There used to be a time, that you bought a book based on its blurb. Blurbs are what is usually on the back cover of a paperback or on the inside flap of a hardcover. It summarizes the contents of that book without giving too much away. At the same time, it builds up interest in the book, making people want to buy it.
For most people, buying a book does not require much research and analysis. There are two types of buying behaviors:
When you know exactly what you want based on recommendations/ reviews by people you trust; or you have specific requirements eg. studies and research etc.
When you make book buying decisions on the spur-of-the-moment. This may be because of many factors, like attractive book covers, prominent display or most often, blurbs of the books.
For serious (and serial) book buyers, the contents of a book matter the most; and the best way to make a guess about these contents is to read the summary at the back. Lately, this has become a very difficult thing to do.
As the race to reach the various best seller lists is becoming harder, many publishing houses are coming up with new ways to market books and make them more attractive for the consumers. The most common tactic seems to be endorsements from other more famous authors, or popular reviewers.
This wasn’t too bad when it was restricted to a single page inside the cover, or if the reviewer was really famous, somewhere on the front or back cover of the book. Now, all you find on the back cover are proclamations by other people or newspapers about how exciting this new book is. You open the book, and there are 2 more pages of the same!
First of all, I cannot believe how all these famous authors have the time to read all this new work. And if they do, then how can they gush about it in such a fake way? What this is actually doing is making readers question the integrity of well-known authors and well-established newspapers. The fact is that nobody cares what Stephen King or Lee Child or Daily Mail think of this book; it doesn’t really matter what bestselling list it has managed to climb. What is important is that a reader wants to know what the book is about. And these marketing gimmicks are taking away a reader’s right to make up their own mind.
How is it possible that publishing houses don’t realize that 2 or 3 pages of endorsements are less likely to sell the book, than interesting and seductive blurbs? It is nice to see that a famous author enjoyed the book, but it is also nice to feel like your choices are your own. I wish marketing departments realize that selling a book is not like selling other commodities on TV. There needs to be a limit to stop feeding egos of the writers and start thinking about actual readers.
For the last 10 years, travel has been a major part of my life. I have been living the life of an expat in the Middle East, frequently travelling back home, in addition to going on vacations. This has meant that I travel to and from different destinations an average of at least 4 times a year. The one thing that has never changed in these 10 years, is my foray into the airport bookstores.
I always have an unsurmountable stack of books to read, which means that I always carry 2-3 books with me whenever I travel. Yet, there is a pull towards these bookstores that I cannot define, and almost always end up buying at least one book even if I don’t really need it.
I love browsing in bookshops, taking in the colours and the smells, finding out about new authors and new books. At airports I get enough time to indulge in this activity, unless we’re running really late, which we hardly ever are, because I have a fear of missing my flight. For the last 4 years, ever since I have moved to Riyadh, I can only indulge myself during return trips, since Riyadh airport doesn’t have a bookstore yet. I’m hoping this will change in the near future. Until then I have to be happy with other airports.
One of my most favourite places in this context has always been the Karachi Airport bookshop. It is one of the best airport bookstores that I have come across especially if I want to buy any Urdu books. Often we end up buying 3-4 books each as a family from this particular place. It is always difficult to carry those books because we already have hand carries that are ready to burst open. Yet we have still managed to do this successfully for a decade now.
So imagine my shock and sadness when last week while travelling back from Karachi, we found the bookstore not only closed, but its shelves stripped of all books, looking lonely and haunted. This pandemic has hurt many businesses, but this one really hit me hard. I had never realized how much I loved this small space full of books. I always made sure to keep aside enough local currency to spend on last minute book purchases.
Of course, I should have realized that this will happen. I had already seen Dubai airport closed down during our layover while going to Karachi. However, the actual sight of those empty shelves and plastic covered space struck my heart. I know I’m being overly dramatic. There are bookstores all over the city that are not only open, but also delivering books at home! But when you are so used to seeing something and spending time with it, it becomes a part of you; you become attached to it, and you start looking at it with affection.
I really miss that little bookstore, and pray for better times when browsing for books is not dangerous and risky. Until then, I have my local bookstores to keep me company and cheering me up.
