Weekend Quotes #155

If a book is well written, it is too short

Well said!

Are you reading enough?

More to life than books? Nah! I don’t think so

If books are not good company, where shall I find it?

In My Hands Today…

Half Life – Roopa Farooki

On the morning that changes everything, Aruna Ahmed Jones walks out of her ground-floor Victorian apartment in London wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keeps on walking. Leaving behind the handsome Dr. Patrick Jones, her husband of less than a year, Aruna heads to Heathrow, where she boards a plane bound for Singapore and her old life. Educated and beautiful, Aruna has a desperate need to risk it all. But why? Waiting for her is a messy past and a perfect past lover she had once abandoned without even saying goodbye – a story left unfinished – until now.

Aruna is not running away from home, she is running back to the home she always had before it became impossible for her to stay. Before her father, the only family she’d ever known, passed away. Before she tried and failed, to create a life and a family with her best friend and lover, Jazz. Before her doctor delivered a complicated psychological diagnosis she’d rather forget. After years of fleeing the ghosts that continue to haunt her, Aruna is about to discover that running away is really the easy part; it is coming home—making peace with her past, with Jazz and those they have loved—that is hard.

In My Hands Today…

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax – Dorothy Gilman

Mrs. Virgil (Emily) Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was a widow with grown children. She was tired of attending her Garden Club meetings. She wanted to do something good for her country. So, naturally, she became a CIA agent. This time, the assignment sounds as tasty as a taco. A quick trip to Mexico City is on her agenda. Unfortunately, something goes wrong, and our dear Mrs. Pollifax finds herself embroiled in quite a hot Cold War—and her country’s enemies find themselves entangled with one unbelievably feisty lady.

In My Hands Today…

Noon – Aatish Taseer

Rehan Tabassum has grown up in a world of privilege in Delhi. His mother is a self-made lawyer and her new husband a wealthy industrialist. But there is a marked absence in Rehan’s life: his father, Sahil Tabassum, who remains a powerful shadow across the border in Pakistan. This story follows Rehan’s attempts to negotiate this loss.

In My Hands Today…

A Young Wife – Pam Lewis

Amsterdam, 1912: When fifteen-year-old Minke Van Aisma travels to Amsterdam to care for the dying wife of a wealthy man, she has no idea what adventures await her. Within hours of his wife’s death, her employer proposes marriage, and within days the couple has set sail for the oil fields of Argentina.

They settle in the rough coastal town of Comodoro Rivadavia, where Minke eventually learns that her husband is not a successful trader, but a morphine producer. The future that seemed so bright takes an even darker turn the morning their toddler son, Zeff, is kidnapped. Soon after, morphine production is outlawed and her husband must immediately emigrate to New York.

Already pregnant with their daughter, Minke has little choice but to wait for the new baby’s arrival, then follow Sander to America, and leave her firstborn behind forever. However, when she arrives in New York and discovers that her husband has betrayed her, she takes her daughter and leaves him, finds work as a seamstress, and vows to return to Argentina and find her son. How she manages to find her child, and how she takes her revenge on the people who orchestrated his abduction, is a triumphant tale of personal sacrifice, determination, and love.

In My Hands Today…

Nazaqat – Sasha H. Singhal & Harsh Agarwal

Naazani, a shy girl with a lonely childhood, was born and brought up in Dehradun. She moves to a metropolitan for further education and gets absorbed. In a series of events, she decides to adopt prostitution and becomes one of the most successful high profile escorts of the city with the help of her manager Sharat.

In a quest to be successful, she leaves her friends behind and dedicates more time to her profession. Nazaqat witnesses a police raid at a nearby place and the real scenario of prostitution terrifies her.She decides to take a stand and do something about it. However, Sharat convinces her that she is not powerful enough to make a difference.

Nazaqat retires and pool all her money and starts a restaurant – Joy foods in partnership with Sharat. The business grows and soon enough they have numerous outlets in various cities and Naazani Singh Shekhawat emerges as a significant entrepreneur of nation.

To cherish the old memories, she organizes a group together and calls all her old friends. Next morning, it is found that something drastic happened the night before.

Meanwhile, she invites an author – Matthews, who is an old acquaintance to pen down her own biography. He visits her each night and in a series of ten nights, her story finds its crescendo.

Will prostitution be legalized? What’s her intention with the biography she is planning? What shall be the fate of Naazani Singh Shekhawat aka Nazaqat?

In My Hands Today…

A Rather Lovely Inheritance – C.A. Belmond

After her Aunt Penelope dies, historical researcher Penny Nichols is astonished to learn that not only is she a bona fide heiress-but she’s also been invited to put her research skills to work. This time, the history she’s researching happens to be her very own. What she discovers about Aunt Penelope-a pair of wills, double lives, secret histories, and a family tree of vultures-is about to sweep Penny and a long-lost relative across France, over the hills of Italy, and throughout half of Europe on the adventure of several lifetimes.

Weekend Quotes #154

LOL

I love reading

A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a re-reader

Go and read a book!

Always!

In My Hands Today…

Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China – Colin Thubron

Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron sets off on a 10,000-mile journey from Beijing to Tibet, starting from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border to the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert and the far end of the Great Wall. What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.

In My Hands Today…

Land Where I Flee – Prajwal Parajuly

To commemorate Chitralekha Nepauney’s Chaurasi – her landmark 84th birthday – Chitralekha’s grandchildren are travelling to Gangtok to pay their respects.

Agastaya is flying in from New York. Although a successful oncologist at only thirty-three he is dreading his family’s inquisition into why he is not married, and terrified that the reason for his bachelordom will be discovered.

Joining him are Manasa and Bhagwati, coming from London and Colorado respectively. One the Oxford-educated achiever; the other the disgraced eloper – one moneyed but miserable; the other ostracized but optimistic.

All three harbour the same dual objective: to emerge from the celebrations with their grandmother’s blessing and their nerves intact: a goal that will become increasingly impossible thanks to a mischievous maid and a fourth, uninvited guest.