Reading on a Rainy Day

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Showing posts from December, 2013

Favorite-something books of 2013

Another year has come and gone. It always surprises and scares me how fast time flies, so the 31st of December is sort of a somber day. But the 1st of January is always exciting. It's a time for new beginnings and new plans, time to make resolutions, even if they last only two days. The excitement of the day is just very infectious, it's hard to stop smiling. I had a pretty good year - there were some ups and downs, some this and that. But nothing stands out as particularly crazy. I read 61 books this year, which is a pretty good number for me, even though I read half of those books over the last four months. Because I would end up spending way too much time on making a top 5/10 list, I figured I would mention some books I read this year (non-2013 releases as well) that made my day and would hopefully would make yours too. (The italicized notes are from my reviews). The I-want-to-read-it-again book of the year Where did you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple: This

The Sunday Salon: The Year of the Audiobooks

I listened to my first audiobook a little less than four and a half years ago. It was a nonfiction titled The Monster of Florence about a serial killer who killed lovers at their most intimate moments, leaving behind horribly mutilated bodies. I had rated it only 2 stars even though the narration was splendid and the first few chapters terror-inspiring. The rating was more for the narrative style of the story than the narration itself. Over the following three and a half years, I've listened to only 20 more audiobooks, mostly fiction, some of them okay, but most of them disappointing. I couldn't really adjust to a "narrator" - the accents and the dialogues were most of the time crummy and fake and distracting me from the substance of the book. Sometimes a male narrator would put on a high squeaky voice to imitate a female character and that would make me cringe. And sometimes, a narrator would try to speak in a very polished obviously fake manner that I would fin

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! Jack Daniels' Barrel tree lighted up for Christmas (Photo source: The Inspiration Room )

Light Reading: Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

( Photo credit ) I read Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock so long ago, well more than 3 months ago, that I don't remember everything I wanted to tell you about this book. I did however like it a lot, didn't love it, and thought it was a fabulous read for anyone. This book got on my radar thanks to NetGalley . I doubt I may have read the book otherwise, though I probably would have TBR'd it. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is set in a day of a boy's life and is written from his perspective. At the beginning of the book, Leonard Peacock lets us know that he is planning to kill a classmate by nightfall and then end his life. He doesn't reveal his reasons for such a macabre plan yet but proceeds on to insist that he needs to give farewell presents to four people before he carries out his plan. Of course, the recipients shouldn't get too suspicious about why they are getting gifts. The four recipients turn out to be the only people who have had a positive impact o

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. I had watched Life of Pi , the movie, early this year and remember liking it a lot. The visuals were fabulous, the tiger majestic and the story compelling. The ending was twisty enough for me to question everything I saw on the movie until then. Piscine Molitar Patel, aka Pi, prefaces his story by saying that it will make his interviewer believe in God. I can't say that his story had any such impact on me, since I knew this was fiction, but were his story true, then it would be one of the most spirited stories of human courage I would have ever come across. Pi's family in Pondicherry was sailing to Canada soon, along with some of the animals from the zoo that Pi's father managed. The ship however sinks one night when Pi was out on the deck, and that more than anything else, save

Readalong Alert! The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Goldfinch is one of the few books I must have seen everywhere lately. Most everyone has strongly recommended the title. Heck two other books by Donna Tartt also come heavily recommended, including The Secret History . So far, I am yet to read a review calling The Goldfinch bad or lackluster, but if you've seen or written one, let me know, because I like to keep my expectations in check. When I mentioned hoping to read The Goldfinch before the end of the year, Natasha also mentioned her plans to read it by year end, and viola, a readalong was born. If you are interested in joining us for the ride, let me or Natasha know in the comments. We are planning to do it so informally that we haven't made any plans yet. We did decide not to have regular progress posts, but we will have some discussion post in the end. I admit the size of the book intimidates me quite a bit. At 700-odd pages, it is a chunkster, though not as chunky as some of the chunkier books in the ma

Kindred by Octavia Butler

The ease. Us, the children … I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery. Dana had just moved to a new apartment with her husband, Kevin, and was helping him set up his bookshelf, when she started feeling very dizzy. The sensation was immediate and unexpected, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange place. The apartment and the books had vanished; Kevin was also nowhere near her. Instead she found herself at a riverside, staring at someone struggling in the river. Keeping her worries and questions aside, she jumped into the river and carried the nearly drowning boy to the shore. A woman came to her, wailing that her son was dead. Dana simply kept her cool, yelled at the woman to be quiet, gave the boy CPR and announced to the mother that the boy will live. The woman's husband arrived on the scene with a gun pointed at Dana's face. Terrified for her life, Dana felt the same dizziness overwhelm her and within seconds, she had

The Sunday Salon: The waiting-for-holidays edition

Good morning, Sunday Saloners! I've been back from the holidays/vacation to Miami/Key West for a few days now, but I'm still in a holiday mood. At this rate, the Christmas holidays cannot come soon enough. Even though we did a lot of things and were mostly outside during the holidays, I felt very refreshed by the time I got back home, which is strange for me because I'm usually in for quiet vacations. I did visit Ernest Hemmingway's house in Key West while we were there, and boy, you would be amazed by the number of cats in the house. Snuggling in every corner, a few coming up to be petted, but most keeping to themselves and not really enjoying the tourist's intrusions. There was one that wanted to be petted but threw a hell of a peacock's arrogant attitude while getting a massage. There was another one snuggling inside a shelf in a bookstore. Adorable, really. Though, being a dog person, part of me wondered what a ruckus there wound have been if they wer