A few days ago, I received some unexpected help from a well-wisher who had nothing to gain. She gave me some valuable advice and provided resources to help make my blog better. Before that, I used to update blog posts without giving any thought to numbers, or tracking the audience. No one had ever guided me in this way, mostly because I never bothered to ask for help.
It would have been fine if I had just followed her advice and refrained from trying to act over-smart myself! Unfortunately, I am not that person. So, as it happened, I decided to make my blog a bit more professional by switching the hosting platform. Previously, I had been held back because it seemed like a lot of money and it was my first time writing a blog. Now, I had 2 years’ worth of experience, and I thought I might as well try to increase my reach. Big mistake.
I’m not an IT person. Whatever I know about software is from 20 years ago I think, and a bigger person would have realized their shortcomings. Me, I thought what could be so difficult about it, and proceeded to implement my plan. Within 2 minutes, I managed to work out how to backup my work and copy it onto the new blog. So far, so good.
I registered with the new host, and somehow got it into my head that everything will run smoothly and I will never even know the difference. Then something happened, and I erased the whole original website, wiped it off the face of the internet! And try as I might, I couldn’t get the new version to work properly. I was in hysterics. It felt like 2 years worth of my work just went down the drain, and nothing was left anymore.
It took 2 days of banging my head against my laptop to finally get some semblance of a blog. My biggest achievement was that I managed to retain the previous data. I had written some 110 plus blog posts, all with pictures and proper categories and tagging. Thankfully, most of it was intact. I did lose all the pictures and am still in the process of attaching new ones to the posts, but by and large, the old blog posts are still intact.
For the last 5-6 days, I have been trying to learn the inner workings of this new blog, and I can’t say that I have been too successful. The images are giving me a lot of trouble, and I keep messing up the software by tinkering with its inner workings. I look up fixes and try to implement them. Sometimes it backfires, while other times I’m just unaware of what I have managed to meddle with.
I’m getting so much data feedback that I don’t understand at all, and I’m forced to think if it was worth all that trouble? Perhaps not. But I did learn a valuable lesson: if you want to go head-to-head with your software, find a comfortable place to sit. Your butt will be very thankful.
Last week I read a book by a well known Pakistani author. I was looking forward to reading it, the author being someone I really admire in real life. As I delved deeper into the book, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. On the surface, there wasn’t anything wrong with the story or the characters, yet something kept nagging at me. After a while I realized what it was that was bothering me so much. It is the same thing that I have encountered time and again in many books, some of which have been popular worldwide: Stereotype.
When you’re reading about a place close to your heart, or about people like you or like someone you know, you become sensitive to the smallest of details and nuances. You start seeing discrepancies and false facts, sometimes exaggerations and even blatant lies. Ideally it shouldn’t matter too much. Everyone has the right to put their original thoughts on paper, and the world can go hang! Sometimes, however, it is not so easy to overlook this perpetuation of stereotype.
My problem has never been with the stories or the actual things happening in these books. My beef is with authors who seem to be writing things that they have no idea about. It shows lack of proper research and lazy editing.
Many people accused me of being oblivious to the multitude of sins this city hides, when I criticized Karachi, You’re Killing Me. It makes Karachi seem like a city of drug filled parties and sex and booze. I have always considered Moth Smoke an amazing book, and that whole book is about drugs, parties and all such. While one paints the 20-somethings of the whole city with the same brush, the second one makes it clear that it is talking about one segment of the city. And this is where the difference lies.
When you read The Party Worker, you will see the political under belly of this very city. A city where drugs, alcohol, sex and murder are rampant and unapologetic. Yet you will never think that this is all that Karachi has to offer. It is not the story, the characters or their actions that are problematic, it is the way they are presented in the text. Any metropolitan city in the world has many shades, no one can claim to know all of them. The least a writer can do is realize that what they’re writing does not represent the city as a whole. It is but a subset that the writer has had experience with.
