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The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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This book caught my attention as it was rated the Best Fiction book by Good Reads in 2020. For me, the book has lived up to the hype and maybe even beyond. I would like to start the review with an excerpt of the book : She had a fire inside her. She wondered if the fire was to warm her or destroy her. Then she realised. A fire had no motive. Only she could have that. The power was hers. This is the story of Nora Seed, 35-year-old, living in her hometown Bedford working at String theory, a local music store. As the story unfolds, we get to know that she has been a kind of wiz kid, excellent at many things like Swimming: She was the fastest swimmer in her metropolitan area with a path that could lead to representing her country in the Olympics Music: She was a lead songwriter and singer of a band called “The labyrinth’s” with her bother and a few others, with a record label offer So, what happened? Why is she trying to kill herself? This is where the author’s usage of phi...
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Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar

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Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar, is about an author’s struggle with being a Muslim in America. The rich narrative, part biopic, part fictional in the book offered via his visits to Pakistan, mother’s deep attachment to her birth country and father being a super successful doctor treating Trump, has the qualities of a racy thriller, as well as deep nuanced thought. The combination of both, is simply heady! I thoroughly enjoyed the banter between the father and the son in the book. His father, a famous doctor when he makes the progression from being a researcher to private practice, after a few successful years, the practice goes belly up. He gets wrapped up in a legal battle. The entry of capitalism in the medical space had led to the private practices like his, being bought up by MBA led firms. These firms, insist on maximizing the number of patients that the doctor sees, thereby reducing the doctor patient time together. It’s a good example of when capitalism runs a practice, and it...
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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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Pachinko is a compelling story of individuals who struggle to face historical catastrophes. I particularly loved the fact that it’s a story of ordinary people.  The book starts in 1910 Korea and marks it’s end in 1990 in Japan. It is an intergenerational story of a family. Sunja, the main protagonist is a first-generation immigrant from Korea, moving to Japan post marriage, looking for better life. I like the way the narration is omniscient: the narrator speaks from the characters point of view. Its makes for a great community narrative, which I think has worked very well for this story as there are so many stories interwoven in it. This kind of narration has made all characters come alive for me. There are clear major plot lines, but minor plot lines provide critical support to the story. Stories of the main characters looked fuller as the characters around them filled up the vacuum beautifully. While thinking about the name of the book, Pachinko, an interesting parallel came...
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In Pursuit of Conflict by Avalok Langer

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The urge to read about north-east of our country was triggered by a what's app group chat. In a close knit what's app group of 250 (smirk), someone spoke at length about Jharkhand and how it's part of the North East of India. It irked me immensely, as I have grown up in Bokaro Steel City, very much a part of Jharkhand. A friend from north east on the same group replied to the tune of, "Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation."  The book is written by an investigative journalist "Avalok Langer". He falls in love with a Naga Girl, Azo and follows her to Nagaland. Avalok’s love life doesn't fructify, but his love for North East does and it shines through very clearly in the book. The book captures the root causes of the dissension in North East via multiple interviews with the underground's / rebels. It dwells in great details and lays out the entire ...
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Waiting by Ha Jin

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A few of us picked up the book "Waiting" and read it together. It was a great experience, as the reading was followed by an animated discussion with polarized viewpoints. I have listed few of the remarks from the discussion:  1. Glad that I was forced to read this book, would have never picked it up myself 2. Gave me lots of societal and cultural inputs on China. I liked the diversity it brought to my reading palette 3. Loved the book, especially from a writing standpoint : Very fluid and richly developed characters 4. I could identify with the central character Lin : Sometimes, I find myself living my life in a limbo So, before I head deep into it, a small summary of the book : This is the story of Lin Kong, for 17 years this army doctor has been in love with a clever and a modern woman Manna Wu. She works with him as a nurse, in the army hospital, in a large city in China. Back home in the village, Lin has a wife Shuyu and a daughter. Every summer Lin goes back to divorce h...
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The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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I have never read a psychological thriller, so why now? The slow paced life during Covid-19 made me pick up this genre, and within the genre "The Silent Patient" caught my attention as Good Reads Choice Awards - Best Debut Novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, strong plot, tightly packed story...enough to keep it interesting.  The book is a domestic tragedy. The main character Alicia  Berenson  is an artist living with her husband Gabriel  in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. Her seemingly perfect life comes to an halt, when one night she shoots her husband. Post that she never speaks again and after being convicted lives at the Grove,  a secure forensic unit in North London. .  In comes Theo, a  criminal psychotherapist who joins Grove with the sole aim of working with Alicia. The way the author has built the relationship between Theo and Alicia in slow steps, is the soul of the book. As a reade...
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The Taj Mahal Trilogy by Indu Sundaresan

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I was excited to pick up Indu Sundaresan’s The Taj mahal Trilogy, as the Mughal Era has always been captivating for me, historically and architecturally. One of my uncle’s stayed in Agra, so I got to see Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and Fatehpur Sikri very early on in life.   The author introduces us to many main characters that have been obscure in their mention in most of the fictional and non-fictional accounts of this era. It’s a very well researched series and the overriding theme across the three books is the substantial role that the women of the Zenana (women’s wing) played in ruling Hindustan.   The first two books, trace the story of Mehrunissa, born to a Persian nobleman, growing up in the times of Akbar ruling India. She falls in love with Salim (later emperor Jehangir) at the age of 8 and finally marries him at the age of 34 to become his  “Twentieth Wife”.  The next book  “Feast of Roses”  follows the journey of Mehrunissa, rena...
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