Book Review: Panic by Nick Stephenson: An FBI Expert Becomes Murder Suspect

 First to Review on Amazon India

An FBI Expert Becomes Murder Suspect

Panic: A Leopold Blake Thriller is written by Nick Stephenson in a very interesting manner that makes this murder mystery fiction a very engrossing read. Three top political leaders are murdered in a mysterious manner and the case goes to FBI expert Leopold Blake who has expertise in resolving such kind of complex cases. The cases which are of very high complexity and are thought to be very difficult to solve come to Leopold Blake last of all.

But while resolving this murder case there comes a situation when Leopold Blake appears to be one of the culprits.

Book Review: Sinful Folk by Ned Hayes: An Adventurous Journey Of A Nun Towards Self Discovery

 First to Review on Amazon India

An Adventurous Journey Of A Nun Towards Self Discovery

Sinful Folk written by Ned Hayes is a full of adventure story that will force you to think and introspect along with its main character Mear, who is a nun, and passes through a deep transition phase of her life. Story goes like this - fire breaks into a house in which accidentally in a tragic manner four childer get churned to death. Villagers decide to travel to England in demand of justice. Mear is part of this group of villagers and on her way to England she passes through a self discovery process and reaches to a high level of victory. 

Book Micro Review: No Ordinary Heroes: A Must Read For Everyone To Experience Real Life Crisis

 First to Review on Amazon India

A Must Read For Everyone To Experience Real Life Crisis

No Ordinary Heroes: 8 Doctors, 30 Nurses, 7000 Prisoners, and a Category 5 Hurricane was released by Citadel and written by Diana G. Gallagher and Demaree Inglese during mid 2008. It is a kindle book with 337 pages but each page is a heartthrob. The story is based on a real life incident that happened in 2005, August. Demaree Inglese, who was medical head of the jail in New Orleans, was one of the residents of New Orleans and was about to face about to come Hurricane Katrina.

Like everybody else, Inglese also took it quite lightly thinking that it would not be of high gravity and shall pass in a normal manner. But everyone was proved wrong in next few days.

A must read for everyone to experience real life crisis.

Live Coverage: Penguin Annual Lecture By Amitabh Bachchan On 29th Nov 2013

I cannot compare my post with this one that has been written so well with audio and video coverage. :)

It was a privilege to attend an event with Amitabh Bachchan as a part of the event. Amazing were the moments when I got an invite from Penguin group to attend Annual Lecture event for which the lecture was to be delivered by none other than the great Amitabh Bachchan. It was organized at Thyagraj Stadium. The event had to start at 8 pm, and was scheduled finish was 9.30 pm.

Entries were to be closed at 7.30 pm and it was a fight to reach at the venue, driving there for the first time and not knowing the exact location. As usual, few guys responded by giving wrong direction when asked them for it, probably they felt proud in telling any direction even if they didn't know the exact location. Anyhow reached at the location in time after facing all kind of wrong direction, heavy traffic and parking issues. Finally was inside to witness a great personality and to drink his words in real, for the first time, and that too, along with my family.

His words are magical. He himself is a calm ocean with huge amount of intellectual gems in himself. I am sure when he started speaking, each of his word was absorbed by each of the audience in the hall. His flawless, clear and weighty lecture was about himself, his films, his father, his father's work, his family, his father's work and his social goals. He emphasized on girl child education and freedom towards choosing her career/ future.

It was amazing to witness Amitabh Bachchan, his lecture, and his discussion hosted by another great journalist Rajdeep Sardesai - Editor-in-chief of IBN18 Network.

Book Review: Chained - Can You Escape Fate: Mehek Bassi

Chained Can You Escape Fate? is a composite of two extremities of human - life and death - life comes in the form of love, where we find 3 love stories in this debut entry by Mehek Bassi. Death comes in the form of 4 murders. The story is about Shiya and Arjun, and Shiya's family members. Shiya belongs to a rich family with her father being a successful and always busy businessman. Her mother is equally busy in her parties and social meetings.

Shiya desires to become an establishes singer when she begins her college life but finds herself very lonely in her family. She gets attracted to Arjun and starts loving him. The book has a lot of questions arising from time to time as you go through it and gradually there would be astonishing answers to those questions.

Overall an interesting read.

