Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last. – Dr Samuel Johnson
80% of business books are articles padded with fluff to fill up 250+ pages. The fluff part is usually the beginning where the author has to give examples showing that his premise worked in his sample of companies. Then there is the good part which is the article, followed by more fluff that talks about how life would be better now that this book is in our hands. Continue reading Books I Read in 2019
One of the perks of being a Turkish speaker is (roughly every four years) a new Orhan Pamuk book is published and we get to read it immediately revelling in his unique style with a feeling of nostalgia. Continue reading Reading Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague
I love to read all sorts of reviews, blog posts, book club notes; watch films and TV series on books that get me thinking. But most fulfilling are well written fan fiction novels. Circe is a very successful representative of this sub-genre. Continue reading Circe, Madeline Miller
For an obsessive compulsive reader like myself, every year begins – among others – with a goal to read certain amount of books of certain genres. However during the year, this goal gets derailed by my impulsive reading of a flashy new novel or a non-fiction topic that I find attractive as I find myself pressing the download button on my Kindle. Continue reading Books I Read in 2018
As we reached the end, satisfied, having sated our (intellectual and culinary) hunger, I felt a little uneasy because the whole night we had been discussing India and Pakistan and on the next table were an expat couple (their timidity signaling a preliminary stage of their dating) one American born Indian (an ABCD) the other asian/oriental. If they end up reading this post I’d like to apologise to them, but they can rest assured that we had the best intentions in the world. And I do not mean it as in the proverb which seems to sum up one of the morals of Shalimar The Clown, “the road to hell is paved with the cobblestones of best intentions”. Continue reading Shalimar The Clown, Salman Rushdie
I discovered Midnight’s Children in a bookstore in Mumbai eight and a half years ago and was more than pleasantly surprised as soon as I began reading it on the train from Agra to Delhi. Back then, my knowledge of Rushdie was limited to the controversy after the fatwa and I must say I am quite angry with the whole cacophony that has shrouded the beauty of his writing. Continue reading Literature Meme, Midnight’s Children