I have been in a “reading-block” sort of phase for quite a while now. But I did think of getting back to my blog with some recipes and stuff, but how funny – I am here to talk about a book!
I had no idea what I was getting into, when I agreed to read and review Sagarika Chakraborty’s “A Calendar too Crowded” but I must say now that I am moved, sad, happy and baffled (I am not sure this was possible!)
Charaborty’s book is a collection of stories “that represent the millions of female voices that seek to free from the clutches of injustice and oppression”(copied form the back cover). Every story talks about an issue faced in today’s world. While some brought tears to my eyes, others made me sit back and think. I started thinking about the kind of mom I was, while I was reading “Finding an ideal mother for my unborn child”. There is another story which talked about a woman who was a feminist, who believed that there was no requirement of a man in one’s life to be happy. She had a baby by artificial insemination. She was trying hard to be not like her mother. Will her child understand her views? Will she be able to comprehend the reasons why she has no father? And will, when she grows up, understand her mother’s views on love? Or like her mother, will she also try to be not like her mother?
The book is divided into months and all the days that are highlighted to create awareness about women issues, are mentioned there. Like January has 2 days(Jan22 – Anti- abortion day and Jan24 – National Day for the girl child) February has 3 days and so on. Does it really matter to have so many dates on a calendar? We have no time to think about it, much less do something about it. Does having these dates on a calendar help those women who are locked in a room with their hair cut off, and having virtually no one and nothing of their own, just because fate took her husband away? Today also some of the communities, doesn’t allow widows to take part in celebrations… why?
Another story has us look at a woman trying to understand the basis of caste, when choosing maids/servants of the house. I know that even today my Grandmother would not allow a lower caste woman to enter her kitchen. There was a time when she did not allow them in the house, but that has at least changed, exchanged by the need to purify the house after someone from a lower class visits us. Does it really matter? We woman, living in the city do have a lot of privileges, we are “lucky” to be born in this era which has started to accept us. Why do we need to be lucky? Why can’t the girls born in little villages be lucky as well?
There is a need of something to be done to end these practices, something that will make every child lucky to be born in these times. Everyone has a right to live a beautiful life with the people who love them.
Thanks to Blogadda team for sending me my review copy.

I hope you all have a fantastic New Year ahead

God bless

One thing I am doing is cooking. It is like I have found a new found love for cooking. And these past few months I have tried recipes, some of which have turned out awesome and some sheer failures.

I am very keen on sharing them with you all and get back to blogging as well.  I think till I get back to reading, I can share with you my culinary experiences and the verdict of my poor victims

I think I have a plan and I hope you will try these as well as they are very easy and quick recipes because I cook around Aarya who wrecks a havoc when I cook

Hope all is well with you all and I will visit your blogs soon, and I hope I can revamp my blog as well

And I also recieved…

which is turning out be a laugh-out-loud-funny read
Synopsis:

Arranged marriages are complicated things.

So are relationships.

And so are mothers.

Kasturi Shukla is a fresh MBA graduate with a great job in hand. She is also geeky and single at 24.The biggest sore spot in Kasturi’s life is her dominating, arranged marriage obsessed mother now hell bent on getting her daughter married off at the earliest.

Does Kasturi find love in one of the rather weird but IIT/IIM boys that Mum manages to shortlist? Or perhaps she can follow her wildly beating heart that seems to be set on the Greek God incarnate that her boss Rajeev Sir is? With office buddies Ananya and Varun by her side, the hilariously fumbling Kasturi embarks upon a rip roaring journey to find Mr. Right

The (In)Eligible Bachelors which chronicles Kasturi’s diary through this time, is a riotous adventure of adrenaline, laughter and guffaws

It is also an invaluable lesson in love, family and friendship.

This is a brand new meme hosted by Yvonne to display all those beautiful, funny, crazy and even those that make you think book covers you come across each week. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I love looking at different book covers. You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but they are sure fun to look at.

About the book:

It is 1936 and Kate Merritt, the middle child of Victor and Nadine, works hard to keep her family together. Her father slowly slips into alcoholism and his business suffers during the Great Depression. As her mother tries to come to grips with their situation and her sisters seem to remain blissfully oblivious to it, it is Kate who must shoulder the emotional load. Who could imagine that a dirty, abandoned little girl named Lorena Birdsong would be just what the Merritts need?

In this richly textured novel, award-winning author Ann H. Gabhart reveals the power of true love, the freedom of forgiveness, and the strength to persevere through troubled times. Multidimensional characters face real and trenchant problems while maintaining their family bonds, all against the backdrop of a sultry Kentucky summer. Readers will be drawn into the story and find themselves lingering there long after they’ve finished the book.

Isn’t this cover very beautiful? Love it.

I am just in a review-writing block and am not able to write a review even if I have a couple of reviews to write. I hope I will get over it soon.

A sudden rush of rain and sometime later the winter sun, just warm enough.. I am totally loving this season here in Mumbai

Synopsis:

A haunting new tale in the Past Midnight series…

I can’t move forward with my life until I know my demons are confined to the past…

Being Charlotte Silver, the daughter of famous paranormal investigators, means my life isn’t like that of other teenage girls. Especially after what happened to my parents. Things changed. I missed prom and deferred my big college plans. But I still have my boyfriend, Noah. He’s everything I could want—if I can figure out what’s up with him. Suddenly Noah is secretive.

