Reading on a Rainy Day

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Showing posts from February, 2012

Giveaway - The Dispatcher (Ryan David Jahn)

(Thanks for entering! This giveaway is now closed.) I have ONE copy of The Dispatcher , courtesy of the publisher and TLC Book Tours to give away. To enter, simply fill the form below. The usual stuff: You don't have to be a follower of my blog to enter the giveaway. You must be over 13 years of age. Only US/Canada please. (The publisher is mailing out the copies.) The giveaway will stay open until I chose the winner on Feb 29, 2012 . Fill the form.

The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn

As soon as he hears the name, Maggie Hunt, Ian's lips go numb, and like a low note plucked on a taut metal cord running through his middle, a strange vibration ripples through him. Nausea in F-sharp minor. He swallows. 'Maggie?' He inhales through his nostrils and exhales through his mouth in a long trembling sigh. 'Maggie,' he says, 'it's Daddy.' Ian Hunt is working a regular day at the dispatch office, receiving more prank calls than genuine ones at the job, when a call comes through from a payphone. The distressed caller is a girl who introduces herself as Maggie Hunt, Ian's own daughter who has been missing for the past seven years, and whose funeral was arranged four months earlier to give her mother closure. She had just managed to escape and is hoping for help, but her abductor manages to get her in time. Ian, now convinced that his daughter is very much alive, will stop at nothing to get her back, even if it means punching a few no

Yet another Monday! (Feb 20, 2012)

Sheila @ Book Journey wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige! This Saturday, husband and I went with two of my best buddies for a strenuous but really wonderful and amazing three-hour mountain hike to the Sharp Top peak in the Peaks of Otter area nearby. The view that greeted us once we reached the top was so breathtakingly beautiful that we could have sat there all day. The weather was perfect too, and quite the contrast with Sunday's cold snowy day. Not that I'm complaining - I'm thrilled that it snowed finally! This week, I started reading Dance Lessons by Áine Greaney, for the Indie Lit Awards shortlist. I have just one more book to go after this and will be done with the shortlist by the end of this month. So far, it's been an interesting list of books, and I can't wait to start voting! Which pages were turned... I finished reading Ryan David Jahn's The Dispatcher hours ago - a book I chose simply

Bohemia by V.S. Naipaul (Short Fiction review)

Continuing my desire to read more short works by authors on my must-read list but who somehow never seem to move up from there, this week I chose a short story from V. S. Naipaul's book, Half a Life . I know Naipaul has many fans and haters - his public comments tend to drive readers to polar camps, and whatever I think of the man he is, I do want to read his books. And since I came across one of his short stories at The New Yorker , I decided to start with that. I'll say right upfront that I wouldn't exactly recommend this piece, simply because it is a chapter from a novel, than a standalone story, although I should say it functions somewhat decently as a single story. I did however sense the lack of an ending or a closure when I finished the story, which is what prompted me to go looking for information about it. The book, Half a Life , from which Bohemia has been shared, is a story of an Indian guy going to study in London - initially as someone very passive abo

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

Almost from the moment Imran could speak, he'd been asking about his father. And, sensing there was more to know than the vague, unsettling outline of a story his mother told him - that there had once been a man who had been his father, but then he'd left, and so was his father no more - Imran turned to others for answers. Indeed, it wasn't long before each new male visitor to the house would find himself besieged by the young boy; Imran would climb up a leg and into the man's embrace. "Are you my dad?" he would ask. For a long time, young Hayat Shah has heard the same stories from his mother - about her best friend Mina and her mischievous disposition. When newly divorced Mina arrives at their home in the US to protect her son from her ex-husband back in Pakistan, Hayat is entirely captivated by her. From Mina he learns to read and worship the Quran, and is inspired to try and become a hafiz (someone who has memorized the entire Quran). But when Mina f

What the rest of February looks like

Happy Valentines Day, readers (if you celebrate it)! The darling husband surprised me this morning with clues in the house, leading to the much coveted Maus and Metamaus pack. I had been pining for these books for a while now, but had given up on them because of the scary price tags, so I'm all the more excited to have my own copies of the books! I had already read Maus last year, but never reviewed it because it was so much bigger than I could do it justice. Now, I'm hoping to reread it and check out Metamaus - and hopefully talk about them in my blog. Yesterday, halfway through my day, at a time when bookish thoughts tend to invade my work-hammered brain, I realized that we have just two more weeks to go before the end of February (whoever decided that February could do with just 28/29 days? It's messing with my reading schedules). The very next minute, I remembered that I had four more books to read this month, in addition to the one that's in progress ( The

Yet another Monday! (Feb 13, 2012)

