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Short Book Review: Orlando by Virginia Woolf

SBR: Q: Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A: Me!
Holy cow! Orlando is supposed to be the most accessible work of Virginia Woolf. I guess I can’t read her. I suppose it was the fabled stream of consciousness writing that fried my brains. It’s not like I didn’t understand anything in the book. But getting through it was a torture. And I am fully aware that I am saying this of a celebrated writer and a celebrated book.

To read or not to read: I don’t know. I can’t judge or review this book. Listen to someone more qualified.

Short Book Review: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

SBR: I wanted to read a nice love story and since modern romance novels don’t seem to work for me, I ended up resorting to this 19th-century book at the recommendation of a friend. And North and South was a nice, entertaining read. What made it more interesting was that the love story meanders through the changes that industrial revolution was bringing about in the society. So you get a glimpse into the political and social effects of the changes. Although the descriptions and resolutions might be simplistic, that part of the book is valuable.

To read or not to read: Yes, if you like a feel-good love story.

Short Book Review: Watching Cambodia: Ten Paths to Enter the Cambodian Tangle by Serge Thion

SBR: This book was picked up, not surprisingly, during our trip to Cambodia last year and I read it soon after coming back. Don’t be fooled by the tourist friendly cleanliness and maintenance of Angkor Wat, modern Cambodia is a mess and how it became so is a sad and pathetic, almost unbelievable, story. If all you know about Cambodian politics is that Khmer Rouge were the bad guys, then you need to read more. This book, a collection of ten articles written over time, is a good way to get a peek into the how it came to be, what factors were at play, and how utterly incompetent everyone has been in fixing things. But it does need a basic understanding of the modern history of Indo-china and some of the pieces are very academic in nature because of which I had to give up on a couple of them.

To read or not to read: Not for the beginners. If you know something about the tumultuous modern History of Cambodia and are in a mood to go deeper, then you can pick up this book.

Short Book Review: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

SBR: The English Patient is another one of those award-winning books that didn’t work for me. The film of poetic, dreamy writing never allows you to penetrate into the characters. And since there was an Indian character in it, I could identify the non-authenticity of the skills and feelings ascribed to him. So I doubt that the author fared better with other characters. None of them have a distinct voice of their own. The reaction of the characters to the infamous world-war-concluding event, which brings about the climax of the book too, is so ex post facto. There was no way those characters could have realized so quickly what exactly had happened and what its aftermaths were.

To read or not to read: Not unless you are a lover of poetic writing for the heck of it, or you are on a mission to read all award-winning books.

Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Party on April 22, 2017 (Saturday)

RSVP on Meetup OR RSVP on Explara

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RSVP on Meetup OR RSVP on Explara

Have you read a book and are craving to chitchat about it with someone? Have a favorite book that you think everyone would love, if only they knew about it? Want to see what others are reading and have interesting conversations beyond weather, traffic, and real estate?

Then come to the BYOB party and talk away! Try to avoid a bestseller and if you have a copy, bring it along and read us a passage. All languages are welcome.

There will be refreshments and swags courtesy Worth A Read.

Venue: Pothi.com, #634 (Ground Floor), 5th Main, Indiranagar 2nd Stage, Bangalore – 560038

FAQs

So, what really happens at a BYOB Party?

Everyone brings a book and talks about it. Conversations follow and they are good. So are the refreshments!

You can take a look at what happened in some of our earlier parties here:

Do I have to be there for the entire duration of four hours?

We aren’t closing doors or locking you in. But the party is best enjoyed if you are there for the entire duration and listen to people talk about a variety of books. Trust us, you won’t know how time flew.

Do I have to bring anything?

Nothing really. But if you have a copy of the book you want to talk about, you might want to bring it in. Other attendees might want to have a look, or you might want to read a paragraph from it.

I am an author. Can I bring a book written by me?

A good writer should be a voracious reader. It would be preferable if you brought a book you really like written by someone else.

Who are the organizers?

Worth a Read

I have more questions. Who do I contact?

Shoot an e-mail to jayajha@instascribe.com.

Okay! I am ready to come. What do I do?

Join our meetup group, RSVP, and come over!

If you are not on meetup, you can also RSVP on Explara.

Gift a Book Day

Today is Gift a Book Day! Don’t forget to gift a book to someone special! Send us your photos and experience at giftabookday@gmail.com.

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Grief, Holmes and Randomness @ BYOB Party in December 2016 (Part 6)

A random set of readings in this blog post…

something-rich-and-strangeAmshuman read Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash, an esteemed author and poet and winner of many awards. His writing is evocative of the gloomy Virginia landscape and his short stories chronicling the grief of an illiterate state rife with meth- addiction assume a universal aspect. The landscape permeates the population of Rash’s stories and defines the nature of their lives. The grief Rash describes illuminates the soul, rather than bringing it down “It’s not the grief of a death in a Harry Potter novel, It is a beautiful sadness. Kind of like the sadness you feel when you watched the series True Detective,” Amshuman said.

