To Kill A Mockingbird

( Book Review)

Author – Harper Lee

Genre – Fiction, Bildungsroman, Southern Gothic

ISBN – 978-0-09-954948-2

No. of pages -309

About the Book

A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the eyes of 2 young and innocent children, Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humor the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is picked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

A classic written with so much expertise and liveliest sense of life that you want it to be a perpetual story. There are rare books that leave you with melancholy because it ended.

The novel pictures the viewpoint of a six-year old girl of a small town ‘Maycomb’ in the deep south of 1930s. The narrator, Scout, is a delight with an ironic view and innocence for things at the same time thus making the story more entertaining and enjoyable. I liked the idea of choosing the point of view of a child for the story. It helped for the readers to connect to the story more, as a child’s view for things is honest and straightforward.

Secondly, the story not just covers a single topic but a bunch of them. It’s a book with so many layers of meaning that you can get so much out of it. It talks about racism, discrimination, cruelty, growing up – all the topics with which one can connect. There is so much to learn from it and that’s why it’s a classic and the topper of the list of must read books. The book doesn’t give in to the belief that deep down, everyone’s good; There are bad people. But we must still persevere to see things from their perspective, and though we may not justify their ways, we must try to understand them; and if we can’t understand, we must try to be as kind to them as possible.

To read or not…

To kill a Mockingbird is a book that will interest readers who are into classics or love reading for pleasure. The language is very sophisticated which helps in enrichment of vocabulary but at the same time may also prevent readers from understanding and connecting with the novel. The story-line moves slowly but is surely a page turner.

The book requires mature thinking and understanding to comprehend the depths in the story. There are places with ironic comments and dialogues which might not be understood by some readers who are not mature enough to appreciate it. And therefore, the young readers may need a lot of explanations throughout the book to understand.

So, a wonderful book for sure in my view and one must give it a try.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
Atticus Finch, To kill a Mockingbird

Why Read at all?

When was the last time you picked a book to read? Any book. Because if you’re one of countless people who don’t read or doesn’t want to read, you might be missing out on so much.

So, this post is for all the people who don’t read or don’t feel the reason to read. Maybe I can make you shift your mind a little towards the thought of picking a book to give it a read. Maybe I can give you a reason. Maybe.

Why I bother? I don’t. But it’s just not fair on my part to enjoy my life which is better because of it and not share it with others so they also have better lives. I mean, what if people don’t know about that.

So, moving forward… Why READ at all?

I won’t be listing things like, for Building Vocabulary, Memory Improvement, Building Knowledge, Improvement in Writing and Speaking skills, Improved Focus and Concentration etc etc, as those are well known to all. (Also, I listed them still 😛 ). My focus mainly would be to point out what you are missing out on.

READING IS FUN. READING IS ENTERTAINMENT.

So, let me start with Movies (assuming you all have seen movies or see movies). There’s a story, a plot, a genre, a subject, a protagonist, an antagonist, a background (I think I pretty much listed all the main things). About books, most books have these things too. Then, why do you see a movie but don’t even consider reading?

Okay, I get it that a movie takes up 2-3 hrs and it may take forever to finish a book but that’s just one negative point. And is it enough reason to favor movies over books?

Before anything, find a person on this planet, who has ever read a book and saw a movie based on that same book, tell you that the movie was better or even close to the book. Now save yourself the time, you won’t find a single one.

What you read in a book is not just a Writer’s imagination, but that with a mix of your imagination. So much in the story depends on the picture you draw based on the description. And what is better than our own imaginations, our own versions?

What a movie can never do a book does. It doesn’t allow you to imagine, to explore, to live, to experience, to feel, to escape. But, a book, a Good book, does. It lets you be there in the story which a movie can just show you, you cannot be a part of it. So, you may be saving yourself some time but you are also loosing on so much.

BOOKS HELP US UNDERSTAND

What else? Going deeper into it I realized that a book really helps us Grow as a person. As you identify with another person, a protagonist in the story for example, you enter into a piece of life that you wouldn’t otherwise have known. You have emotions or circumstances that you wouldn’t have otherwise understood. It opens your mind to new possibilities in certain cases. The opposing worldview broadens your perspective, causes you to examine your beliefs and search for truth.