Then there is the Urdu in these books. With the example of so many Hollywood Movies and TV shows getting the language wrong, one would expect the local writers to put a little more effort in using proper Urdu words wherever necessary. There have been countless instances where the word used has been correct, but its tense or form is wrong. To a person who knows the language, this just seems like sloppy writing.
In my opinion, this has mainly to do with the fact that most of our English writers are not very proficient with their mother tongue. They come from a certain educational background which makes them unaware of what they are doing wrong. This is what editors are for. Unfortunately, foreign publishing houses and editors take it for granted that the writer would know their own language. They don’t realize that knowing how to speak a language doesn’t automatically make you an expert at it.
It is unfortunate that we as a nation don’t own our language, and that it is Urdu that is a foreign language for us. The disparity in our education system is such that it is difficult to find writers proficient in both languages. Educational institutions that give importance to one and ignore the other, leading to this unfortunate result.
Now I come to the problem with how Muslims are depicted in books. I am so tired of reading the same depictions of Muslim, either religious fanatics or complete liberals. It is time to move on from the Bollywood stereotype of topi-wearing, checkered handkerchief-carrying men, with eyes full of kajal, and mouths full of Astaghfirullahs! The world happens to be full of Muslims who are not at either extreme. It seems like most writers are trying to pander to a set narrative. They are writing that which appeals to the western audience. And when you write to please someone other than yourself, it shows in your writing.
I wanted to write about all the books that I find problematic in this sense. However, I’d rather talk about books like A Place For Us and The Family Tree. Books that show the face of millions of Muslims living all over the world not up in arms or drowned in alcohol. Again, I’m not denying the existence of militants or people who have turned away from religion. But in all fairness, it is absurd to stereotype all Muslims and make it seem that these are the only ones left on this earth.
While I can rant and rave about the injustice of misrepresentation for hours, I think I should stop here. This blog is just a way for me to let out some steam. It is in no way meant to offend or please anyone. I write my thoughts without censoring them (much!) So, that’s all for today. Until next time.
The last three months have been the strangest of my life, maybe of everyone’s lives. Due to this pandemic, life was put on hold and a new normal has been born. I spent the first month just trying to get used to having everyone at home all the time. The second month was smoother, and now it’s like we have always been like this!
Before the social distancing and quarantine woes started, I had completely given up on reading. I had a ganglion cyst in my right wrist. Over the last few months it became too painful to hold even the lightest of things. So, I gave up books, tablets, my kindle and to a great extent my phone as well.
When things became really bad, I decided to get the cyst removed and try to get back to normal life. As luck would have it, by that time the world was waking up to the pandemic that would wreak so much havoc around the world.
I had the surgery and found out, much to my annoyance that there won’t be a miracle and I would still need a couple of months to get back full use of my right hand. The bandage was removed after ten days. And then all hell broke lose!
The world went into a lockdown, and the help that I was counting on to get me through the next months was no longer there. As everyone who has faced this situation knows, there is a lot more work when everyone is at home. The kids and husband tried to chip in as much as they could, but they had school and office respectively. I’m thankful that my kids’ school hasn’t lost a single day of studies and are on track for the scheduled summer holidays.
Unfortunately for me, my wrist never got the rest that it needed. It has been almost 9 weeks and my hand still feels uncomfortable and painful sometimes.
Last week I finally decided that enough was enough and picked up my first book in months. What else? Agatha Christie of course! Since then I have decided that right now I’m more comfortable with my Kindle which is lighter and more easily manageable. As a result, I have finished two books in the last three days!
It is a big achievement considering it is Ramadan and things are a bit off kilter with fasting and quran classes every day. Yet, I’m determined to hold on to my Kindle and get back into the saddle.
It’s funny how I’m suddenly so attached to this little device that I have been so vocal about disliking! My love for physical books is still there, for nothing can come close to that smell and that feeling, but I have also decided to reserve a little corner of my heart for e-readers that help you when you need it the most.
I just hope that this pandemic ends sometime soon in the future. But I have a feeling that the world will never get back to where it was before this horror started.
