Book Clubbing

The idea of The DB Book Clubbing is to have actual reviews from real readers from online Blogs or book clubs.  One of our book review blogs is Life Wordsmith, a group of four young women who hail from India.  The question keeps on being asked, who are they?  They have nicknames, but we will tell you a bit about  these four intellectual, astute, passionate and perceptive readers.    They pick up any interesting book old or new.  Their reviews are honest, beautifully worded and  insightful.  Below we’ve highlighted a review by each with a few sentences about the reviewers at the end of each review.

ABOUT LIFEWORDSMITH – ITS ORIGIN.

SoulMuser started Lifewordsmith as a platform to place her thoughts on the books she read. But she just didn’t want to talk about the books she had already read, she wanted to KNOW more about the books that she hadn’t read. So in came Birdy, and then came Thoughts, and finally Wistful Vandy, all from India. Some day, the contributors may go through this blog and wonder, “hey, did I really read this one?” “Oh wow, that was such a lovely read.” To create memories through books, life needs a calling card. Lifewordsmith is one such card.

www.lifewordsmith.blogspot.com

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Mister Pip

Lloyd Jones

Enthralling. Evocative. Gripping. Shocking. Alluring. These and more are the adjectives I would use to describe Lloyd Jones’ coming-of-age novel, Mister Pip. There are not too many books to which I would apply such adjectives to, but from the beginning, this Commonwealth Prize-winning book kept me riveted.

Set against the backdrop of a bloody civil war in the beautifully-named Bougainville Island, Mister Pip is narrated by Matilda, a young girl of 14, whose life is changed forever by the war, the appearance of Mr Watts or Pop-Eye, the only white man on a black island, who becomes her teacher, and their reading of the Dickens classic, Great Expectations. Pip is the protagonist in Dickens’ novel, and he is a powerful presence in Jones’ novel too. Mr Watts reads aloud Great Expectations to his eager class. His reading of the novel causes a tense conflict between Matilda’s devil-fearing mother and Mr Watts’s own assertion of the devil’s non-existence.

What follows through the novel is bit complex for me to explain…

SoulMuser has always been a bit of a puzzle to herself. Writes a bit, travels a bit, and reads a lot more. She has taught English in China (and considering the present status of English in the country, you can see she was not very successful), dabbled in writing about cars, and is at present a weary writer masquerading as a research analyst in an investment firm. Her dream love has always been a book.

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A Thousand Country Roads

Robert James Waller

After 10 long years, Robert James Waller takes us back to Bridges — and it’s worth the trip. — Time Magazine, April 22, 2002

Once more,
for the peregrines,
the strangers,
last cowboys.

And for all the readers
who asked about
the rest of the story.

In all, a book of endings.

That’s how Waller introduces this book, which is an epilogue to his widely acclaimed The Bridges of Madison County, a passionate, and almost ethereal love story between Robert Kincaid, an unconventionally brilliant photographer, a rare human being, afflicted by wanderlust, and Francesca Johnson, a farmer’s wife, in quest for something beyond her predictable, comfortable but staid life.

A note of caution to the reader. This book is best read, and appreciated, subsequent to reading The Bridges of Madison County. While The Bridges… is beautifully woven around the lives of the two lovers and their brief encounter at Madison County, Iowa, that leaves both with a lifetime of memories and possibilities of probably ‘What could have been…’, the epilogue revolves more around the life of Kincaid and his lonely existence, with just a dog named Highway for company.

Wistful Vandy is an economist by profession but she truly comes alive in a classroom. She is best identified by her lost look or her ear-to-ear toothy grin. Hopelessly attracted to water bodies she is in her best element by the vast seas, meandering rivers, or gurgling brooks. A very reticent kid, she grew up on her grandparents’ collection of English classics and also a good share of 20th century regional Indian literature. Anything sweet on the palate whets her appetite, exotic perfumes are her weakness, and soul-stirring music her panacea. Amid the worldly cacophony, she aspires to discover her true self, someday.

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A Far Country

Daniel Mason

“Once, towards the end of winter, Isabel saw a little boy wandering on the dusty road above town. He was covered with long glass-like hair, and he chirped when she approached him. A week later, she fell sick.”

This is one of the passages that remained in my mind long after I finished reading “A Far Country” by Daniel Mason. Once in a while you come across a book, which you can’t put down because the writing is so breathtaking. This is one such. I was hooked as soon as I began reading Isabel’s story set in a village, “they would one day name Saint Michael in the Cane.” The village lives on agriculture particularly sugarcane and Isabel’s father is a cane cutter. She is closest to her brother Isaias who is gentle and protective. One day, Isaias goes away to the city and does not return and there begins Isabel’s quest for her brother.

A Far Country has two clear parts – the first set in the village and the second in the city. .. .

Birdy, is a writer/philosopher/good food lover living in Bangalore, India. She is a self-confessed chocolate junkie who loves her books and music. Travel and photography keep her insanity intact. She is perpetually wide-eyed at seeing life through the lens. She thinks that there is always time enough to stop and observe a crawling ladybug, watch a glorious sunset or simply have a cup of coffee with good conversation for company. For her life is not just a box of chocolates but much more.

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Twilight

Stephanie Meyer

Thank you Stephanie Meyer for reintroducing me to the art of reading. “Reading” the way it is meant to be, books should not be read it should devoured. Reading “Twilight” was like becoming a younger version of me. The version of me who – in the late afternoon after school when all the kids in the neighbourhood would be out playing, I would be looking for a good place to hide and finish reading a book. It is a wonderful feeling to be lost within a book, the kind of reading where you drop everything food, sleep etc, ignore the people around you and read, just read for the sheer joy of reading. That is what Stephanie Meyer’s first book in the Twilight Saga series did to me – I just could not put the book down.

Twilight does not convey a way of life nor a strong life changing or life affirming message which I usually find in some of the more serious books I have read. In fact Twilight is more like reading a Mills & Boons, the silent strong man falling in love with a fragile girl – except in Twilight you just need to replace the silent strong man with an incredibly strong and an incredibly beautiful vampire – Edward Cullen. And the fragile girl would be Bella Swan, a beautiful, uncoordinated (yes she is stumbling all the time) delicate 17 year old but with strong convictions and intuition.

The story follows the usual pattern of a typical love story – boy meets girl, boy hates girl – in this case obviously because she is his food; but eventually falls in love with that same girl. And the usual complications follow which tests their love for each other and how they come out the better from this experience.

Thoughts is an occasional writer, photographer, sports/exercise enthusiast and a traveler; but always always a passionate reader, a deep thinker and a wanderer (in the mind). She loves Bangalore, a city she has always lived in and where she currently works for a multi-national corporation. She also loves her rare solitude walks and silent evenings in this teeming city of close to 10 million people.

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