmother, he’s not sure) who tells him that she remember him. He asks if he can sit by their pond and reminisce about the past.

As soon as he sits down by the pond, he remembers that Lettie used to call the pond an ocean, and this recollection opens the floodgates of memory long forgotten. Here begins the story of how a 7-year-old boy was saved by an 11-year-old girl, in more ways than one.

Gaiman’s stories are always fairy tales, with elements of magic and surreal settings, but at the same time everything can also be a metaphor for something real. This book is no different. Told from a child’s perspective, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is mostly about magic and other-worldly creatures. But it is also about how children are always aware of what is going on around them, even if adults choose to think otherwise.

A child’s mind can imagine great things, and at the same time it is capable of accepting truths that adults might dismiss as being fanciful or imaginary. This book leaves the differentiation of real from imaginary on the reader, and takes you on a ride into the mind of a child as remembered by an old man. In the end, memory is fleeting and what we once thought was unforgettable becomes a figment of our imagination as we age.

Once again, I find myself lost in Neil Gaiman’s brilliant imagery, and cannot help but think of him as one of the best writers of our time.

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Sunday Problem: Recommending Books

Disclaimer: If you’re easily offended, or take life too seriously, please don’t read this. Really. Stop reading.

When you read a lot of books, people who know you always ask for recommendations about what to read. Since you have some idea about your friends and family, it is natural to tell them about books that you think might interest them. So, when you start a bookstagram account and a blog about books, it is but natural for everyone to ask you for your recommendations.

Friends and family who used to ask for themselves, now tag you in anything that has the word book in it. I really don’t mind. I love telling people what to do and what to avoid. It is why I started writing this blog in the first place. What I don’t like is when people don’t like the books that I recommend. I mean, how can you not like them? How dare you? You should be aware that I’m a superior recommender of books. People should bow down to me in all things bookish!

How excited I get when I command, er, suggest what the other person should read, is evident by the fact that I never show any false modesty and haw and hem about what they like! It is but natural that everyone should want to read what I want to read. There are no two opinions about it.

I know people who take out time to ask the other person about their likes and dislikes, about what genres they might be interested in. Not me. I just assume that the other person will like what I tell them to like. And as far as assumptions go, it’s not that wrong an assumption! I mean, look at my HUGE fan following! Why, I have almost 25 followers on my blog and more than 700 on Instagram! If that is not achievement, I don’t know what is!

There was once a poor girl, who made the mistake of asking for some good thriller recommendations on Facebook. Some kindhearted person, knowing how she needs my help, tagged me on the post. I thought, “Why is this girl only reading thrillers? She needs to expand her horizons!” So, I insisted that she read Nicholas Sparks, Elif Shafak, Judith McNaught, John Green, and pretty much all romantic and philosophical writers, in two languages. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that being interested in one genre is a sin!

So, when I’m this considerate and accommodating, it really hurts when people tell me they didn’t like what I told them to read. It breaks my heart to see people remain ignorant and lost. However, the goodness of my heart doesn’t let me be deterred by so small a setback. I persist with my recommendations, in the hope that the other person might see the light some day. Yes, I know. I’m generous like that.

I feel that the purpose of my existence on this earth is to tell people which book to pick up next. I always tell my kids what they should read, but they’re ungrateful. Of course, it’s hard to value someone great when they live in your own house. Doesn’t matter. The ungrateful kids will learn one day. In the meanwhile, I’m most happy to unleash my recommending prowess on the world. No matter what you want to read, I have a book for you that I want you to read. You’re welcome.

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Review: Things She Could Never Have

Rating: 4.5 Stars

I have never been very enthusiastic about short stories in English. While I love reading Urdu short stories, somehow English short stories have never held any fascination for me. Furthermore, contemporary Pakistani writers have, with the exception of one or two, always left me disappointed. It was these two factors that made me wary of reading this collection of short stories. In addition to all this, the biggest stress factor was that the writer, Tehmina Khan, is a new friend, and I was afraid that I might not have anything good to say about her book! The truth is, if I hadn’t liked the stories, I would never have written anything about them. It would have been just one more book that I read and forgot. Thankfully, I didn’t have to avoid writing a review. As a matter of fact, the reason it took me so long to write it was because I actually read a few stories multiple times to make sure I don’t forget anything!

For me, the problem with Pakistani fiction writers is that when they write about the underbelly or the lower strata of society, they sound quite condescending and judgemental; like someone who has never really experienced it but is seeing it through a window from the outside. This is okay when you’re reading about something you have no idea about, but when you are living in that society and have seen things with your own eyes, these writers start sounding fake and ignorant. I’m saying all this because I want to emphasize how big a surprise this book was.

There are a total of twelve stories, some interconnected by a common thread, while others just glimpses into the lives of different individuals. All of them are steeped in reality and a mirror to the society we live in. There wasn’t a single story where I felt like I didn’t know what the writer is talking about.

The first story, about a maid and her son sounds fictional, but unfortunately, it is very close to how we treat our maids, and how their children are ripe for manipulation and exploitation.