Sheila @ Book Journey wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige! What is it about Mondays that bring the blues on Sundays itself? This week, I started reading The Face Thief by Eli Gottlieb. I have seen this book on a few blogs already, but fortunately or unfortunately, I don't remember what any of the impressions were. So it feels like reading a book without knowing anything about it. I admit that it is the title that pulled me into the book, but right from the first page, the beauty of the language is very obvious. I have a feeling The Face Thief and I will have a good time together. Which pages were turned... I just finished reading Mary Ann Shaffer's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society hours ago and have to confess that this is one of those situations when I really wished the book didn't end. I also finished American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar, a book I have a lot to talk about. I am still reading Lyn

The Sunday Salon: Some literary tidbits

It has been a pleasantly bookish week for me, amidst all the work and the daily chores - the kind of week that's usually very rare. Of course, that also means I'm going through three very different books right now, but barring one, the other two are wonderful. I think I've also now been blogging for four days in a row, which I believe I have never done since November 2010, so it's refreshing to be back to an old familiar routine. All "winter", I had been whining about how warm it has been. So right after the groundhog decided that we'll have six more weeks of winter, it has chilled out considerably. I am loving it! Sure, I now have to spend five minutes every morning, cursing and removing the ice from my car, but it's relieving to see something of a normal winter day and not be reminded of the changing climate every day. Are we someday going to see the winter-summer cycles swap between the Northern and Southern hemisphere? (Trying to imagine we

The Shawl by Louise Erdrich (Short Fiction review)

I woke up today, excited about the short hour before my usual Saturday morning workout. I usually use that time to read a short story, whichever caught my fancy. Sometimes, I usually had a story decided in advance, but today I didn't really know which to read except that I planned to hound The New Yorker for a good one. (On a side note, The New Yorker is fast becoming my favorite literary stop, and I've been playing with the idea of buying a subscription.) I eventually decided to read The Shawl by Louise Erdrich, an author I haven't read yet, but who comes highly recommended. After reading this story, I'll have to join that bandwagon. The Shawl starts with the story of an Anishinaabeg mother of two young kids, who just gave birth to a baby whose father is a man that is not her husband. Her depression and bad temper eventually make her husband send her to live with the other man. Except, a tragedy strikes the wagon they travel in. Wolves attack them and their

The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

Things look different depending on your perspective. As I see it, fighting to bridge those gaps isn't what really matters. The most important thing is to know them inside and out, as differences, and to understand why certain people are the way they are. When Chihiro's mother dies, she decides to move to Tokyo to grapple with the grief that's enveloping her. Her parents had never married since her father is a respected businessman and her mother is the owner of a bar - her father's family was always opposed to their relationship. However, Chihiro feels as if she is losing her father as well, since the link that held them together - her mother - is no more. In Tokyo, Chihiro, hoping for a release from her pain, begins to imagine that maybe her mother's death is indeed a blessing in disguise, as she is now free to do whatever she wished. She becomes enamored by her neighbor, Nakajima, who she sees often from her window. It seems as if he is just as captivate

This stuff is so disturbing!

I've been reading a book over the past couple of days, which has a theme that I had pretty much sworn never to read about. Religion. Or to be more specific - blind religious faith involving glorification of one's religion, belief that people of other faiths are unbelievers and therefore less deserving of being alive, insensitive discussions of the 'my god' vs 'your god' and 'my faith' vs 'your faith' kind, and spreading ill-propaganda about other kinds of people. I didn't really know what the book was about before starting it, but in a strange way, I'm glad that I didn't, because I might not have dared read it otherwise. This is pretty much how my reading experience went: Session 1 : Uff, all this religion mumbo-jumbo is alienating me! Session 2 : What a sick weirdo! Why am I even reading about it? Where are the parents when they are most needed? Session 3 : Really? You leave your child's religious education to someone else

Yet another Monday! (Feb 6, 2012)

Sheila @ Book Journey wants to know what we're reading. I'm only too happy to oblige! We're one month already into 2012 - looks like Doomsday will be here soon! Yesterday, I started reading American Dervish , by Ayad Akhtar. This is a book I had been waiting to read since the ARC first strolled into my hands - a few months ago. Something about that awesome cover and the fact that the characters are of Pakistani-origin (I have never before read a book set in Pakistan) made me want to get to it right away. When I finally read a few pages, however, I was disappointed. The writing isn't that impressive and the plot isn't holding my interest too much. I'm only 50 pages in though, and there is a lot of ground to cover, so I'm hoping something changes soon! Which pages were turned... I finished reading Tayari Jones' Silver Sparrow , my second of the Indie Lit Awards reads. I am looking forward to talking about it, once the awards are annou