I fear it has something to do with what happened to us three months ago. The bruise Noah suffered during a paranormal attack has never completely faded. Now I’ve learned Noah is researching demons. And when he disappears, it’s up to me to find him—before something else does.

I really like the 1st 2 books Past Midnight(my review) and One Hundred Candles(my review) in this series. There are 2 other novellas – one prequel to One Hundred Candles and the other one prequel to the last book – but I have not read them yet. But not reading the novellas in between did not take away anything for me. It was a great and satisfying end to a very good paranormal series.
In this one, Charlotte is trying very hard to lead a normal life after what happened to her family, after the Watcher decided to punish them all. Her mom is in a long term facility center in a vegetative state and her Dad spends almost all his time with her. He is lost interest in anything that was once an important way of life – and Charlotte knows that it is all her fault. When medical bills from the hospital mount, Charlotte decides to help Shane ( who is the part of there team and like a family member) to get some footage from an old prison so that they can complete a DVD that they had promised to do and get some money in the process. What starts as a harmless little video coverage, turns out to be something really grave and dangerous as the Watcher somehow finds a way back into Charlotte’s and her family’s life and this time it is the love of her life, whose life is at stake including everyone of her loved ones.

I really liked this book. I loved the way Mara made sure Charlotte learned from her mistakes in the last book. I do not know what to say about this one because I seldom find the right words when I love a book so much. Charlotte is a person, I am sure you will identify with. She is strong, without knowing it. It is not just Charlotte, it is the whole list of people related to her that make this book so special. I knew somewhere in the middle who the watcher would be this time, but this dd not spoil the end for me at all. But I was really really scared for Noah, Michael and Bliss. Surprisingly I was not scared for Charlotte, I oddly believed in her – trusted her.

“Trust is a choice we make. And you can’t trust everyone”, she said. “But you can always trust your family.”
-pg. 135 from e-Galley of “Beyond the Grave”

We choose what we leave behind. For some, it is anger and grief and a hurt so deep it echoes for centuries. For others, it is joy and wonder and gratitude.
- pg. 253 from e-Galley of “Beyond the Grave”.

I hope you do read this series, if like me you enjoy a little dose of paranormal here and there. Thanks to Netgalley for my copy of this eBook.

This is a brand new meme hosted by Yvonne to display all those beautiful, funny, crazy and even those that make you think book covers you come across each week. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I love looking at different book covers. You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but they are sure fun to look at.

About the book:

This alluring novel of friendship, love, and cuisine brings the best-selling author of Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light to one of the great Chinese subjects: food. As in her previous novels, Mones’s captivating story also brings into focus a changing China — this time the hidden world of high culinary culture.

When Maggie McElroy, a widowed American food writer, learns of a Chinese paternity claim against her late husband’s estate, she has to go immediately to Beijing. She asks her magazine for time off, but her editor counters with an assignment: to profile the rising culinary star Sam Liang.

In China Maggie unties the knots of her husband’s past, finding out more than she expected about him and about herself. With Sam as her guide, she is also drawn deep into a world of food rooted in centuries of history and philosophy. To her surprise she begins to be transformed by the cuisine, by Sam’s family — a querulous but loving pack of cooks and diners — and most of all by Sam himself. The Last Chinese Chef is the exhilarating story of a woman regaining her soul in the most unexpected of places.

Isn’t this cover very beautiful? Love it.

Now we are gearing up for another week of festivities at the end of Sept. and then Diwali ( the festival of lights ). I am sorry I could not take much pictures, but I am going to do that from now on.

Since my last update I read and loved Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite and Winters in Bloom by Lisa Tucker. I also read Johnny Angel by Danielle Steel. I also read and enjoyed Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris I am so glad I read the 1st 2 books, it was so good. I whole-heartedly recommend both the books.

This is yet another installment of Really Random Tuesdays hosted by a very beautiful blogger, Suko. Really Random Tuesday is a way to post odds and ends–announcements, musings, quotes, photos–any blogging and book-related things you can think of.

Every Tuesday, I be posting the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book I decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This meme is hosted by Diane from Bibliophile By the Sea, come join us and share what you are reading.

Today’s paragraph is from It Happened on a Train (Brixton Brothers) by Mac Barnett, Adam Rex

“It was Wednesday Evening, a.k.a trash night. Steve Brixton, seventh grader, formerly of the Brixton Brothers Detective Agency, plodded along his driveway, dragging a maroon bin behind him. The bin’s wheels rumbled and popped as they rolled over pebbles on the blacktop. This week the Brixton family’s bin was very full. The lid would not close tightly; it bonced up and down, making an irregular, slow clapping sound. And the trash was heavy – Steve could feel the can’s weight in his elbow, and he kept switching the arm  he used to drag it: right, then left, and back again.  He sighed.  This was a particularly difficult trash night, and that’s because the garbage tin contained fifty-one shiny, red-backed  books: a complete set of the Bailey Brothers Mysteries, a series of detective novels that until a week and a half ago had been Steve’s favorite books of all time.

Steve pulled the bin down off the curb. It hit the street hard, and it’s lid bounced back like a clam’s shell, revealing the can’s contents. Steve stood underneath a streetlamp. Its orange bulb flickered and hummed, even though the sun was just now setting and there was still plenty  of light in the sky.

What do you think would you read this? I think it is pretty funny (**ebook**)