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There are some books that are always, always on my mind. The thought of these books makes me happy. These are the books I recommend to people, dip in and out of whenever I get the chance, and quote and draw analogies from. The upside of local bookstores being closed because of the lockdown is that I get to reread them without guiltily looking at the growing pile of unread books on my shelf. We all have these books. Here are mine.

Matilda by Roald Dahl 

All of Dahl’s books are wonderful but ‘Matilda’ is perhaps a little more so. This is a story of a little girl with extraordinary abilities—she can speed read and control objects with her mind. Her parents treat her like a “little scumbag”, but she eventually finds happiness. The idea that children can punish their parents or elders if they are “bad people” makes for an interesting premise. Moreover, Quentin Blake’s illustrations bring the story to life.

What’s more, the movie adaptation of Matilda feels like a projection of the mental imagery you have while reading the book.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 

I first read ‘Jane Eyre’ as a teenager and since then I have returned to it a few times. It’s one of those books where you discover new things with each rereading. When I was young (and naïve) I thought of it as the most romantic book ever. As I grew older, I couldn’t ignore the abuse and infidelity and I turned away from it in disgust. Then, later on, I was told it was a feminist novel and I tried and failed to see it that way. But the fact remains that Jane Eyre provokes emotions that compels me to return to it time and again.

Even after all these years, I’m still trying to figure out what “madness” it is that Mrs Rochester is suffering from and whether she jumped, freeing her husband to marry Jane, or she was pushed. Maybe, just maybe, this time around I will finally make up my mind.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman 

This is a relatively newer addition to my list of favorites. But if I were to be told that I could only read one book for the rest of my life, this would probably be it. I loved ‘A Man Called Ove’ so much that I’ve been recommending/gifting this to everyone since I first read it. A novel about a cranky 59-year-old Swedish widower who repeatedly tries and fails to kill himself might not seem like the perfect lockdown read. But it is: The story is essentially about finding yourself when nothing seems to be going right.

As Ove screams at his neighbors for parking in the wrong place and punches a hospital clown because his magic tricks annoy him, you can’t help but see a little bit of yourself in him and cheer him on.

A while back, I read Karin Slaughter’s ‘The Kept Woman’ but I don’t particularly recall much of it. I recently came across a review of ‘Pretty Girls’ and it made me want to give Slaughter another shot. But lockdown meant my regular bookstore was closed. Luckily, I had a book by Slaughter lying around and I finally dusted it off the shelf.

‘Genesis’ is much older than The Kept Woman (2016), or Pretty Girls (2015). It’s, in fact, only the third book in the Will Trent series. This particular book is published under the name ‘Undone’ in the United States and under the name ‘Genesis’ elsewhere in the world.

After reading Genesis I really want to get my hands on the rest of the books in the series. Slaughter is the mistress of crime, I should say. In Genesis, she spins a spooky, creepy story that makes you want to race through the pages.

This novel starts with a woman being hit by a car. She, Anna, is naked and it looks like she has been abused. Medical investigation by Sara Linton, the attending doctor at the hospital Anna is taken to, reveals that she had been starved and tortured for weeks before the accident.

Special Agent Will Trent of the Criminal Investigation Team returns to the scene of the accident to investigate what is clearly not his case and he stumbles upon a torture chamber underground. He then finds another victim who, like Anna, had escaped from the dungeon but didn’t make it very far—she is found hanging from a tree, having taken her own life since she had lost her sight and hearing and feared being found by her kidnapper. Soon, two other women go missing and Will Trent and his partner, Faith Mitchell, work around the clock to find the women and the sadistic predator.  

As someone whose television diet mostly consisted of ‘Bones’, ‘Criminal Minds’, and ‘CSI’, I thoroughly enjoyed Genesis, though I did find certain bits too graphic for my liking. It’s definitely not for the faint-hearted.

The story, if you think of it as a thriller and just that, is perfect. But the book has many flaws.

First, I had problems with how Slaughter presented her characters. They all have so many weaknesses and issues in life that it feels unreal. Second and most importantly, I was disturbed by the women in the story. They are either bitchy and successful, or nice but unsure of themselves, or appear to be strong and independent while pining for a man to make them feel wanted and loved. The stereotypes are a bit much to handle especially when today, as women, we are trying so hard to break away from them all. Worse, it’s a woman stereotyping women, and that hurts.

