5 more days to go before "Go Set a watchman" will be at my door. I don't recall awaiting a book release with this much eagerness. I know many people have been waiting for half a century for this and I have only waited for about three decades.
Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" was introduced to me like so many other things by my dad. I was in 8th grade and was spending most of my time engrossed in murder and legal mysteries of the Perry Mason kind that my dad thought it was time to rescue me and improve my taste. So he handed me his copy of the Mocking Bird without giving me any clues as to what the story was about. Little did I know that something that begins so innocuously with a 13 year old boy breaking his arm, will have the power to break my heart. I remember finishing it over one weekend and being moved beyond words. How can a story that is so distinctly American touch the heart of someone growing up in India, even before the onset of satellite TV and globalized culture! Maybe Scout was right when she said that there are just one type of folks, "Folks", and folks everywhere have related to the book over the last 50 years.
I have re-read the book many times. I go back to it almost every other year and have gifted the book to numerous friends and family members. In Scout and Atticus I have secretly seen myself and my dad, and now that he is no more I go to this book for most of my parenting and life advice.
So as you can imagine, as soon as the news first broke in February that a previously unpublished Harper Lee's novel was going to be released on July 14th, 2015, I was one-clicking my way to pre-ordering it. All the books I have been reading since that announcement seem like "opening acts" for the headliner, and I don't mean that derogatorily. Some of the opening acts are stars in their own right.
It has been a month of David Mitchell for me and J.K.Rowling for my daughter. While she wrapped up 5 of the Harry Potters in one month, I managed to finish "Cloud Atlas" and "Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" by Mitchell. While everyone raves about Cloud Atlas, I felt Thousand Autumns was a much better book. I enjoyed the pace, the setting (Japan), the period (beginning of the 19th century) and the voices. I am looking forward to Mitchell's Slade House to be released this October.
I had never heard of Karen Joy Fowler until the book "We are all completely beside ourselves" made the short list for the Booker. I finally picked up this book and I am glad I did not read a single review of it on the web as I believe most reviews contain spoilers. This was a book that I wrapped up in one day. When my alarm rang at 5AM for me to wake up and hit the gym, I simply turned on the light and picked up the book and read for 3 hours straight! I don't want to say more so I don't give away anything. But this is a book worth reading!
As part of my trip to Tanzania I read "Out of Africa", having previously only seen the Meryl Streep movie. This of course is the famous memoir of Karen Blixen who spent 17 years in Kenya trying to manage a coffee farm. Her fiercely independent spirit comes through in her writing and while some of the writing is written from a position of power, she also offers some deep insights into African culture, the people and their customs, and also about the colonists.
So i read two women writers in June, and two male writers. The second male writer was Colm Toibin who has become another of my favorite writers. I have previously raved about how well he writes women in his books. Nora Webster is another jewel in his crown. This also belongs to the category of hard-to-put down books for me. At 46, the heroine Nora loses her husband, is teetering on poverty, and is trying to do it right by her 4 kids and by herself. How she deals with her loss in a small Irish town where everyone knows everyone else and gossip and grief go together while "The Troubles" are also brewing in the macro world is just so beautifully written! The book is a triumph not just because of how Nora's character is portrayed, but also because of the care with which every single supporting character has been etched by Toibin! Once again he is hands down the best male writer to write women.
Now i am trying to read "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt, but unfortunately the mind is wandering to "Go Set a watchman" and I feel that maybe I should read "To Kill a Mockingbird" instead so I can prepare myself for the almost 30 year old Scout and the much older Atticus. My only regret is that my dad is not alive for this event. As I turn the pages on the adult Scout and the elderly Atticus, I know i will miss my own father, who would've read the book along with me and discussed it at length. Will Scout still have the same closeness with Atticus? Will Atticus remain the ideal man that he was 20 years back? Will Go Set a Watchman live up to the expectations?
Few more days to find out....
Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" was introduced to me like so many other things by my dad. I was in 8th grade and was spending most of my time engrossed in murder and legal mysteries of the Perry Mason kind that my dad thought it was time to rescue me and improve my taste. So he handed me his copy of the Mocking Bird without giving me any clues as to what the story was about. Little did I know that something that begins so innocuously with a 13 year old boy breaking his arm, will have the power to break my heart. I remember finishing it over one weekend and being moved beyond words. How can a story that is so distinctly American touch the heart of someone growing up in India, even before the onset of satellite TV and globalized culture! Maybe Scout was right when she said that there are just one type of folks, "Folks", and folks everywhere have related to the book over the last 50 years.
I have re-read the book many times. I go back to it almost every other year and have gifted the book to numerous friends and family members. In Scout and Atticus I have secretly seen myself and my dad, and now that he is no more I go to this book for most of my parenting and life advice.
So as you can imagine, as soon as the news first broke in February that a previously unpublished Harper Lee's novel was going to be released on July 14th, 2015, I was one-clicking my way to pre-ordering it. All the books I have been reading since that announcement seem like "opening acts" for the headliner, and I don't mean that derogatorily. Some of the opening acts are stars in their own right.
It has been a month of David Mitchell for me and J.K.Rowling for my daughter. While she wrapped up 5 of the Harry Potters in one month, I managed to finish "Cloud Atlas" and "Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" by Mitchell. While everyone raves about Cloud Atlas, I felt Thousand Autumns was a much better book. I enjoyed the pace, the setting (Japan), the period (beginning of the 19th century) and the voices. I am looking forward to Mitchell's Slade House to be released this October.
I had never heard of Karen Joy Fowler until the book "We are all completely beside ourselves" made the short list for the Booker. I finally picked up this book and I am glad I did not read a single review of it on the web as I believe most reviews contain spoilers. This was a book that I wrapped up in one day. When my alarm rang at 5AM for me to wake up and hit the gym, I simply turned on the light and picked up the book and read for 3 hours straight! I don't want to say more so I don't give away anything. But this is a book worth reading!
As part of my trip to Tanzania I read "Out of Africa", having previously only seen the Meryl Streep movie. This of course is the famous memoir of Karen Blixen who spent 17 years in Kenya trying to manage a coffee farm. Her fiercely independent spirit comes through in her writing and while some of the writing is written from a position of power, she also offers some deep insights into African culture, the people and their customs, and also about the colonists.
So i read two women writers in June, and two male writers. The second male writer was Colm Toibin who has become another of my favorite writers. I have previously raved about how well he writes women in his books. Nora Webster is another jewel in his crown. This also belongs to the category of hard-to-put down books for me. At 46, the heroine Nora loses her husband, is teetering on poverty, and is trying to do it right by her 4 kids and by herself. How she deals with her loss in a small Irish town where everyone knows everyone else and gossip and grief go together while "The Troubles" are also brewing in the macro world is just so beautifully written! The book is a triumph not just because of how Nora's character is portrayed, but also because of the care with which every single supporting character has been etched by Toibin! Once again he is hands down the best male writer to write women.
Now i am trying to read "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt, but unfortunately the mind is wandering to "Go Set a watchman" and I feel that maybe I should read "To Kill a Mockingbird" instead so I can prepare myself for the almost 30 year old Scout and the much older Atticus. My only regret is that my dad is not alive for this event. As I turn the pages on the adult Scout and the elderly Atticus, I know i will miss my own father, who would've read the book along with me and discussed it at length. Will Scout still have the same closeness with Atticus? Will Atticus remain the ideal man that he was 20 years back? Will Go Set a Watchman live up to the expectations?
Few more days to find out....