“To Allah We Pray,” tells the tale of how destiny works in strange ways to bring the most unlikely people towards their death as a young man, fresh off the plane from Canada, is convinced by his friend to offer prayers at a targeted mosque before proceeding to party with other friends.

In “A Stranger In My Own Home,” Khan tells the heart wrenching story of a trans woman who returns to her home after five years, to find that she still has no place there. Reading about the mother who tries to protect her “different” child, and who loves the child no matter what the sex, is like a true glimpse into the heart of a mother.

The titular “Things She Could Never Have” continues the story of the trans woman, Saleema, and her love for Kiran, and all things pretty. Tragedy, in the form of a suicide bombing at a mosque, takes away a life, leaving the other mourning the loss.

“This Is Our Secret” is the story of every house. It is the story of how an adult in a trusted position molests a little girl and asks her to keep it a secret. This story is also a documentary on our attitude towards these incidents in general. The girl keeps it a secret, until she tells it to her mother, who, while shocked and distressed, tells her not to tell it to the father. The real sad part of this story is what the little girl takes away from this whole experience. An eye opener for all mothers and sisters.

The thoughts and apprehensions of “The Engineer’s Bride” are familiar and very relatable to the majority of middle class girls who have gone through arranged marriages. Their looks play a big part in attracting suitors, and the main criteria of a “good” match is a man who is “well-settled” in life. The most important step in their lives is decided by others, and they are expected to immediately settle into whatever their fate has in store for them.

“The First” is a story that made me sad because, again, it is reflective of real life in college hostels. The young girls who come from all kinds of different backgrounds, form strong, unbreakable bonds and become each others’ secret keepers and protectors. How these girls become willing victims to men leading them on, and how they fool themselves into overlooking what is in front of their eyes, is what this story is all about.

Surprisingly, the story that really broke my heart and made me cry was the least tragic of all. “Flying In Andalusia” can easily be a true story of so many men and women I know in real life. In a society where parents have the final say in who their offspring gets married to, the result is often what is depicted in this story. It is most common to get a son married off to a “suitable” girl, even if he is interested in someone else. No thought is given to the said “suitable” girl, and she is expected to compromise and be satisfied with her lot. Oh, and she has to be happy about it too! This one made me feel really depressed and sad.

“Born On The First Of July” tells the tale of a family left shattered when their daughter leaves to join ISIS, and the callous way others treat the already bereaved family.

“Closed Doors” is, again, a heartbreaking story about a much-anticipated pregnancy gone wrong. There can never be enough words to describe what a woman goes through when she has a miscarriage.

Physical abuse of children is at the forefront of “Stealing Apples From Heaven”. A girl who is much-loved, is astonished to see her cousin being punished by her mother for a small transgression and her mind tries to come up with excuses for her aunt’s behaviour.

The last story, “Come Listen To Me” is different from all the rest of the stories. It is the reminiscences of an old woman about life after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. She relives all her experiences as she talks to her long-dead husband and tells him about her life since she left him to visit her parents. It is about the resilience of the human spirit even during the worst of times.

For such a slim volume (it is only 121 pages long), this book sure packs a punch. For everyone looking for good, realistic Pakistani fiction, this is one book you need to check out.

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Review: The Woman In The Window

Rating: 3 Stars

The Woman in The Window by A.J. Finn was my most anticipated read this year. I had been trying to get my hands on it for months, but something always went wrong and I ended up not buying it. So, when I did manage to get it finally, I couldn’t wait to read it.

I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed, but I wasn’t blown away by it either. It was a good read, but nothing out of the ordinary in my opinion. The story was predictable with many clichés thrown in, and the setting was reminiscent of almost all domestic thrillers. What set it apart, for me at least, was the main character.

Anna Fox is a complex and well written character, and as I read, I became invested in this complicated, flawed, grieving woman. I think the writer wanted us to think of her as an unreliable narrator. Unfortunately, Anna, or Dr. Fox, as she likes to be addressed, is too strong and believable a character for the reader to doubt. Her struggles with agoraphobia and alcohol, and her separation from her husband and daughter, all seem too real and painful. And this vivid, almost real, character is also the weakness that makes this book lose points in my eyes.

The problem is the rest of the characters in the book. When you see a strong protagonist who makes you interested in what is happening in her life, you also want the other people around her to be as real and interesting. Sadly, none of the others could make any such impact on me. All of them seem like caricatures of the usual run-of-the-mill domestic thriller characters.

There were some things that I managed to work out early on in the book; like the reason Anna is separated from her family, or what part will David inevitably play in her life. The rest of it I guessed around the halfway mark, and it was disappointing to find that I had been right about almost all of it!

I realize that too much hype leads to too many expectations, which are very rarely met, but I have also read many books that have stood up to the challenge of rave reviews and a lot of hype. The Woman in The Window failed to meet my expectations, and apart from the one character, I couldn’t find anything that would make this book stand apart from other run-of-the-mill thrillers.

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