When it comes to the type of books another person reads, I will be the first to admit that I judge them. I make assumptions about individuals just because of their reading habits. This person has so many biographies in their bookshelf, they must be really boring; oh, there are so many religious books in this shelf, this person must be extremely religious; so many romances in this shelf must mean that this person lives in a dream world. And it goes on and on.
Everyone has prejudices and we tend to look at others through our own prejudiced eyes, deeming them worthy or unworthy of our time. For me, that prejudice resides in bookshelves and book stacks. This doesn’t make me an evil person. I don’t stop socializing with people just because I don’t like what they read. I just judge them silently, in the depths of my heart. No one knows about it, but I do.
In the same way, I feel like everyone is judging me on the books that I read; not because anyone has ever said anything to me, but because I have a guilty conscience. There shouldn’t be any problem if I read an odd romance or some religious text, after all it’s my own choice, yet I have to think hard about putting it out there on any social media. No one has ever called me out on my reading choices, so what is it that has made me afraid to put it out there?
I find that there is no answer to this. As long as I have my own prejudice, I will continue to be scared myself. Over the years, there have been many books that I have read because everyone was reading them, even if I didn’t really want to read them. This urge to do what is acceptable was the worst in my teenage and early twenties, when I read an average of 2-3 books a week to keep up with what I wanted to read, and what the world was reading.
Back in school, every girl I knew was reading Sweet Dreams or Sweet Valley High, which later gave way to Mills &Boon romances. There was nothing wrong with reading these, except that I only read them to appear normal. The truth is, that I was probably the only girl in my class who actually enjoyed reading the books assigned to us for our English literature classes, and who looked forward to borrowing books recommended by the high school English teacher! I didn’t want to be the class nerd though, so I compromised by reading everything. Thank God I have somewhat grown up after all these years!
Ever since I started my Bookstagram account and this blog a year and a half back, this urge has reduced exponentially. I find that I can only write about the books that I really want to read, and that makes me ignore all the books that I don’t really want to get into. Add to that the lack of time and energy for unwanted pursuits, I find that I have started reading for myself again. Now, I don’t read in order to appear well read, or interested in popular works, I just read to please myself and have a good time.
Unfortunately, that still hasn’t stopped me from making assumptions about others based on what they read. I realize that that makes me a horrible human being, but we all have our vices, and mine is to secretly and silently judge others on what they read (or don’t read)!
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!
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.
Everyone knows by now how big a fan I am of thrillers of all types. Many people ask me to recommend some good thrillers, but there are so many that I can never make up my mind about which ones are the best. Sometimes it’s because I have forgotten a particular story, so I have to read it all over again, and in reading and rereading, never get the time to actually compile a list of my favourite thrillers. Even now, as I sit here trying to make a list, I find that I cannot make up my mind. I have tried to pick some of the books that I find exciting and would want others to read too. They are not in any particular order.
The Da Vinci Code
I became a Dan Brown fan after I read The Da Vinci Code when it was first published in 2003. Since then, I have read all his books, and even though I don’t like all of them, to me Dan Brown is one of the best writers of thrillers. I have never thought about leaving his books halfway even if they seem like a repetition of the old theme.
The Da Vinci Code was a book that turned everything I knew on its head. I had to keep reminding myself that this is fiction and has little to do with reality. It is set in Paris and London with a timeframe of just one day. Robert Langdon, an imminent Professor of Symbology at Harvard, is visiting Paris when he gets embroiled in the murder of a prominent member of a secret society.
As he is on the run, aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, he realizes that things are not what they seem, and he has to use all his knowledge and learning to figure out a centuries old mystery and save the day.
The strength of Dan Brown’s writing is that majority of artworks and places mentioned in his books are real. It is my dream to one day visit Paris and see all the things Robert Langdon talked about in this book.
This is one book I would recommend to all fans of mystery and puzzle solving.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
When I first read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I was taken aback. I had never read anything like it before. Here was a heroine who was unlike any heroine that I had ever seen or heard of before. She was everything that a “good girl” shouldn’t be, yet she was the best kind of heroine. At the same time, the “hero”, Mikael Blomkvist was like any other hero, except that he was no saviour of the heroine. The heroine could not only save herself, she could also keep the hero safe from harm.