Also, as we know reading a book helps us to feel the emotions of the character even the pain thus helping you to understand different people and how can different things affect them. Eventually, this improves the ability to empathize with other people.

Now, if still I haven’t succeeded in changing your mind consider this…

You are stuck for hours at some place and your phone’s dead or there’s no network. You have a backpack with your essentials in it. Now you have nothing that you can do and you are bored obviously.

But let us say that you have a book with you in your bag. 😀

Well obviously as you have nothing else to do, you will take out your book and read.

READING TO PASS TIME

It saved you if not anything from the alone time. It saved you from getting bored. Books never betray you if you take them with you.

To me, there’s no person who can’t read if not literally. There’s a book out there for everyone, you have to just find it. So, if you are among those who just read a book and couldn’t finish it and thought that was it, thought that they are not among those who can read, that’s not it. It’s just that the book you chose was not for you. And to those who haven’t had any interests before in reading I hope I grew some in you and if not, well… there’s not much I can do about it but, yeah… there’s a book out there for you too.

So, to sum up, the only reason for not reading is that it takes time but once you are into it, it really doesn’t bother that much. And if you think otherwise, you are not wrong; You are with the Wrong Book.

***

THE SHINING

(BOOK REVIEW)

Author – Stephen King

Publisher – Hodder Paperbacks (2011)

Genre – Horror fiction, Gothic fiction, Psychological horror, Occult Fiction

ISBN – 978-1-444-72072-3

Number of pages – 512 (Paperback)

About the Book

Jack Torrance is a fine man. He loves his wife and his son Danny with all his heart but he is a product of an abusive father, and has a tendency to lash out when angry (and drunk)–even at those he loves. His violent outbursts cost him his teaching job, and almost cost him his marriage.

He takes a job at The Overlook, a hotel set high in the Colorado mountains, as a caretaker during the winter months while the hotel is closed, hoping the time of seclusion will help him and his family to reconnect and rebuild.

Danny is only five years old but in the words of old Mr. Hallorann he is a ‘shiner’, aglow with psychic voltage. When his father becomes caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Danny’s visions grow out of control.

As winter closes in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seems to develop a life of its own. It is meant to be empty.

So who is the lady in Room 217?

And who are the masked guests going up and down in the elevator?

And why do the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive?

And what is REDRUM?

Somewhere, somehow, there is an evil force in the hotel – and that too is beginning to SHINE…

Monsters are real, and Ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.
Stephen King

What I think…

Before anything… I wanted to include an excerpt from F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Rachel: Hmm. (she opens the freezer) Umm, why do you have a copy of The Shining in your freezer?

Joey: Oh, I was reading it last night, and I got scared, so.

Rachel: But ah, you’re safe from it if it’s in the freezer?

Joey: Well, safer. Y’know, I mean I never start reading The Shining, without making sure we’ve got plenty of room in the freezer, y’know.

Rachel: How often do you read it?

Joey: Haven’t you ever read the same book over and over again?

Rachel: Well, umm, I guess I read Little Women more than once. But I mean that’s a classic, what’s so great about The Shining?

Joey: The question should be Rach, what is not so great about The Shining. Okay? And the answer would be: nothing. All right? This is like the scariest book ever. I bet it’s way better than that classic of yours.

Joey’s view about the book pretty much sums it all up. But since it’s about my views, so, a classic horror by one of the bestselling writers in the world. Why I picked this one was just to know whether reading a horror story can give you the chills, since movies doesn’t scare me much and personally I give more importance to books. ‘The Shining’, considered as the scariest book ever, I went for it.

I got my answers when I read the book. You are not scared but you feel the fear. You quiver when there is even a slightest movement or sound when you are reading it. There were multiple times when that happened with me. But I enjoyed that too.

Stephen King takes you inside the minds of the characters, with his art of storytelling. You feel everything the characters go through, the fear, the tension, the panic, the relief – everything.

The story draws you in and it is impossible to put down. Threatening and unsettling yet you keep on reading. It possesses all the necessary frightening elements that will send shivers down the spine.