I will still give Slaughter another chance because I have only read two of her books so far. But I hope the entire series isn’t as condescending towards women as I found Genesis to be.

Fiction/Thriller

Genesis

Karin Slaughter

Published: 2009

Publisher: Arrow Books

Language: English

Pages: 550, Paperback

I love historical fiction and I immensely enjoyed ‘Birdsong’ and ‘Charlotte Gray’ by Sebastian Faulks. Birdsong, set during the First World War, and Charlotte Gray, a story of a British agent working with the Resistance in Vichy France during the Second World War, were bestsellers that made Faulks a favorite of many. His latest work, ‘Paris Echo’, although set in present times, is steeped in history, too. And I liked it even though I wished the storytelling had been better.  

Personally, I prefer narratives that ricochet between two or more characters because that gives you a broader sense of the story as well as gets you looking at the same issue from different perspectives. It can be quite thrilling to live multiple lives that way. In Paris Echo, the narrative shifts between the two main characters, 19-year-old Tariq, a runaway from Morocco, and 31-year-old American researcher Hannah.

Tariq, who ends up lodging in Hannah’s small room, wants to find out more about his Algerian mother who died when he was 10. He was brought up in Paris, born to a French father. Hannah, on the other hand, is in Paris to study the testimonies of women who lived through the German occupation for her postdoc. Much of the book is also the stories Hannah spends her days listening to, which Tariq often helps translate. This forgotten history of wartime women that Hannah slowly uncovers is more interesting than the main characters’ stories.

The problem is that the main story can get quite confusing at times, and more so when Faulks brings in an aged puppeteer called Victor Hugo, who carries an ancient leather bag and has mayonnaise smeared on his beard. There is also a lot that feels wrong with the characterizations and thus you only connect with Tariq and Hannah on a superficial level, never really understanding or caring about what they are going through. Hannah especially infuriates you in the end when she feels “rescued” by a chivalrous Englishmen who makes her realize that she has been selfish and shallow her whole life. And Tariq’s pressing need to lose his virginity also gets a bit much after a while.

However, what’s evident and intriguing is Faulk’s deep connection with and affection for Paris and French language. He leaves no stone unturned to try and evoke a feel of the place. His fondness for quirky streets and corners of Paris jumps out in the narrative and transports you there often. France and its history have been so well brought to life in Paris Echo that had the story been a tad better crafted with a clearer connection between the past and the present, it could, no doubt, have been another masterpiece.

Fiction

Paris Echo

Sebastian Faulks

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2018

Language: English

Pages: 298, Paperback

Fiction                                                

The Woman Next Door

Yewande Omotoso

Published: 2016

Publisher: Vintage

Language: English

Pages: 279, Paperback

In an affluent neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa, two strong-willed, successful women live next door to each other. Widows and in their 80s, the two come from completely different backgrounds and are sworn enemies, with each trying to make life a little difficult for the other.

But fate brings them together one day—albeit unwillingly—and has both living under the same roof.

The premise of Yewande Omotoso’s novel is simple. But the author has effectively managed to bring to focus how the repercussions of apartheid were widespread and deeply felt by families across the continent for years even after the White minority rule came to an end. The impacts of racial discrimination—mainly based on skin color and facial features that existed from 1948 till the early-1990s—in modern life is what Omotoso explores through her two main characters.

Marion Agostino is a white native of Cape Town. Once the primary architect in her own firm she had to stop working when she had children and now her children mostly ignore her. Hortensia James is a famous black textile designer whose husband, Peter, is on his deathbed, and they have no children. After her husband’s death she finds out he has a daughter from another woman. Hortensia has been Marion’s neighbor for the past 20 years, living in the very house that Marion meticulously designed and wanted to possess herself.

The chapters alternate between Marion and Hortensia and we get to know their backstories and slowly understand how they became the women they are now—bitter and loveless. But there are many more layers to these women and that’s what keeps the story interesting. Also, it’s not that the women chose to go on a journey of discovery and self-healing but circumstances are such that it’s what they both eventually end up doing.

Omotoso was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria before moving to South Africa with her family in 1992. Her first novel ‘Bom Boy’, published in 2011, got critical praise and many literary awards. In ‘The Woman Next Door’ Omotoso shows how prejudice can fuel hatred among people as well as the ramifications it leaves in its wake. But the witty story is more than just a tale of black versus white for it stunningly depicts the wisdom that comes with age and thus has an underlying charm that you just can’t resist.

