The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Title:Namesake
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Paperback: 291 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; First edition (September 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0618485228
ISBN-13: 978-0618485222


Synopsis:
Ashoke and Ashima natives of Calcutta move to United States after their arranged marriage in India.Ashoke is a PhD student at MIT , soon after Ashima gives birth to a son .They are undecided about theirs child’s name , ultimately relying on a postal letter from Ashima’s  grandmother but letter is lost somewhere in transition, and they are forced to choose  a name for their son before his release from Hospital. Ashoke decides to name his son “Gogol” after Russian Author  Nikolai Gogol and in memory of a tragic train accident of his past.
The Novel revolves around the life of Ashoke , Ashima and their son Gogol .The cultural differences and the generation gap between parents and kids. Gogol’s struggle in search of his own identity and his embarrassment that surrounds his name. Ashima's loneliness in a new country and how she adjusts and make it home.
About the Author: Born in London to Bengali parents, Jhumpa Lahiri currently resides in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Her debut work of fiction, a collection of short stories entitled Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is currently a member of the U.S. President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Her novel The Namesake was also made into a 2007 film
My Thoughts on the Book: I picked up this on the thought that I would like reading it and was not least bit disappointed. Lahiri’s writing is poetic and descriptive she is able to very well describe the lives of Ashoke , Ashima and their family as Immigrants in USA although a bit slow at times.The book is also made into a movie which I had seen many years ago before reading it.I liked the movie as much I had liked the book. All in all the book is expectedly excellent and a must read.

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Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami

"Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits" by Laila Lalami provides a view on a different world. This book narrates the struggles of four Moroccans who attempt the 14-kilometer journey across the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain, to find better employment and better conditions for themselves and their families. I like the way Lalami structured her book, providing glimpses of each person's story both before and after the crossing.

The book opens with the treacherous journey and focuses on Faten, Noura, Halima and Aziz, then moves backwards to the events that brought them there The story follows their lives as they struggle to make their way in a strange land.

 A very short, easy read--definitely recommended!

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The Sculptress by Minette Walters

The Sculptress by Minette Walters  is surely one of the best a fascinating psychological crime thriller.It's been a while I read this book but I still remember that  I was unable to put it down It is so engrossing that I kept on  turning pages as to know what will happen next.

The book is about Olive Martin, a huge obese woman who was found with the dead bodies of her mother and younger sister, she pleaded guilty to murder at her trial. Journalist Rosalind Leigh accepts a commission to write a book about Olive, she finds herself wondering what lies behind all these facts that everyone knows. When Roz first visits her in prison, she finds that Olive is not quite what she expected. Roz is repeatedly warned - Olive lies about almost everything, then why did she confess so readily to two hideous murders? Roz may well wonder. The deeper she is drawn into the shadowy, disturbing world of the Sculptress, the more firmly she is convinced that Olive is hiding something 


One of the best mystery novels I've read.

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Swami and Friends by R.K. Narayan is simple to read book set in pre Independence days of India  in a fictional town Malgudi.The author's style of writing is simple , humorous and subtle still so real.

It took me back to my childhood memories of school where in little things used to look like huge problems.

The story narrates events in life of Swami and his friends Rajam and Mani  as how they became friends their mischief at school , strolling in hot afternoon sun , playing games, forming a cricket team and so on.

A must read book.

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The book is about black maids in  Jackson, MS in the early 1960s where the Civil Rights movement was getting  heated.Skeeter Phelan, is a young white woman just graduated from college and wishes to write. She wants to create a novel based on interviews with the black maids .No one wants to cooperate because it's an extremely dangerous task. Soon, Aibileen and Minny,  maids of Jackson, come together to help Skeeter with her project. It turns into something so much bigger than any of them expected.  
This book is one of my favorites and I recommend everyone read it as its  It's complex, deep, entertaining, funny, depressing,  inspirational and well written.Kathryn Stockett manages to make characters come to life with her descriptions.

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First of all I would like to thank the author for hosting a Giveaway on Goodreads and for sending me the advanced e reader copy.

The Fall by Ryan Quinn is story of three friends at University in Florence.
Haile wants to break free of her controlling mother and find out what she really wants from life and ability to make her own decisions. 
Ian is a film buff who is struggling with being comfortable with who he is and who he thinks others expect him to be, his father  is a leading football coach. Ian not only has dropped football, and moved away but has also taken up tennis.
Casey is a football jock who seems like the average guy with a girlfriend and who is studying medicine as a backup.


I would have liked for the characters to have had more of a connection. I didn't feel they interacted in a close enough way to justify their friendship and eventual relationship(Casey and Haile) .
Overall it's and easy read and probably you can give it a shot if you like the description.

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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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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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This book is about three women that arrive as first-year residents in the Embarcadero County Hospital and become roommates:Dr. Paige is arrested for murder, but she swore it was euthanasia.She inherits a million 
dollar from a diseased patient which was quite unbeliveable.Very unexpected an old enemy shows up in court and saves her. Dr. Kat had a traumatized childhood which made her vow never to let a man close again,but Paige persuades her to accept the challenge of a bet. Kat falls in love and wants to get married, but unfortunately her deceiving lover has deathly plans.Dr. Honey wants to make it in medicine, but because she doesn't have the brains, she uses other talents to reach her goals.


The eBook can be downloaded from following link.

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A few of my favorite quotes from the book: 


"I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough." 


"We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking."

I've uploaded the pdf version of this book here 
http://www.mediafire.com/?ague28elonbl9n5

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Keep The Change by Nirupama Subramanian is fun to read book about a girl Damayanthi
who is an accountant in a small town,eventually she joins a bank in Mumbai and how her life changes there after, from clothes to pay check to people around her.A journey from a simple life to corporate life in big city.

If you are looking for a light and fun read this is the book for you.

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