Prelude: Ajaya: Anand Neelakantan: Releasing Dec 1, 2013

Ajaya: Epic of Kaurava Clan – Book 1 – Roll of Dice is the recent completed fiction by Anand Neelakantan. It is based on the most popular Indian Mythological Epic Mahabharata. It is scheduled to be released on December 1, 2013. A year before Anand had come out with his debut magical fiction based on another most popular Indian mythological epic Ramayana. The basic factor that differentiates both these books from a lot of other work already published on both these Indian Mythological epics – Mahabharata and Ramayana is that Anand has done a lot of reaserch on both the subjects before writing his work.

Another big differerence that both these books carry from other work done on Ramayana and Mahabharata is that Anand (probably it is happenign for the first time) has dared to take the main villain or anti-hero who got defeated from the two respective heroes. Ravana in Ramanyana was killed by Rama at the end of 10 days war between the armies of the two – the king of Lanka and the king of Ayodhaya. So in his first book titled as Asura – Tale of theVanquished – the Story of Ravana and his People by Anand Neelakantan has taken Ravana as a lead and for the first time, Ramayana, has been retold in context of Ravana, as per Ravana’s perspective.

The same has happened in the second book Ajaya: Epic of Kaurava Clan – Book 1 – Roll of Dice by Anand. Duryodhana, the most cruel, wicked and eldest of Kauravas has been taken in the lead and the retelleing of Mahabharata has happened in this book as per his perspective. It is going to be as engrossing and interesting read as Anand’s first book.

Anand Neelakantan’s First Book celebrating its first Anniversary

Read more: http://relijournal.com/hinduism/prelude-of-ajaya-by-anand-neelakantan-2/#ixzz2ksklOLdh

Book Review: Tall Man Small Shadow: A Game of Coincidences

Tall Man Small Shadow written by Vipin Behari Goyal is a debut novel from the writer but not his first published work. Prior to this he has two good books to his credit. He has written a useful travel handbook on "TirthRaj Pushkar" which is about a holy place in Ajmer district in Rajasthan, India. After that Vipin wrote a poetry book in Hindi Tej Dhoop Ka Safar. And now his third work is a love story woven in a very different style in fiction genre. Vipin has also an award winning short film Mines are Mineto his credits.

The cover of Tall Man Small Shadow is quite neat and matches well with the theme of story. A tall male straight standing shadow in black with a small shadow of a female standing with a style. Best part of this  book is multi-narrative style. Each character narrates his/ her own experience as the story goes along. The main characters of this story are Aalya and Salil who are young living in neighborhood. Aalya is the only daughter of Anupam and Sulekha. Aalya is doing her research under her guide Seema. Salil lives alone in the same vicinity where Aalya lives with her parents. Characterization is quite strongly done by Vipin.

Salil in his college days fell in love with Nasrin who was the most beautiful girl in the college. Salil is quite serious, introvert and studious kind of guy. This love, being inter caste is not well taken by Nasrin's parents and she is forced to marry with her cousin by her parents. This gives a jolt of his life to Salil who goes into deep depression and tries to attempt suicide by taking overdose of sleeping pills. But he survives due to timely medical attention. Though he could not comes back to normal even after his survival, but his life goes on as he joins a job after that.

Aalya's mother Sulekha is quite active on social networks and uses internet to connect to people of her choice to drive the story of Tall Man Small Shadow. Sulekha's husband Anupam is having a good hold in society, bearing a good amount of influence of top brass of the city. Seema's husband Paul is a well known figure in the world of Arts being a Drama writer and director. Paul and Seema, though are married for long, are childless and have some differences between them, and appear a good couple to external world around them. Aalya gets attracted to Salil and they get married with the blessings of both their parent's consent and blessings.

The story has a number of twists that keep interest alive throughout. Eventually story has two strong factors that keep it alive right since beginning till end. First is the narrative style of writing by Vipin where each character has his own chance to narrate story in its own voice. Second is the number of twists woven in the story that keeps it alive and interesting throughout.

Regarding 'characterization' of the characters of this story, there was no need to show some characters, and that too the main ones, as shabby by highlighting their dark side. 'Character' of a character of a story or a novel  totally depends on the writer of that story as he is the sole creator of them. In my opinion there was no need to show Seema and Aalya as lesbians and even at some moment of time in the story, Aalya's mother, Sulekha, vetting for it. The story would have gone well in the same manner, even without this part. At some moment of time reader might get hurt by the 'looseness' of Salil (when he has sex with Nasreen after she getting married to someone else), Aalya falling pray to Seema's pull due to being lesbian, Seema herself being so successful in her carrier and being lesbian etc.

Overall Tall Man Small Shadow is an interesting read. The last twist in the story is a Pandora box for the readers of this book.