Adiga wins the Booker

It is probably news no longer, but I am happy with the choice, though it might sound strange when I haven’t read the other books in contention. On reading The White Tiger, I did get the feeling that it might actually win, no matter the competition. Congratulations to Aravind Adiga!
Link to BBC Interview.

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Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace is a relatively short work. It is also quite unputdownable. This was my second reading of it, having first read it about four years ago. And it was a far more vivid experience this time.

Professor David Lurie is a University English professor with a penchant for Romantics, whose “disgraceful” sexual liaison with [...]

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The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

After plodding through the last few books, “The God of Small Things” was a refreshing change. It drew me in, into the lives of Estha and Rahel, into Kerala, Ayemenem, onto love and its fragile boundaries, easily crushed by blind traditions, by selfish, hypocritical motives.
What Arundhati Roy achieves in her debut novel, her only [...]

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The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

It is not a badly written book. But not one “that” well written to deserve an award, and least of all one as prestigious as the Booker. So why did The Inheritance of Loss win the Booker?
Answer:
a) The rest in running were no better
b) The judges blundered
c) My perceptions are, well, questionable.
 
I [...]

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The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer

Mehring, a shrewd, successful business tycoon based in South Africa and a sexually prolific if slightly depraved man, buys a farm, somewhat on a whim. It becomes a sanctuary for him, where he escapes on weekends to get away from his stereotyped world and also supervise its functioning, Jacobus and the rest of the black [...]

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Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

Paddy Clarke is not a funny story. The overwhelming feeling is one of palpable sadness, despite several humourous episodes, especially towards the earlier parts of the book. Ten year old Paddy, the eldest son of a large Irish family in fictitious(?) Barrytown of the sixties, thoroughly enjoys the company of his friends – Kevin, Liam, [...]

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Book Awards Reading Challenge

Here’s motivation for the coming days.

The ones finished have links to review pages.
Commonwealth Writers’
1992 – Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey

1994 – Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
1996 – Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
 
Booker
1974 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
1981 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1993 [...]

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The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

There is an unnamable mysterious quality to Ishiguro’s novel. Words like sly, minimal and simple come to mind, but none describes the work completely. Yet those are some of its discernible qualities. It does not feel the author is [...]

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Midnight’s Chlidren by Salman Rushdie

Introduction and Theme
Before disbursing trite compliments and proposing it as a masterly work of postmodern literature, it must be explained what sets this book apart and why one must attempt to read it. I deliberately use the word “attempt”, since it is not an easy book to read. Not for everyone. A category of [...]

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