As Salander and Blomkvist are brought together in an unlikely pairing, to solve a forty-year old mystery, the challenges facing them are terrifying and seemingly insurmountable. No book review or discussion can do justice to the excitement or thrill of reading this book. It might not seem very shocking now, 10 years after it was first published in English, but at that time this book was the first of its kind. Even now, I find myself reading it again every time I hear about another sequel in this series.
There have been many similar books and characters in the decade since its publication, but nothing can surpass the brilliance and originality of this book. One of my most favourite books of this genre, recommended for all kickass females in the world!
Gone Girl
The one book that single-handedly changed the face of the genre of Thrillers and gave birth to the contemporary Psychological Thriller. This book is so terrifying that I have been unable to re-read it in one go after the first time. I can only read it in parts and that too takes its toll on me. Every. Single. Time.
Nick Dunne is shocked by the disappearance of his wife, Amy, on their fifth wedding anniversary. Police investigation shows Amy was scared of her husband, and there are some strange searches on his computer. Nick is bewildered because none of it is true. He cannot understand what is happening to him, and where his wife would disappear to. Then there is Amy’s diary that clearly shows how unhinged Nick is.
As a reader you realize that you cannot trust Nick’s narration of the events because of the diary entries, but as you start reading Amy’s side of the story, you realize there is something wrong with her narration too! As you read further, you start questioning the sanity of all characters, and eventually your own for continuing to read this book! Yet, you need to find out the truth. You need to know how it all ends, how something this crazy can ever make sense.
This book made me so crazy the first time I read it, that I was suspicious of my own husband for a week after reading it!
Big Little Lies
This book is what a good domestic thriller is all about. There are no over-the-top crazy characters, no out-of-this-world scary settings, yet it is gripping, mysterious, and full of secrets. It tells the story of a group of school moms and how something that happens in school has the potential to unravel into something much bigger, and lead to unthinkable circumstances, even a death.
When single mom, Jane, moves to the town of Pirriwee, she meets Madeline and Celeste who take her under their wings. All three of them have children in the same class, and the three of them seem to get on well together, so it makes sense for them to hang out. Then, on the first day of school, an incident causes friction between Jane and another school mum, Renata.
Things start spiralling out of control as adults start taking sides in what was essentially an altercation between two kids. As secrets start coming out, all the women involved can sense the impending catastrophe. It turns out that all three women have secrets of their own that they have worked hard to hide from everyone. The rumors start, and it becomes harder and harder to tell fact from fiction. It is only a matter of time before all this results in disaster.
The best thing about this book is the characters, who are so real and believable. As a mom with school going kids, I can vouch that I have met all the types of parents mentioned in the book. The incidents are all quite credible and you can see them happening to people in the real world. Though, I have to admit, there is a chance that women will like and understand this domestic thriller better than men.
The Good Daughter
The Good Daughter is one of the best thrillers from 2017. The narrative is quite graphic, and not for the faint of heart. It grips you from the first chapter and you find yourself wanting to know what happens next.
The story revolves around a family torn apart by a tragic attack twenty-eight years ago, which leaves all of them with scars, both physical and psychological. Charlotte thinks that she has come a long way from her nightmarish ordeal almost thirty years ago. She is a good lawyer, not like her notorious father who is willing to represent anyone regardless of their guilt.
One morning, she gets caught in a school shooting that threatens to expose everything she has worked so hard to keep inside her. As things get worse, Charlie’s life starts to unravel around her and there is only one person who can help her become whole again. But they haven’t seen or spoken to each other in a long, long time, and there are some wounds that just refuse to heal.
There are some sequences that are truly horrifying and leave the reader close to tears. However, the solid narrative and story make it very hard to put the book down. This book contains assault and abuse, and may not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, for true lovers of psychological thrillers, nothing can be a deterrent to them reading a good thriller.
Underlying the narrative is the theme of a father’s love for his daughters and how he believes, I think quite rightly, that everyone needs a different kind of love. Having lost my father soon after finishing this book, it hit me even harder how far a father can go to protect his children from pain and heartbreak.