But it is not just a horror story and that’s the brilliance of it. The story is somewhere in between the supernatural and psychotic. It tells us that there is a Monster inside us and also an Angel and either of them can win. Often the Angel wins, in spite of all odds, which is another truth. Stephen King has thus made the story more realistic i.e. complex and thus difficult than making it simple. He could have made a competent story with a killer motivated to his crimes by supernatural forces but chose a killer that might be doing it because of personal grief and past experiences as well as the ghostly forces.

Basically, a must read novel for anyone but to those who scare easy, it’s just a story and not real, remember that and read...

To buy a copy click on the cover of the book above. ^_^

THE SILENT PATIENT

(BOOK REVIEW)

Author – Alex Michaelides

Publisher – The Orion Publishing Group

Genre – Fiction, Suspense, Psychological Thriller

ISBN – 978-1-4091-8163-7

Number of pages – 339 (Paperback)

About the book

The story moves around a woman named Alicia, a painter and a loving wife. But, late one evening, Alicia shoots her husband, Gabriel five times and never speaks another word.

The story is narrated by Theo Faber, a Forensic Psychotherapist who is obsessed with investigating Alicia’s crime and thinks he can successfully treat Alicia, make her speak, while all others have failed.

But…

Why did she go Silent?

And, if she spoke, would he want to hear the truth?

Does ‘ALCESTIS’, her last painting, has a deeper meaning to it?

And why did she kill her husband when she loved him truly and couldn’t even bear the thought of worrying him or causing him pain?

What I think…

First of all a Smart, Surprising and Intriguing novel. Brilliantly written.

The story starts with the line “Alicia Berenson was thirty-three year old when she killed her husband”, a straightforward writing with a twisty plot i.e. a Perfect Thriller. And well that is true. Amazingly written. A smooth suspense which has you in its grasp and does not let you go (I personally couldn’t get it out of my mind for a few days).

The story is beautifully designed discussing every detail and towards the end leaves you baffled. An epic ending. The language is easy-to-comprehend, so even if you are not into reading much or this is your first book, go for it.

A note to all the readers, the story will interest you from the start but it will move slowly as it discusses every detail and so you have to be a little patient. But once it catches its pace it becomes ‘unputdownable’ and you read it to the very last page.

“The Silent Patient” has received a lot of praise and hype since its release mainly because of its epic ending so you need to understand that its not important that it will interest you too. If you are new to this genre and expecting thrill or drama its a little less in action and has more psychological depth to it.

So, to sum it up, a must read for anyone in this genre. The novel is meticulous and provides you with enough information to keep you guessing but you never reach the right guess. And even if you guess the ending right (which i think you won’t be able to), you will not regret reading it.

Want to buy?

(Click below to buy a copy )

The Silent Patient

Only she knows what happened.
Only I can make her speak.
-Silent Patient

What if you could live multiple lives in one?

Who wouldn’t want to experience all that there is to feel in their lives without being hurt or affected in a bad way. The world of magic, fantasies, thrill, adventure and much more experiences that we can only live through our imagination. Reading takes us to experience, to feel all that we can think and even that which we can not.

When you read a certain story, you can feel everything that the characters in that story are feeling. if the story moves around a certain place, its not just them who are there, they also take you with them (or maybe in some cases you are ‘them’); if they are feeling something, you are too; if they are being chased, you are the one running; if they are about to solve some mystery, you are solving it with them ( maybe you solved it before them).

Books take you to places, that are even beyond this world sometimes. When I was reading the Harry Potter Series, I was there at Hogwarts. From the Sorting of the Houses, the dinner at The Great Hall, playing Quidditch to solving the mysteries and much more. I experienced everything.

When I read the Langdon Series of Dan Brown, I was there with Robert Langdon solving the cases. The anxiety he felt was experienced by me too. I was with him decoding the symbols (sometimes not, it was just him as I don’t know all the symbols, but i learnt from him).

A good book takes you with it to the places it goes to and makes you feel everything. You don’t read it, you LIVE IT.

So why not live a life with a chance of living so many more. Grab some books and live.