The Story of being Under the Net

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch is a story about a struggling writer Jake Donaghue who, over a few weeks (the period this story is set in), attempts to set right his life. When one wants to go ahead, one needs to rectify the mistakes of the past. One needs to close loose ends, make…

The Story of Red – a colour, an emotion, and death

A murder mystery, a calmly wild game of cat and mouse, making you constantly guess who the killer is.  A story of love and betrayal, manipulations and jealousy, human nature tested at every twist of fate but most importantly, very real. And all this is set in a dreamy world of painters and storytellers of…

The Story of Human Bondage

In Of Human Bondage, William Somerset Maugham tells a story of a young man who spends his life trying to find his true calling. We traverse through his life in his own words, seeing it as he did, through the eyes of a young orphaned child living with his uncle who is a vicar and…

And thus she wrote…

After a long break of not writing, an opportunity presented itself to me this summer. A newsletter I follow and cherish, thealiporepost organised their own poetry writing event in the month of April where writers all over the world participate in what is called the National Poetry Writing Month or NAPOWRIMO for short. The idea…

The Long Absence

Have I been missing for over a year now? Yes. Have I been reading all this while? No. To cut a long story short, I have been busy growing a human. Yes. Most of 2019 has been a good year for me. Though an absolute disaster in terms of the reading I was meant to…

The Story of a Kite Runner

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a heart-wrenching story of two boys Amir and Hassan, set in the backdrop of a changing Afghanistan with the overthrow of their government and the growth of the Taliban Regime, and how their lives are permanently changed because of being born in such tumultuous times.

The Story of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a story of two workers who travel together in search of work, mostly farming, in the hinterlands of America. This is however not a story about their times or their hardships or the lives that they and millions of other lowly paid workers like them led. It…

The Story of the Song of Solomon

All human relationships come down to it. Would you save my life? Or Would you take it? Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is set in a time in America, when even though slavery was abolished, the coloured people led a life far from being free or fair. They didn’t get…

The Story of Alice and her Adventures

At first glance Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol, is a magical tale where a young girl Alice, bored out of her wits on a hot summer day, spots a rabbit talking to itself and carrying a pocket watch. Now there may be many a rabbit who can talk, but carrying a pocket watch,…

The Story of a Christmas Carol

There is only so much I can add to all that is written about Charles Dickens and his famous novel A Christmas Carol, a story that has apparently never been out of print since its first edition in the late 1800s. One can only aim of such success. So what is it that makes this novel…

The Story of a Moonstone

Moonstone, written in the early 19th century by Wilkie Collins is a detective story where instead of a detective solving the crime, it’s the readers who discover the thief through a series of narrations. A very interesting way to put it. And quite skillful too The plot starts with how the Moonstone comes into the…

The Story of a Hitchhiker and the Galaxy

… This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd…