Love In the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I have just finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera but I do not know how to rate it. I read umpteen reviews about it to see how others felt about it. Most of the people seem to have mixed feelings about the book too and do not seem to know whether to love it or hate it. I didn’t love it, definitely not, but I was struck by something within it.

The book was not an easy read for me and had me googling a lot to read about Caribbean culture, history and life, which I found particularly interesting. I liked the manner in which the story is woven and the way in which the plot unfolded, but did not find the style of narration much to my liking. The narration in third party did not help much at all and I did not find myself being able to connect with any of the characters in the book.

The book is about young Florentino Ariza and his passionate love for the beautiful Fermina Daza. However, Fermina’s father opposes the relation and takes her away for a year. When she returns, she is disillusioned at the sight of Florentino who was eagerly waiting for her and gets married to one of the most eligible bachelor, Dr.Juevnal Urbino. Florentino cannot get over his love for her and decides to wait patiently and optimistically for her. Opportunity comes his way after Fermina’s husband dies falling from a mango tree while trying to save his parrot. Florentino approaches her and tries to win her back after more than half a century.

None of the main characters, Florentino Ariza , Fermina Daza or Dr. Urbino,were likeable. Florentino comes across as a selfish and self destructive man at the same time. I found him very boring, with a shallow personality, totally wasting his life lost in love.  His sexual escapades were quite revolting, especially the affair with the young girl who he was guardian to and all those other hapless widows. I could not find any reason why Florentino found Fermina different or better than all the women he came across. I could not understand why, in the first place, he was not giving himself a chance to love any of the others. Also I did not understand why the author was depicting all the widowed women out there as desperate. The detailed explanation and narrative also was quite boring at times and had me sighing a lot! Any by the way, what was the relevance of the character of Jeremiah Saint-Amour. Probably to show that death is an inescapable finality of life!

My husband was left wondering why I was laboring over a book if I was not able to enjoy it. But I could not explain to him why I did not feel like leaving the book mid way through, and why on the contrary, I was immersed in it. Probably because I still have a thing for love stories! Probably, a re-read and a better analysis at a later stage will help me to understand and love the book better. Hmmmm.. deep down, I feel this is a book to be loved. I just have to learn to love it!  and yes, I will revisit this one once more!

And in the meantime, any of you who have read the book and loved it, please throw some light on this for me, will you?

Thank You, Mr. Falker

When I picked up this book from the highly discounted sale at “Borders”, little did I know that I was laying my hands on a true treasure!  This is an autobiographical story written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco and tells and inspiring story based on the author’s learning disability.

Little Trisha loves the world of books and enjoys being read to. But she struggles to read on her own and finds that all the letters and numbers get jumbled up. To make matters worse she also has to hide from her classmates who bully her and call her dumb and finds solace in drawing. Help comes to her in the form of Mr. Falker, her fifth grade teacher who understands her misery and discovers her incredible artistic ability. With his efforts, she learns to successfully tackle her disability. Appu found the story very moving and was touched to the core by Trisha’s plight!

This book will be a definite source of support and reassurance for all those young ones struggling with learning disability.

2011 South Asian Challenge

Just happened to read about the 2011 South Aisan Challenge from Monika and Swaram and I am so excited about it!

I have been a book lover for as long as I can remember.  Books are a big part of my life and I love surrouding myself with books though of late this is the only thing that I seem to be doing, surrounding myself with more and more books and not actually reading them. Still I can proudly say that at any point of time, I would be having at least a book in my current reading list.  Allz not lost yet!

So when I came across this Challenge, I thought of grabbing up the opportunity.  I have been reading more books by Indian Authors lately and this seems to gel in so well with my current interest.  (Out of the measly 12 books that I read in 2010, 7 are by Indian Authors!!) Its also such a great opportunity to come across new authors.  This is also the first time that I am taking up any kind of challenge here and really have no clue as to how well I will be able to progress with the time constraints.  But why to put limits ….. I am ambitious and planning to read at least 10 South Asian books in 2011!  Here’s a list I have drawn up immediately upon hearing of the challenge.  Longing to start working on this and to add more!

1)      The Mistress of Spices – Chitra Banerjee

2)      The House of Blue Mangoes – David Davidar

3)      Shalimar The Clown – Salman Rushdie

4)      Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts

5)      Saraswati Park – Anjali Jospeh

6)      Six Suspects – Vikas Swarup

7)      The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai (This is a re-read partly.  I am not sure if it counts)

8)     Mahashwetha - Sudha Murthy

So while you read up more about the challenge, I will go ahead and sign up here.  Happy reading to you all!

Little Tikri

This book from DC's Tumbi collection has been with us for the past few months.  But only today did the three of us snuggle together and enjoy it.  The book is about Little Tikri, a happy baby elephant who strays away from his herd and is taken away to a far away place.  Appu liked it that the story supposedly took place in Sri Lanka and thinks that Tikri might have been taken to the Elephant Orphanage at Pinnewala. She was sad that Tikri never got to meet his mother again, though.  Aarush loved the sound effects I could put into my reading.  And I loved being able to spend 20 minutes with the two of them close to me.

Jerry's Trousers

We had great fun reading about a rather proud and pompous dog Jerry and how his good and kind friend Billy saves him. The authors Nigel Boswall and David Melling use the collection of trousers owned by Jerry and the damages caused to it to pass the message that pride comes before a fall. Well written with very cute, funny illustrations.

New Books

Got Appu introduced to the Magic Tree House series last week. She has been enjoying it quite a bit. But I definitely loved the first book that we read.

Finally managed to get a copy of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” from Jashanmal Stores. Surprisingly, Appu loved the book though it is not actually for her age group! After a read through with Appu beside me and Aarush in my lap, the comment from Appu was “Awesome!”.



Books are way too expensive in this part of the world. Hope I can pick up loads of good and reasonably priced books when we visit India at the end of the month.

Catch them young...

This is an adage I believe in with regards to reading. Therefore, I decided to waste no time with Aarush and got him, yes you guessed it, his first books!

He thorughly enjoyed going through the books and his favorite seems to be the Hello Bee Hello Me book that has a lot of mirrors in it. He loves looking at himself and cooing! The colours and the pictures captivated the little one.

Here are the books and a dekho at the little one settling for a cosy read!

Lost - Art of Reading

Reading has been the most natural thing for me to do, that is until recently. I don’t know when and how it happened but somewhere down the line I lost touch with reading and progressed slowly but steadily to leave books mid way through (something I never did before, I used to read until the last page no matter how boring / ridiculous the book was). I started falling asleep after a few pages at a stretch. And finally, I quit looking in my bookshelf at the umpteen books left unread and untouched.

So in an attempt to get back into the habit, I pulled out a few unread books off the shelf and left it by the bedside so that I would be tempted to flip through the pages atleast. No luck. The unfortunate books were left unopened. A few weeks back, I discovered a small place in Al Wahda, Sharjah called Reader’s Paradise. It’s a very tiny, dingy place hidden away amongst flashier and brighter shops. It is supposed to be a lending library. I went there with the best of intentions last week and got myself registered by paying a refundable deposit, a quarterly fee and a weekly rent on the books taken. Its not a place with a huge impressive collection or anything. I thought that I might read books that I rent more seriously. Where! Its two weeks almost and The White Tiger has been read only upto the 48th page! Sigh…..can I be a voracious reader ever again! 