And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's  "And Then There Were None" Is a suspensful murder mystery.The host U.N Owen invites 10 strangers to an isolated island who have committed murders in their lives but they can never be caught by the law as there is no proof of their crimes.

Eventually one person after other dies in the story and you don't know who is doing it. All people start suspecting each other and there is hate , suspicion confusion in each of their minds.

The story starts with introduction of these 10 people which doesn't  catch much attention but as the story unfolds you are bound to be at the edge of your seat till the very end.

If you are looking for a suspenseful murder mystery this is surely the book for you.

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This is a truly magnificent book.One of the very best stories I have ever read,it is so beautifully written.It takes place during the last thirty years of  history in Afghanistan, and deals with a family and their love for each other and for their country.

The book centers on two children: Amir, son of a prosperous Kabul businessman and Hassan son of his longtime servant. The two boys grow up together , constant companions despite their differences  and become very close friends. because of some ugly event their friendships breaks off.

Winds of change blew over Afghanistan because of which Amir and his father had to leave their homeland and settle in America in an Afghan community.Memories of their homeland keeps on haunting them one day after many years Amir gets a call from his homeland and a truth about his family is revealed.

A few statements from the book which got etched in my mind.

•     “Sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...”
•     “Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.”
•     "Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is   

               pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.” -- I am truly moved by this statement.

•     “It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.”
•     "There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood."
•      "For you, a thousand times over."

This a well written novel about error , courage , loyalty and forgiveness , a mix of all human emotions.I would definitely recommend  this book.

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The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I had picked up the Da Vinci Code few years back but left it in between,last week I decided to reread it again and I completed it this time.

The book is based on Christianity and its belief , it talks about a Holy Grail an alternative reality of Jesus Christ .The books starts with a murder of Louvre  museum curator "Jacques Saunière" in Paris, Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, along with granddaughter of Jacques Saunière, Sophie Neveu gets caught up in his murder investigation.Jacques Saunière leaves clues for his granddaughter to know reality about her family which she considered to be dead long back in an accident.

Eventually in this search she gets to know about lot of things like Secret societies, Templar kings and much more.

The day I started the book I couldn't wait to see the movie, hence I saw it  midst of reading the book.I found the book to be better as its very informative at many instances and the ending of book and movie are quite different .I just don't want to break its suspense here :)

Undoubtedly Dan Brown has done amazing jobs to his book "The Da Vinci Code". The story is powerful and magnificent. Mixing with a lot of traceable truth and facts, he made his novel sound extremely convincing and  entertaining.

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Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

I was given  this book by a friend of mine and it was the first Paulo Coelho book that I had read and enjoyed his writing style.

 The Book is about a girl Maria who was born in an ordinary family in a Brazilian village, dreamt of ‘prince charming’ since her childhood, fallen in love few times but always left broken hearted. After a long time, she came to the conclusion that ‘men brought only pain, frustration and suffering .

She accepts an offer to go to Switzerland, for she had dreams of finding fame and fortune. But she ends up in a night club and she chooses prostitution as her profession.

Maria finds the amount of time spent actually having sex is about eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes. Her world revolved around something that took eleven minutes.

The story gets its twist when she meets a renowned young painter, Ralf Hart, at an expensive coffee shop. She breaks the basic rule of her profession, “never fall in love”.

She finds hopelessly fallen in love. She believes freedom only exists when love is present. The person, who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly. And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free.
 

I wish to quote what he quoted as the preface of the book.

For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren and my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who gives birth and she
who never procreated I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father
I am the sister of my husband
And he is my rejected son
Always respect me For I am the shameful and the magnificent one

Hymn to Isis, third or fourth century BC, discovered in Nag Hammadi

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