Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Thoughts and books :).

Hello! After all these days, months (and may be almost a year), it occured to me that i haven't written anything here for a long, long time. So, this is just an attempt to dust the cob-webs. For starters, i discovered some really refreshing debut books, and i am clearly looking forward to reading more works from the authors of these books. Two of these books are short story collections, vignettes mostly from the everyday world around us and sometimes from a hypnotic and very surreal world of imagination. The third one is a debut novel, which i liked purely because it broke quite a few stereotypes associated with "desi-lit". You do have the beautifully ornate sari picture on the cover and you do have quite a few of the standard things associated with what lies beneath such ornate covers, what you also get is a refreshing story of an ordinary citizen trying to make sense o the world around him.

And here they are, three very interesting and gripping works :

If it is sweet by Mridula Koshy
`Etudes by Aseem Kaul
The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa

And then, besides my standard fix of Murakami and Abe, I have also enjoyed reading the works of Banana Yoshimoto. I recently read "Kitchen" and "Hardboiled and Hard Luck" and was impressed by how simple words can sometimes convey very powerful emotions.

What's on your reading list these days?

Oh, and meanwhile I also visited Boston, along with my dear friend MD, in late summer this year, lots of fun, as always :).
Besides doing a highly touristy thing like taking a duck tour, the other highlight was going to Brookline Booksmith, the best bookstore ever! Meeting my friends Ms. Doll and Ms. E. and just walking around in my old neighborhood , besides eating in our favorite places, awesome! You know what i mean :).