The noisy debates were taken over by the lull of storytelling when Alok spoke about Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye. The central character of the book is a young girl called Pecola Breedlove. She is a young black American girl who dreams of blue eyes; the perfect trope to explore expected standards of beauty. The book is not a streamlined story but layered instead with flashbacks that hover over the African American identity. If you want to know more about the making of this story, listen to the Nobel Prize Winner speak about what compelled her to write about the least privileged and vulnerable. Click here.

Mugdha was fascinated by the Swedish writer, Jonas Jonasson, who wrote the book The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. The story begins in a nursing home where a hundred-year-old decides to escape, perhaps prompted to action by excessive vodka. His adventure takes him through many humorous moments but the story also delves into Allan Karlson’s past. His work as an explosives expert has taken him around the world. Like Forest Gump, he has met prominent leaders of the twentieth century and using his irreligious stoic attitude as a microphone, the author talks about the history in an impartial voice. The same voice punctuates another book that was discussed at the BYOB Party called The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden: A Novel.

More books in Part 4.