Fall on your knees

By Ann-Marie Mac Donald

My quest for extraordinary fiction took me to this nook. Ah that rhymes.

My quest for a book
Took me to this curious nook
I took a long look
And it got me hooked, booked and cooked.

Certainly, Ann-Marie is a poetess. Not ‘crude but compelling’ like mine above. Pure and simple poem.

While 75% through the book, you wont know what’s going on, just to go on reading this extraordinary book is a pleasure.
It’s a strange book, definitely. And there are stranger people in it. It’s about the Piper sisters, but you need to check out the family tree to figure out if they are really sisters.

There is Frances, daring and out of this world, there is Materia – poor Materia, there is Mercedes and there is Lily. And then there is Kathleen and Rose and an extraordinary love story, quite unforgettable. Of course there is James, lurking in the back, always.

The book is a bit magical and it’s a bit sad – but it’s worth reading and owning.

Mc Donald seems to outdo herself with some of her prose and the romance. After 75% its worth the wait to read the extraordinary last part and the way in which it is written. Lovely.

I am not into mush and romance, but to look beyond the romance and see the play of words to bring out a point – extraordinary. Mac Donald is an extraordinary writer.

A peek:

I was a ghost until I touched you. Never swallowed mortal food until I tasted you, never understood the spoken word until I found your tongue. I have been a sleep-walker, sad somnambula, hands outstretched to strike the solid thing that could awaken me to life at last. I’ve missed you all my life.

Took me long to part with it.

Please Read. I would again.

Random House Review

Don't ask any old bloke for directions

By P.G Tenzing

I always thought while growing up, that if I were a boy I would be like Che Guevara –take a bike, do odd jobs and go! I love the outdoors and don’t mind being alone.


When I read this book, I felt like someone just lived my life in front of my eyes. A slight regret but felt good that someone thought just like me

PG Tenzing is from Sikkim, like me. And I saw his father in my dreams last night! No don’t get any ideas, his father was my neighbour. That’s how I remembered that I have not written this review, although I had liked the book.

The first 2 chapters are not good. For someone like me who usually judges a book by its first few pages, it was a surprise that I carried on. The problem with the first few here is the patchiness of the plot. Its like Quentin Tarantino Movie, you don’t know what’s happening in the beginning. Just patches. Pulp fiction.

Then of course any adventure which you didn’t take (but you wish you had) grows on to you. Only when his bottom hurts by sitting a lot on the bike, that you feel good that you didn’t take the ride. But otherwise chances are this book can make you laugh, cry and relate. Esp. if you have stayed in South India and if you are not too old.

Take a ride with PG Tenzing as he quits his job as an IAS officer and takes a Bullet around India, just for the fun of it! The joy is in his experiences, the people he meets and the background of normality. You wish you had done it, but hey, sometimes second hand experience is also a good thing.

READ it!

A Stone for Danny Fisher

By Harold Robbins

Every so often I listen to others. When I was younger I had formed a perception of Harold Robbins. The perception that emanated in my mind was another Hugh Hefner. Playboy and not my type. Could he possibly write? I did not even bother to find out.

A friend of mine asked me recently if I have read Harold Robbins. Chill down my spine, did he think I was one of those who read that kind of book? I just said an abrupt ‘no’ and turned the other way. This friend of mine enjoys reading the regular way. If it’s a best seller, he has it in his hand already! Unlike me, who takes huge efforts at getting a novel unheard of, different and almost always from another epoch.

‘Well you must read one atleast’ , he said. And before I knew it ‘A stone for Danny Fisher’ was in my bag. I never leave a book unread, if they are at proximity – I feel it would be an insult to the person who wrote it. So I opened the book, and I won’t regret it ever.

Danny is so ordinary that he is almost extraordinary. Danny never gives up and more than anything else Danny is a great guy. But he is born at the wrong time. The novel is set at a time when the Great Depression had just been declared over and the after effects were beginning to show. The novel gives a picture of life as it were at that time. It doesn’t depress you though because its written marvelously.

Its about love, being victims of circumstances, being a child, being a parent and most important – the book is about life.

You will like Danny of course, and at the end of it probably you will want to get a stone for Danny Fisher.

Definitely read it.