Today I'm posting review of four books from varied genre: Fiction, History, Religion and Science. Somerset Maugham was one of the greatest story writers of the twentieth century, in the company of greats like Maupassant, Chekhov and Rudyard Kipling. He was hugely popular amongst reading public. And indisputably the richest from his writings. His short story ‘Rain’, allegedly, earned him one million dollars in his lifetime. Perhaps it was his enormous popularity, his unconventional lifestyle, his sardonic wit and his bone-chilling wry sense of humour- earning  him the reputation of being a cynic- which did not endear him to the high-brow critics of the day. He wrote many forms of fiction: short-story, novel and play. I think his art reached its apogee in ‘long-short-story’. I understand the term sounds like an oxymoron. But I do not know how else to label a story of ten to fifteen thousand words, that is too long to be called a short-story but not long enough to earn the titl...

*****/*****                                                                                                                Short Story Collected Short Stories Vol 2 W. Somerset Maugham ‘Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent but not a few, read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy.’ Thus, William Somerset Maugham summarised reading habits. E...

****/*****                                                                                                                                        Religion/Science Religion Explained-The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits & Ancestors Pascal Boyer Religion in some form is ubiquitous. Religious concepts across...

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*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                       Science The Tell-Tale Brain: Unlocking the Mystery of Human Nature VS Ramachandran VS Rama Chandran, a neuroscientist, attempts to unravel the mystery of human mind in this book. His methods of investigation are ‘low-tech’, as he emphasises in the preface. He is enamoured of Sherlock Holmes and follows his mystery-solving techniques in his cl...

Hi! I change track, literally! for a moment, to break the monotony. I am posting a few snaps and a short write-up on the Kailash-Mansarovar trek I did, years back. It was an out-of-world experience. Kailash-Mansarovar Trek

Hi again! Four books for your consideration today. Memoir, travel, science and novel are on the platter. Oliver Sacks' name is not new amongst lovers of science books. The second part of his autobiography (his childhood memoirs were published earlier as  Tungsten Uncle) On the Move   came out in 2015, the year he died. It is an exceedingly well written, unpretentious and forthright book. VS Naipaul's   An Area of Darkness,   the first book in his trilogy of books on India,   received mixed reactions on its publication. It boasts incisive, trenchant and thoughtful essays, all in Naipaul's bedazzling prose. Mind of God  by the theoretical physicist, Paul Davies in one of the best books on the origin of Universe, written in a lucid and elegant style, befitting the profound topics being discussed. A must read for fans of this genre. Few people would be aware that George Orwell wrote any thing other than  1984 & Animal Farm.  His first b...

****/*****                                                                                                                                       Autobiography On the Move: A Life Oliver Sacks Oliver Sacks was a neurophysician. He was a prolific writer. Through his many books, he popularized neurosciences in lay public. His boo...

****/*****                                                                                                                                                 Novel Burmese Days George Orwell There is no dearth of fiction on British Raj. George Orwell’s Burmese Days would prob...

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                                               Science The Mind of God-Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning Paul Davies Leisure has its drawbacks. It prods one to pro...

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                                         Travel An Area of Darkness V.S. Naipaul Books are my necessity. Today, for someone who reads English and is a slave of his book-reading habit, it is impossible not to have read V.S. Naipaul. But this has been my despi...

I am posting review of five books today. I read  A House for MrBiswas  by VS Naipaul recently. Graham Greene is one of my favorite novelists. I post my impressions of his novel   Honorary Consul . Bill Bryson is the funniest author I've read. I have chosen his travel book on UK,  Notes from a Small Island  this time. Human mind is infinitely baffling. Daniel Kahneman in his great book,  Thinking Fastand Slow , talks about the decision making apparatus of human mind.   Kon-Tiki  by Thor Heyerdahl is a thrilling story of his intrepid sea journey from Peru to Polynesia in a primitive raft, more than half a century back.

Books have been my constant companion, as far as I can see in the past. I dread being a cog in a crowd of known faces. The boisterous jolliness and the superficial conviviality of such a gathering suffocates me. I cannot partake in the camaraderie most people experience in a benign communal activity. What a contrast is the company of books. They speak only when spoken to. They take you to enchanting lands, opening up the world for you unobtrusively. They excite thought. They incite desire and sate it too. They give words to your emotions and feelings. They light up hitherto dark nooks and crannies of your mind. They come in all personalities; some are fat, some slim, some austere, others garish, some stoically introvert, others big show-off, some offensively blabbermouthed, others exasperatingly   reticent.  You can chuck them after shortest of contact, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid. You can clutch a dear one to your bosom for ages, it wouldn’t be conceited or vexed. I ...

I am posting reviews of 5 more books. But before these, 'Books and I' , my attempt to grapple with my obsession with books. Of Human Bondage   by Somerset Maugham is one of the great novels of twentieth century. I will implore every reader of these lines to read this book if they still haven't. The 'Greatest', the 'Best', lists are not the sources I scourge when I am thirsting for new books. It is not on one occasion that I have squirmed with distaste as I plodded through a widely acclaimed novel that featured in innumerable 'must read before you die' lists. I have often come across a book that warmed the cockles of my heart immeasurably but could not muster even lukewarm response from the high-brow critics. But I can say it honestly that  Of Human Bondage  deserves to be in every such list and it is. I consider myself the greatest fan of Somerset Maugham 'East of Suez', quite unabashedly. The kind reader who continues to find in this blog...

*** 1/2 /*****                                                                                                                                      Autobiography Lone Fox Dancing: My Autobiography Ruskin Bond Today Ruskin Bond amply qualifies for the epithet of ‘Grand old man of English writing by an Indian’. He has been writi...

****/*****                                                                                                                                                        Novel Of Human Bondage W Somerset Maugham I first read Of Human Bondage abo...