...shoOOonya...

  Book: Marvels and Mysteries of Mahabharata Author: Abhijit Basu No. of Pages: 233 Genre: Mythological Exploration Publisher: Leadstart   First things first: The book is NOT the Mahabharata story told from a different perspective or angle. Heck, it is NOT even the Mahabharata story. This book is a well researched treatise ABOUT Mahabharata and its varied characters. The focus of the book is not the story but the characters. The author picks up several prominent and not-so-prominent characters from the epic and tells us things about the character which we have hitherto missed in the many versions of the story that we have read and seen. The authors tells us about the epic itself and its history – how it was written and re-written, enhanced and condensed and expanded over a period of time and how no one really can put a date when the Mahabharata was first started or finally completed. Don't ...

  So .. how to eat an elephant ?? Well … you probably know this one … "Bit by Bite" … "One piece at a time"   Twice, life gave me an opportunity to write (a novel) with some good help from co-authors but being a lazy bum that I was and the workload that increased with time and the creative black-outs I would face … it never happened. Excuses were always there … But this time it is different. I don't have to write a LOT to complete the novella. I just have to be there as part of the 'team' and support other team members while they write and of course write a few chapters myself. That sounds easy and seems like fun too. So that's what I have got myself into. BlogAdda.com has launched their latest blogging initiative #CelebrateBlogging  … The Game of Blogs is a community blogging story writing contest where teams of 9-10 members have been formed who have to write a story in a series of blog posts (...

  Book: Seventh Night Author: Iscah No. of Pages: 260 Genre: Fantasy, Fiction Publisher: Amoeba Ink   I have earlier read the novella ' The Girl with No Name ' - a very interesting and a very different kind of storytelling. I enjoyed and looked forward to this novel. Seventh Night turned out to be a simple tale of prince, princes, a sorceress, a cruel king of wizards and a whole wizard kingdom.   As with the novella, I liked the novel too. The simple story is woven around a nice set of characters who learn from life and each other. A little bit of suspense and a little bit of magic and a little bit of treachery. Its all mixed up nicely in the cauldron of fine, yet simple story telling. The simplicity of the story telling strikes you the most with the simple life lessons being expressed without preaching. Iscah has the knack of doing that. For me, 'Seventh Night' which is interesting t...

    Book: Private India Author: James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi No. of Pages: 470 Genre: Fiction, Thriller Publisher:   Arrow Books   Blogadda usually give 10-20 copies for book reviews to bloggers and there are times when the number of copies has shot up to 100 … 200 … and even 220 in one case. This time around, BlogAdda has come up a bumper offer of 250 copies for bloggers to read and review. The book that is up for grabs is "Private India" by James Patterson in collaboration with our very own Ashwin Sanghi. Although a very prominent author and a very famous one, I have actually never read a James Patterson book. So this one is a first for me. I have read 3 of Ashwin Sanghi books and have liked only one of them. Private India becomes the second book by Ashwin Sanghi and the first by James Patterson that I liked …   The book is good. It has the unique combination of the so-called usual Patterson style with Ashwin providi...

  My blog has been neglected in the past several months … First it was the workload that increased which reduced my reading time as well as blogging time. I did most of my reading while travelling and increasingly I found myself opening my laptop at the airport, in the cab etc to catch up on some work. This reduced my reading definitely and I started lagging behind on my 'reading schedule' and 'book review commitments'. With difficulty I was reading 2 books a month but then another thing happened. I was not able to write their reviews since every time I sat with my laptop, work took prominence and the book review simply got pushed down on priority. My dues apologies to the authors and publishers who have been waiting for their book reviews to appear on my blog I have as many as 8-10 book reviews pending and I am committed to post them – 'better late than never'.

The relationship with BlogAdda has been a long standing one. Started by joining the network by mere registration on the site and then discovering the book reviews club and then reviewing the books on regular basis and then becoming part of several blogger meets. Last weekend was in Goa for a Blogger Meet and this week was a very innovative and interesting marketing campaign around the launch of a new unheard and unseen product. The #WhatTheBlack campaign was a novel idea creating a run-up to the final product launch giving clues and hints making people guess what the final product was. It was conceived as a 4 day event with the first 3 days having clues (black objects which are traditionally white) delivered to our homes and the actual product on day 4. The name of the campaign was indeed the first clue - #WhatTheBlack – clearly pointed to a product which would be black in color. Black is often the color used to signify class, privilege, sleek...

A message from Harish (from BlogAdda) asked me to block my dates for 26-27 and i immedietely said yes (I have a long standing relationship with BlogAdda). But I kept wondering what kind of event they are planning. Finally the email with details arrived. 2 days in Goa to experience the new car - Zest - by Tata Motors. I looked forward to this with nervousness (i havent really driven a car in 20 years) ... but excited at the same time.   Jet airways check-in counter executive told me our seats were pre-booked so all of us bloggers were sitting together. A little bit of chat. A lit bit of fun (my neighbor had trouble with her seat belt) andfinally the journey ended with a THUD. Yeah, a loud thunderous THUD – That's how our flight landed in Goa. Probably, someone asked the pilot to 'drop' the passengers in Goa and he took that literally. After picking our luggage (my bag decided to not engage in rate race on the belt and came in at the fag end when most of...