Death in Venice by Thomas Mann My Rating: 5 of 5 stars As long as we breathe, we live. We do not possess the power to embrace death at will. So, we live. And for living, we cling to a purpose. The purpose may be clear or clouded, animate or inanimate, expressed or hidden, stable … More Book Review: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (1912)
Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli My Rating: 3 of 5 stars Like Valeria, I stare at the faces in the crowd; the crowd of short paragraphs hurrying across the surface of this book, intermingling with the innate desire to escape the mound without any considerable collision. Like each paragraph, I anoint a … More Book Review: Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli (2011)
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov My Rating: 4 of 5 stars The evening lessons were always the most difficult. Drained of ambulating the willing grey cells throughout the carnage of day classes, the young readers, almost resignedly, filled the quiet room at the end of the corridor. A subdued tête-à-tête, almost at once, broke into … More Book Review: Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (1953)
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai My Rating: 5 of 5 stars For a rainbow-chaser and flower-collector, satan-tango is not exactly the kind of event to spend an many evenings on. The brightness is pleasing odour and the not-so-brightness is forever under verdict. But there I stayed; lurking under the disturbing, frequently tingling, always jagging edges of … More Book Review: Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (1985)
Us by David Nicholls My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Falling in love is a beautiful thing, more so when the love comes surreptitiously at your door which had opened many a times in past to find only empty autumns of loneliness and futile rains of solitude. Into such a heart, when love steps … More Book Review: Us by David Nicholls (2014)
It was a year of frenzied reading. And for once, the pace was fueled not by madness but serenity. The more serene I felt, the deeper I sunk – sunk into the world of books, of characters, of emotions, of questions, of dilemmas, of contemplation, of statements and above all, of many truths. That this … More 2015 – My Year in Books
The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Marcel Proust My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Mezzanine. That is where my soul lies right now. Elevated, with the soft avalanche of rippling visions, erupting from the nubile eyes of a young Proust, from a lowly level that seethed with diminished dignity and blackened clarity … More Book Review: The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Marcel Proust (2001)
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald My Rating: 4 of 5 stars On an unusually upbeat evening, I was winding up from work. The recently bought, crisp, intense 300-pages long fictional drama, that I had left, tantalizingly, at the 273rd page the previous night, was softly tip-toeing in front of my eyes. The unread pages were … More Book Review: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (1978)
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Dear Mr. Rilke, Assuming it to be a frequent phenomenon with you, I partake in pleasure and liberty of appointing you the receiver of yet another letter, from a besotted admirer of your wisdom and expression. You see I have … More Book Review: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (1929)
Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Márquez My Rating: 5 of 5 stars When glistening drops of dew swivelled across the leaves, When hazy films of sun lifted their candid veils; When morning spring walked the aisle of the autumn road, I saw a face whose reflection, since years, I have behold. In envious … More Book Review: Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985)
SEEMITA DAS 