One of the best thrillers that I have ever read. Definitely a must read for all lovers of this genre.
We Were Liars
I never thought I would include a Young Adult novel in any list of mine, unless it is a list of Young Adult novels! We Were Liars is the book that proved all my generalisations wrong. Young Adult suspense thrillers can be as addictive as any adult book in this genre.
Cadence comes from a rich and privileged family, who owns a private island in Massachusetts, USA, where they go to spend summers every year. Cadence, her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and their friend, Gat, are known as the Liars. They hang out together at the island every year and get into scrapes like normal teenagers.
Then, an accident changes everything. Cadence cannot remember what happened that night, and her family is not willing to remind her. She enlists the help of the other Liars who gradually help her piece together the events of that terrible night. We are taken on a journey through a summer where everything seems normal, but nothing is as it seems.
I even let my teenage son borrow this book to read, and he really enjoyed reading it too. A great book for ages thirteen and above.
The Silkworm
After Harry Potter, J. K Rowling found it hard to get out of her own shadow, and be taken seriously as a writer of adult books too. As a result, she decided to write another series under the pen name, Robert Galbraith. As it happened, her identity couldn’t remain hidden and by the time the first book came out, everyone knew who had written it. Still, it makes a difference seeing a new name on a new adult detective series, instead of a name known for writing Harry Potter.
I loved the first Cormoran Strike novel and was eager to read the second. In my opinion, the second, called The Silkworm, was even better than the first. We already knew the back story of Cormoran Strike, and had been introduced to his assistant, Robin Ellacott. This book not only cements their partnership, but also provides the requisite thrills in the form of their next case.
Owen Quine is a novelist who has gone off somewhere by himself, and his wife wants Cormoran Strike to find him and bring him back. However, as Strike probes into the disappearance, he realises that something is not right. The writer had recently finished a novel which revealed secrets about a lot of people. People who are influential, and who have a lot to lose if the book ever sees the light of the day.
And then Owen Quine turns up dead. The murder is brutal and just how Quine wrote it in his book. Strike is at a loss to understand the reasons or what the killer might do next, and it makes for a most exhilarating read. The whole book is like a roller coaster ride, and you never know what might happen next.
While it is better to have read the first book in order to understand the background of the two main characters, The Silkworm on its own is a stellar thriller. It shows the brilliance of J. K. Rowling, and her unique talent of creating unforgettable characters. A great book from one of the best authors of our time.
The Chalk Man
Another excellent book that is a recent addition to my favourites. The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor is different in that it has a male protagonist and narrator. Here we have a middle-aged man, battling with his own demons, trying to appear as normal as possible, and failing to do so.
Eddie Adams is a British twelve-year-old in 1986, hanging out in his small town with his four friends, when their lives are changed irrevocably. Thirty years later, Eddie Adams, a middle aged, single, English teacher with a drinking problem, still living in his hometown, gets a letter with a piece of chalk. The letter has a stick figure drawn on it. Memories of that long ago summer have left their scars on everyone, and it all starts coming back to Eddie now. When an old friend’s drowned body is found, Eddie realizes that things did not end thirty years ago, and he has to find the truth before another body turns up.
The character of Eddie Adams is interesting. The way he narrates the book, you know you shouldn’t trust him along with anyone else in this book. That he is a kleptomaniac, is established early on in the book. On top of that, he is a sleepwalker who has trouble differentiating between his dreams and reality.
The book is fast paced and gripping. It makes you hold your breath and wait for what comes next. There are so many twists and turns that take you by surprise. Even if you’re able to predict some things, there is still a lot that makes you feel dizzy. For a fan of thrillers, this book is the perfect read.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the first crime thriller that became my favourite. Believe it or not, it was included in our school curriculum in grade 9. I read as soon as I got my hands on the syllabus books! It was and still is one of the best books that Agatha Christie ever wrote. And she wrote quite a few, since she is still considered the Queen of Crime.
When Mrs. Ferrars commits suicide a few months after poisoning her abusive husband, Roger Ackroyd starts suspecting that she was being blackmailed. She was after all the woman he loved. And then he gets a letter that might confirm his suspicion, but before he could finish reading it, he has been murdered.
