What I read in my pre-teens and teens

In class nine, when I was in West Bengal, I discovered the work of P.G Wodehouse. Loved stories of Jeeves and Wooster, Blandings Castle, and some of his standalone books. As I mentioned in another post, a friend from Sahaganj gave me 'Indiscretions of Archie', one of Wodehouse's less popular works.

I also read a few classics like 'Little Women' by Louisa May Alcott, 'Little Men', and 'Jo's Boys', and 'The Old Fashioned Girl' by the same author. I was a pre-teen then.

My teen years were filled primarily with bestsellers by Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Ken Follet, Erich Segal, Robin Cook, and Michael Crichton. Of course, as I mentioned in another post, Gone with the Wind at 14 dominated my life, as did Thornbirds later.

My friend in class 11 gave me a copy of 'The Firm' by John Grisham on my birthday and that led me to read most of his other books, too, like 'The client', 'The Runaway Jury' , 'A Time to Kill' etc. I loved reading 'Disclosure' by Michael Crichton in class 12 on the train journey to Delhi. 'Rising sun' by Crichton was my favorite and I recall discussing it with a friend at a dance! I was fascinated by the art of saving face in Japanese culture at the time, which the book covered at length.

I remember reading Sidney Sheldon's 'Nothing Lasts Forever' after reaching Delhi. I think there was a scene involving a crude attempted abortion, which scarred me. I also read Twelve Red Herrings by Jeffrey Archer on the same trip in 1995.

The aforementioned friend from school gave me 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho in class 12 for my birthday the following year, but I didn't find it life changing or anything. I did read a few of Coelho's books over the years.

I remember reading 'The man from St. Petersburg' by Ken Follet and 'The Third Twin' by the same author in my teens from libraries. I also read 'Pillars of the Earth.' and a few other of his books.

I read a couple of Arthur Hailey's bestsellers, too. 'Moneychangers', 'In High Places', and 'Hotel' were among them. 'Moneychangers' made me feel good about having taken up commerce in high school:)

I loved Erich Segal's 'Doctors' and 'The class'. Wasn't a huge fan of 'The Love story' and 'Oliver's Story.

Even my taste in movies reflected my taste in books at that time. I enjoyed legal and political thrillers.

Comments

Review of 'Magical Women'

I bought Magical Women by Hachette India on Kindle a few days back. It had been on my TBR for a long time. However, I hadn’t read up on what kind of a collection of stories the book would contain. People who like weird stories, horror, dystopia and sci-fi might enjoy this collection, which has been edited by Sukanya Venkatraghavan. It was published in 2019. The editor’s note states, “Each story in this collection is unique in its representation of what it means to be magical.” It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The book is well written, but some of the themes are a bit disturbing. The first story “ Gul” by Shreya Ila Anasuya has themes of lesbianism. The second story “ Gandaberunda” by S.V. Sujatha is violent and macabre. When I read the third story, ‘Rulebook for Creating a Universe’ by Tashan Mehta, I felt that although I was reading English, I was seeing Greek and Latin. It went totally above my head. I really enjoyed the fourth story ‘The Demon Hunter’s Dilemm...

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Normal People

I must say I loved this book from the very beginning. I liked the sparse writing style and how the author minimizes the use of quoted speech. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what would happen to them. Marianne shows us how an intelligent girl can go down a strange path due to family problems, which by the way, remains a shadowy backstory. Only her troubled relationship with her brother and mom is outlined. The relationship she had with her dad is up for conjecture, but the reader understands it was rather abnormal. Some readers might be put off by the kinky sex scenes in the book, but I looked upon it as a part of the story of a troubled character with self-esteem issues. It also highlights the lengths to which a person would go for love. Even as Marianne degrades herself in her own eyes, the reader doesn't judge her but only wants her to redeem herself and do better. Connor comes across as a decent human being after he finds himself. On the whole,...

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