Ash Talks Books

As a young girl in 1988, I remember watching Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT) on video with a friend in her house in Chennai. Aamir Khan mesmerized us. We were schoolgirls in double pigtails. Life happened. I grew up. My tastes in men and heroes changed. Christina Daniels, the author of "I'll do it my way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan,” says in her epilogue, "On a cold dark night in a boarding school in Panchgani, a group of 12-year-old girls sat huddled under a dormitory bed. The year was 1988. A walkman was passed around, as the girls strained to listen to the song 'Papa Kehte Hain' from the film QSQT that had been released a couple of vacations ago. The name on all lips was Aamir Khan, the film's lead actor. The walkman soon found its way into the hands of the only teenager in the group completely oblivious to the QSQT frenzy that had gripped an entire generation. While the song played on, someone helpfully offered an accompanying line-by-li...

Hell, as seen in Dante's Inferno, is used as a literary device by authors time after time. The author Dan Brown even wrote 'Inferno', which he has now followed up with 'Origin.' 'Prisoner 521' is the story of a morbidly obese man's metaphorical journey through the nine circles of Dante's Hell. What makes this book different is that it talks about a morbidly obese man's relationship with food - gluttony - and how that contributes to his descent into hell. In M.A.Kos's book 'Prisoner 521', the writer details the life story of Jack, who weighs as much as 600 pounds at one point, with searing psychological insight into the way he thinks that makes you look deep within your soul at your own reactions to the morbidly obese. The first chapter 'Sin' was delightfully original and described the obese man's relationship with food. The last line of the chapter ' Your food, just like your family, can make or break you...

For those taken in by the headline, I haven't quit anything! That's just the name of the book I'm reviewing, which was written by Zarreen Khan, who has NOT quit her job either, She is "a mother, cook, maid, doctor and magician for her kids - a very demanding job! And when she gets time off, she works as a marketing consultant." Now, much like Nimisha, the protagonist in the book, who does some 'jasoosi', I looked up Zarreen Khan on Facebook, and I found out that two of my friends have clicked 'Like' on one of Zarreen's pictures. Other than that, I don't know Zarreen at all. Except through her writing. This is for the sake of being totally transparent with my readers. Now, for her book: Chapter one opens with a wedding in Goa. Interesting. Me likey.  Chapter two sees Nimisha, the protagonist, heading to her office.   Loved these opening lines, "Slavery is common in the corporate world. And having committed the s...

I bought on Kindle 'A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners' by Dr. A.V.Koshy. I've written poems without having done literature or studying poetry. I just love words and how they flow. So I have no idea how to write poems, but that doesn't stop me from reading, writing, and appreciating poems. The title of the book indicates it is for beginners, and I consider myself one, so here I'm the right target audience. This slim volume reproduced a series of Facebook posts by the author on poetry, complete with timestamps. I learned that those who have a sound grasp of punctuation, spelling, and grammar, also known as the nuts and bolts, or the mechanics of writing in any language, are better equipped to write poetry. There's hope for me, yet! Rhyme is an ornament of poetry. Types of rhyme include internal rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme, and ear rhyme. Rhyme Schemes cover ab ab, etc. Parallelism is a technique used in poetry. Incidentally( this is my 2 cent...

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 T...

I read Unladylike by the stand-up comedian Radhika Vaz sometime in 2016 and remember posting about it on my Facebook wall then. I went back to retrieve the post and saw that this is what I'd written: "Finished reading 'Unladylike' by Radhika Vaz. I think it's a must-read for wannabe Green Card holders coz she talks about the whole process right from writing her GRE to her teaching assistantship to studying in the US/ life in the US...I just felt like I was re-living my friends' lives all over again. In fact, she even took advertising like some of my friends did. So! I didn't get much out of the book coz it was almost like a how-to manual albeit her memoir, and not that funny! I follow her Facebook page and listen to her live chat occasionally. Today, she was addressing the 'sex addict' Harvey Weinstein. She said it was disgusting how sex addicts could be accepted in society while people with mental illnesses were treated like outcasts. ( Para...

I just came across  this  BRILLIANT website, in which writers have rewritten the first two passages of Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone  ( one of my favorite novels) by J.K.Rowling in the writing style of other famous authors over time. So, in essence, this passage has been rewritten to mimic the writing styles of Jane Austen, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner, and Dr. Seuss. My favorite versions were the Raymond Chandler version and the original J.K.Rowling one. I have never liked Jane Austen's works. There I said it! Found the books too stuffy, boring and tedious. I have not read anything by Raymond Chandler, but I think I now will. I actually watched the movie version of Pride and Prejudice( I think it starred Keira Knightley) and the Hinglish Bride and Prejudice but found the book pedantic. Okay, Okay, calm down. Don't throw rotten eggs at me yet. I've read Sound and the Fury by Faulkner and hated it. I know. I know. It's a literary masterpiec...