Hercule Poirot has retired from his work, and is busy growing marrows in the village, when Flora Ackroyd requests him to solve the mystery of her uncle’s murder. Tired of vegetables and the slow pace of village life, Poirot decides to investigate this strange murder which seems to have little or no motive.
With the help of Dr. Sheppard, Poirot goes about digging into facts and stories, and reaches the truth. The truth, however, is stranger than fiction in this case. With a finale that is equal parts shocking and unexpected, this is Agatha Christie at her finest. A great whodunnit for all ages.
I would also like to add some other books, which are also very high on my list of must-read thrillers:
A Time To Kill by John Grisham
If Tomorrow Comes by Sidney Sheldon
The Cuckoos Calling by Robert Galbraith
Deception Point by Dan Brown
SharpObjects by Gillian Flynn
The Breakdown by B. A. Paris
You Will Know Me by Meg Abbott
This list can go on and on, except that I cannot remember a lot of other books that I have read but don’t own. Maybe I can make a part two of this list when I remember more. Until then, add these books to your reading list and enjoy!
A few days ago, I was talking to someone about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and how it was bound to be appealing to men even though it has been written by a woman. The book is widely considered groundbreaking and presents a new philosophy called Objectivism, which while panned by academic philosophers, is still followed by a faithful group.
The Fountainhead itself is a book that is more likely to be read by a younger audience, during college years, and early career, when it seems like the ideal text to follow. As they grow older and become more worldly, this idealism seems to fade from the minds of these readers. It is not so easy to read this book once you have left behind your student life. The text is too long and too slow, and the theories too idealist for the real world.
The book traces the life of Howard Roark, architect extraordinaire, and an egoist to boot. He is reviled for his ideas and integrity, and the world in general seems to be baffled by his genius. From humble beginnings, he becomes an architect known for being forward looking, while at the same time he is persecuted by the society for being rigid and unyielding on his principles.
Roark is wired in such a way that he believes that in order to do the most good, a person needs to be the most selfish. This selfishness is the only way to achieve happiness and contentment in life. For him, selfishness is giving precedent to his happiness and not what others think of him. A person wants fame and money because of an unnatural need to be validated in front of the world. According to him, if he changes his work to make others happy, then he is not being true to himself, and if everyone tried to make themselves happy instead of listening to others, the world would be a better place for it.
The Fountainhead presents the ultimate hero, one who is not willing to compromise, even if it means paying hefty fines, going to jail, or losing the one true love of his life to his biggest enemy. We have seen many versions of this hero over the years, both in books and movies; the man who is not afraid to take on the world for the sake of his principles. The only difference is, that these other heroes are all eventually revealed to be altruistic and philanthropic, redeeming themselves in the eyes of society and mankind.
The Fountainhead puts forth the philosophy that an ideal heroic man is one whose purpose in life is to keep himself happy, and his nobility lies, not in doing good for others, but in being productive and useful to himself. It presupposes all humans as rational beings capable of sound reasoning.
On paper, this sounds like the perfect world, more so to the younger reader who immediately casts himself or herself in the role of Howard Roark, standing up for what is right and just in their eyes. What it doesn’t account for, and what these young men and women learn as they grow older, is that it is next to impossible to keep their emotions separate from their reason.
So, while Roark looks like the ultimate hero, who sacrifices his only love for the sake of his principles, it remains subjective which principles to uphold; because every individual has a different moral compass. What is sacred to one man may not be important for another.The drawback of going against collectivism is that it refutes all laws and regulations. By the same token, if everyone started standing up, and there was no compromise in the world, there would ultimately be chaos.
So, it could be that while Howard Roark has some principles that he will fight for till death, why should his principles be important for any other individual, who wants to succeed in his own field? In the real world, this philosophy seems too good to be true, for the simple reason that not all individuals are strong in character. In the book, however, Howard Roark remains the ideal man, a man willing to go to any lengths to uphold his beliefs and not surrendering his convictions in the face of adversity.