A discussion ensued on the question of the necessity of grief in literature. Be it ‘Sadness’ as a crucial character in the movie ‘Inside Out’ or how grief can be plotted in an unappealing way as it seemed for Apurba when she read The Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri, grief is an essential component of the cathartic aspect of art and writing. Grief can also be featured in a graphic novel as is the case in the book Safe Area Goražde by Joe Zacco, which is an account of the Bosnian War. Another book that carries grief in a way that is not overbearing is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

sherlock-holmesSunny preferred to get away from the sadness of it all and spoke about The Complete Sherlock Holmes:All 56 Stories And 4 Novels by Arthur Conana Doyle. The novels in this collection are The Valley of Fear, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sign of Four and A Study in Scarlet. The 56 stories have been divided into five books: the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the Return of Sherlock Holmes, the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes and His Last Bow.

Everyone knows about Sherlock Holmes and his adventures. Sunny spoke about how Holmes managed to solve mysteries with his remarkable observational skills in spite of being a victim of addiction (can’t help comparing the idea of addiction as reason for grief in Ron Rash’s novel and the way addiction is not viewed as a hindrance by Doyle). It is simply impossible to judge Sherlock Holmes and the reader is left to let him be Holmes with his own ‘Holmish’ skills, inimitable and capable of making the whodunit aspect of Doyle’s work take a backseat. Conversation veered to who the better Sherlock Holmes was- Robert Downey Junior or Benedict Cumberbatch? Incidentally read this about the Cumberbach-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle connection.

fooled-by-randomnessAnurag spoke about a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called Fooled by Randomness, a standalone book from his Incerto series. The book talks about his favorite subjects-chance and human error, and demystifies the idea of luck. Success, for instance, is greatly over-rated, and patterns are often gleaned where there really none. Randomness, of course, leads you to think about what makes a Youtube video go viral. The book is a find if you are inclined towards understand economics in a day to day set-up. Anurag also mentioned how he benefited from the book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt.

More books in Part 7.

Princesses, Friendship and Democracy @ BYOB Party in December 2016 (Part 7)

The party ended with conversation about women in books, and democracy.

princessRenu spoke about a book called Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia. The story revolves around Sultana, a Saudi Arabian princess, who is immensely wealthy but is a prisoner in a gilded cage. The story has been told anonymously and recorded by Jean Sasson. For Renu, the trilogy is not as heart wrenching as A Thousand Splendid Suns but she still thinks that the book has great aspirations and talks about some very important issues like women’s rights. Where Sultana lives, young girls are forced to marry men five times their age and victims of unreasonable punishments. Baraa believes that while the discriminatory practices of Saudi Arabia are well-known, not all Arabic speaking nations are the same and Arabian history has been forgotten too easily. Anurag mentioned how the ideas that people have about anything, including women’s rights, is governed by the society we live in. In China, for instance, it is not surprising when women technicians come home to fix the air-conditioning. In India, this would still raise eyebrows.

my-brilliant-friendKeeping with the woman-inspired book series theme, I’ve been reading one of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, the first one of the series My Brilliant Friend.  The story is a translation and focuses on the friendship of two women spanning four books. It is hard for you not to order the subsequent parts of the series as the friendship between Elena Greco and Lila is absorbing, filled with the conflicts and rivalries of any close friendship. Simultaneously, Elena’s circle of friends reveal the socio-political milieu of Italy during the 1950s.

democracyAbhaya spoke about Democracy: A Very Short Introduction, a short account of democracy published by Oxford University Press. The book speaks about the origins of democracy from ancient Greece and Rome. While democracy entails the concept of liberty, there are no specific duties associated with it, except or jury duty in the US. So participation, which is a defining feature of democracy, is not an absolute necessity. Another contradiction is how in some situations human rights limit democratic claims. It is a good idea to understand democracy, Abhaya said and he quoted: “Man’s inclination to justice makes democracy possible, but it is our capacity for injustice that makes it necessary.”

And with that we wound up the BYOB Party. The next stop was the food.

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Balance, Altruism and the Bystander Effect @ BYOB Party in December 2016 (Part 4)

being-in-balanceBaraa spoke about a book called Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match Your Desires by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. The book is an inspirational one that offers nine principles to realign your thoughts so that you can achieve your goals. Baraa liked the way the author stressed on not even ‘being’. Just be, he says. The idea sounds very Buddhist, Jaya said.

Baraa emphasized how a language like English is far too dry to express the myriad emotions that languages like Arabic could express. This conversation on languages led to the understanding that language can influence the way people think.

the-price-of-altruismPratyush got a book called The Price of Altruism by Oren Harman. The book is steeped in the idea of Hamilton’s law of Kin selection. Is altruism or kindness part of evolution? Harman examines the lives of insect societies to understand altruism as it exists in other species. He then talks about the eccentric genius George Price who solves the mystery of altruism.  If you think that altruism is reserved for living things, you may want to read about Altruism and Robots here.

There was a counter-view that altruism does not exist at all. Adi spoke of the strange case of the Murder of Kitty Genovese and what is now known as Genovese syndrome or the bystander effect, where each witness of a crime assumes that someone else will take responsibility, thereby resulting in no one helping at all. Baraa found the idea of behavioral altruism dry but as Jaya pointed out science and morality rarely meet and though Genovese could have been helped, the fact remains that she was not and this was why such studies of behavioral altruism or the lack of it are so important. Studies prove that pointing to a specific person while asking for help is a better alternative to calling for help.

On a lighter note, the idea of diminished responsibility exists in corporate offices where each one thinks the other will do a task and also in politics when in a democracy shared responsibility leads more to negligence than shared action.

More books in Part 5.