...shoOOonya...

  Book: The Trembling Fist Author: Lance Manion No. of Pages: 184 Genre: Ault Humor, Fiction, Short Story Collection Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform   The author wrote to me describing his latest short story collection (this one is his 5 th ) as belonging to a adult humor genre. I don’t really remember reading anything like that so I chose to pick this one up.   The book has 69 very short stories spread across 180 pages with a very simple cover design – nothing remarkable about it. The first story itself is a pretty weird one. Written in a conversational style, it is as if the author is actually telling you the story face to face … and keeps commenting and deviating from the story-telling based on your expressions and comments/feedback. The story was action packed and anti-climactic. Interesting read. And also the longest story of the book. The rest of the book is packed wi...

  Book: A Cupful of Aha Author: Anandaa No. of Pages: 54 Genre: Fiction, Philosophical   Publisher: Become Shakespheare      An extremely interesting premise of a guy meeting death – who instead of being a moustached heavy-set guy on the bull … turns out to be beautiful lady; and the after-death experience, is not at all what the man expected it to be. The book is philosophical … about how people live their lives and how the things people give importance to, are pretty much meaningless. I liked the writing style of the author and the way the two characters were portrayed, the touch of humor and the discovery of the ultimate truth over a series of assumptions. It could have been a fantastic philosophical treatise … but it did not manage to reach there. It turned out to be pretty confused piece – frankly, at the end of the novella, I wasn’t quite sure what wa...

  Book: The Hunt for Kohinoor Author: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar No. of Pages: 402 Genre: Fiction, thriller Publisher: Westland Publishing     I had written last month in my review of the Taj Conspiracy that the author got my attention in the first few pages. She does it again in the Hunt for Kohinoor. It has an explosive start (literally) which makes you wonder what direction the novel will take. The novel has several aspects which hold the reader – the under-current of a daughter meeting her father who was considered dead for many years and on the other side the father has recovered from a partial memory loss. The father being held captive so that the daughter can do some spy-work ... something for which she is neither trained nor does she have the skills. The story is about love and friendship, loyalty and patriotism, action and adventure, India-Pak-Afghanistan-US political and military as well as spies. There...

  Book: White House Wit, Wisdom and Wisecracks - The Greatest Presidential Quotes Author: Phil Dampier & Ashley Walton Illustrator: Richard Jolley No. of Pages: 224 Genre: Humor, Fiction, Quotes Collection Publisher: Barzipan Publishing I was approached for reviewing a book earlier, SeaBEAN, and this was the second book that came from the same source. They shared a ‘press review copy’ <soft copy> of this non-fiction book which I accepted … expecting it to be just what the title said it would be – full of wit, humor and wisecracks. So … the book has the quotes by ALL the US Presidents till date; it is a collection of their witty one-liners, historic pronouncements, personal insights and philosophical musings. This alone might have made the book somewhat boring but the authors’ made some value-add. They gave a very brief history of the President and some key facts and peculiar thi...

  Book: The Prophecy of Trivine Author: Srivatsan Sridharan, Pulkit Gupta & Tnahsin Garg No. of Pages: 264 Genre: Fiction, Fantasy   Publisher: Good Times Books   One of the author’s, Tnahsin, approached me with the request for book review and looking at the fantasy theme of the book and the cover design, I said yes. The book arrived with a personalized note from the author on the first page along with the signatures of all 3 authors. Nice touch. This must be the most singularly unique cover design that I have seen in past year or so. Very attractive and pretty intriguing too Coming to the book, it has a very ‘preachy’ subject but the authors have spelt it out under the guise of a fantastic narrative involving alien race, teleportation, mind reading, supernatural, nature and 3 guys in a forest with an alien damsel and lots of flora and fauna. The basic plot of the story is fairly simple and the bo...

Book: Prisoner Jailor Prime Minister Author: Tabrik C No. of Pages: 323 Genre: Fiction Publisher: Hachette India   Its been some time since I got a book from the BlogAdda Book Review Program and when this one came up, I tool it up solely based on the title and book cover. An interesting title and a pretty deep-meaning cover of the book were the draw for me. I had ‘mistakenly’ assumed that this book might be the story of a guy who was a prisoner once and then later became a Jailor and went on to become the Prime minister of the country. The story line would have to be pretty interesting for that to happen. Hope you noticed the word ‘mistakenly’ – because the story is NOT about the prisoner-turned-jailor-turned-PM. Instead, what I got was a very powerful and intense narration of the life a whiz-kid who suffers from a mental condition. No, he is not mad or retarded. He is just a genius with an unstable mind. Only when you read the whole...

  Book: The Taj Conspiracy Author: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar No. of Pages: 402 Genre: Fiction, thriller Publisher: Westland Publishing    The title had seemed pretty interesting and the book blurb caught my attention and so I ordered it online. But that was 15 months ago. This had been lying in the ‘to-read’ pile but somehow never got picked up till now. A request to review another book by the same author reminded me of this and I also found that this book and the one published now are part of a trilogy. So before I read (and review) the second, I got to pick up the first. I had read the ‘conspiracy theory’ about the Taj Mahal being a Shiva Temple by the name Tejo Mahal and I am sure you might have read that too. Taking that one article and weaving a very good engaging story around it is what Manreet has accomplished. Few authors are able to captivate you in the first few pages of the boo...

The list of books and stories that I read in February 2014   1         Novella: Before the Fairytale - The Girl with No Name by Kay Iscah   2            Asimov Shorts: The Gentle Vultures by Isaac Asimov   3            Asimov Shorts: All the Troubles of the World by Isaac Asimov   4            Novella : Femme Fatale from Sirens Spell Danger by Suresh Chandrasekaran   5            Novella : Bella Dona from Sirens Spell Danger by Radha Sawana   6            Novella : Bellary from Sirens Spell Danger by Karthik L   7            Asimov Shorts: Spell My Name with an S by Isaac Asimov   8  ...