Wednesday, June 04, 2014

May 2014 - More Book Reviews

1. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Sallinger

I didn't like a long series of books that I read - like 50 shades of gray, divergent. So I decided to try classics. I feared I might fail to understand these sort of books. Catcher in the Rye has fairly simple language and structure to understand, very well written book but did I like the story? Nah! Its my inability to interpret 'show but don't tell' stories. I am too dumb to decipher any symbolism or anything, so Satanic Verses is out of my league. I couldn't put the book down but at the end of it I thought what exactly was it about? This book was banned for a few years in the US and is considered a classic. Go for it, unlike me you may be able to construe the story.



2. To kill a mockingbird - Harper Lee


This month I read books which are really good examples of writing so I was not frustrated at any point. In US school students have to read certain books as a part of their syllabus like this book 'To kill a mockingbird'. I wonder why there is no such thing in our Indian school syllabus? I had seen the movie based on this book earlier, liked the book too. I would definitely recommend it.





3. Lady with the toy dog - Chekhov

I heard this audio book by BBC, Anton Chekhov is famous for his short stories and his frugal use of words. I thought it was a good story so I would be reading a short story book by Chekhov this month. A lot of his stories are available on audio books too.

4. The Pluto files - Neil Tyson
This depicts the history and geography of Pluto, didn't like it much.