Shadow of Life

This is a feel-good book where you read and remember your joyful times. If not those, it will motivate you to get back up and feel the positive vibes inside and around you. Or so matters will take place despite how you attempt to redeem yourself or manipulate your actions as not everything works based on only your inputs other factors also play a major part. It isn’t easy to get on with life just yet but take baby steps and try “not to be too harsh on yourself” (I always emphasize on this because we judge ourselves more and don’t let go things easily; I tend to do this often and gradually trying to let go of this habit or tendency). The book consists of contemporary poetry and one-liner quotes with beautiful pictures throughout, which makes it very appealing. It covers many topics like magic, youth, love, daydreaming, bookworms, old age, heartbreak, loss of a loved one, etc. This is one of those books which I want to read when I’m feeling low or just want to read something good and h...

I started it thinking it will be a light read, but it was dark and creepy. I’m not saying I didn’t like it, rather was in a different zone after reading it at night around 1:30. As the title of the story suggests the book is all about the yellow wallpaper but in a different context. There is nothing directly given in the story, but when you read you get what is happening in simple terms. What made me wonder is the ending, I could not get through it, especially the last paragraph. So, then I started the story in reverse. The book talks about how women were treated in the Victorian era. You can easily see the glimpse of it now and then. The protagonist is suffering from mental illness, which as per her husband and brother isn’t something major. So, they treat her like that. They move to a new house and the protagonist doesn’t like the surrounding, and especially her room and that yellow wallpaper. Despite that, her husband keeps avoiding the thing by saying it’s just in her mind. So, s...

“How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?” If you would ask me to describe this book in one word, it would be descriptive. There are so many details that your mind will explode. It will be like you are getting to know the geography of a region without being present in that location. The tales of the past adds spice to the story. Prima facie the book revolves around the coastal area of India and Bangladesh, Sunderbans and dolphins, but there is more to it. It talks about human interactions, the people you meet in your line of work and how they make you feel, what you have to go through to follow your dreams, how some people feel themselves superior that they forget to treat people in the right manner and what environmentalists and social servants do might not be in the best interest of everyone every time. The story took off well, but I lost interest afte...

When I first started reading, I didn’t know much about genres and used to have a hard time understanding one. So, as I read more over the years, they started making sense to me. Though, there are sub-genres to genres which tread on a fine line (we will talk about them later) as it becomes difficult to categorise them. Classics fell in the same category and it used to confuse me a lot. I did google about its basic definition which goes like, “A classic is a book  accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy, for example through an imprimatur  such as being listed in a list of great books , or through a reader's personal opinion.” Well, it made sense to me when I first read it because any book can be exemplary as per the reader’s opinion. So, what makes it different? Then I planned to read one classic every month, last year, to not burden up my reading schedule but stay connected to classics. Now, picking a classic book is a task, because usually, your first book in any genre shoul...