What Happened That Night
Deanne Cameron
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Published: September 2019
Language: English
Pages: 328, Paperback

Don’t judge a book by its cover, they said. But I think I will continue doing so, especially when it’s an author I haven’t read before. Because that’s how I picked up ‘What Happened That Night’ by Deanne Cameron. The cover is eerie—with a barn of sorts partly hidden by leafless trees—and I just felt like there was a good story there. I wasn’t wrong.

Initially posted on Wattpad in 2015, What Happened That Night starts with a murder. Griffin Tomlin, Clara Porterfield’s neighbor and the boy she had been secretly crushing on for years, has been found dead, floating in the swimming pool in his backyard. Next thing you know, Clara’s sister, Emily, is awaiting trial for Griffin’s murder. During his funeral, Emily tells Clara that she killed Griffin for her and that now he can no longer hurt her.

You understand there’s a secret there and that Griffin wasn’t the golden boy the entire neighborhood as well as his school thought him to be. In fact, no one—not even Clara—is as they appear and that’s how the story becomes even more interesting. You are not only trying to unearth the mystery surrounding Griffin’s murder but also slowing untangling the knots that make each character.

The novel shuffles back and forth between the present day and the events prior to Griffin’s murder as Cameron weaves a narrative that keeps you guessing what must have happened that night up until the very end. For someone who has been able to predict how most thriller novels end for quite a while now, that was a surprise.

What I liked about What Happened That Night is that the characters, unlike in most thriller novels, aren’t black or white but a shade of grey—just like in real life. And Cameron is really skilled at bringing in twists and turns just when you least anticipate it. You almost make up your mind about something or someone when the complete opposite seems to be true, and that keeps happening again and again till you don’t know what to think anymore.

It could have all been confusing and chaotic but Cameron, who’s been writing and posting on Wattpad since she was 16, knows what she’s doing and is crystal clear about her characters and where her story is headed. If you enjoy a good murder mystery then you definitely don’t want to miss out on What Happened That Night.

There was a time when I compulsively read Haruki Murakami. It began with ‘Kafka on the Shore’. Then I read ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ before moving on to his collection of short stories, ‘After Dark’, and then picking up the novella, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’. All his stories share a similar theme and, unlike reading other authors, I feel reading Murakami can mess your head a little after a while—all the surrealism can be a bit too much sometimes.

And so, I had been on a Murakami break when I discovered ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’. Initially I was hesitant to get back to reading Murakami and left without buying the book but a memoir of sorts by a prolific writer wasn’t something I could resist for long, and I bought it the second time I visited the bookstore. And I am glad I did.

What I like about Murakami is that he writes short, beautiful sentences. I guess one has to also credit Philip Gabriel’s translations for that. But Murakami’s style is such that the words just flow. And that makes for easy and impactful reading.

‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ introduces us to Murakami as more than a writer. Here, he tells us how he began running seriously when he was 33, back in 1982. He has since competed in more than 20 marathons. On average, he runs six miles a day, six days a week, and though these days he isn’t in top form, he has no intention of not running anymore. For “to give up running would be like giving up writing, which would be like giving up living”.

Murakami knows he will never win a marathon but he doesn’t seem to mind. Then why does he still do it? One reason could be that he feels the focus and endurance required in marathons could help him apply the same disciplines to his writing. “Most of what I know about writing, I’ve learned through running every day,” he says. But more than that, as Murakami further writes, it gives you a special kind of awareness—you understand yourself better.

Devoid of any elements of magical realism, ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ doesn’t feel like reading Murakami at all. For a change, you enjoy the conversational style and the self-deprecatory tone that you aren’t used to in Murakami’s works. It also gives you a window into the mind of an author you can’t help but love. For me, I think it has got me out of my self-imposed break on Murakami and now I can’t wait to start reading ‘Killing Commendatore’ where, apparently, paintings become magic portals.  

Fiction

The Improbability of Love

Hannah Rothschild

Language: English

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Published: 2016

Pages: 479, Paperback

I have mixed feelings about this book. Though I wouldn’t rave about it, I wouldn’t tell anyone not to read it either. The blurb was catchy. I was intrigued and curious. Around 100 pages into it, I wasn’t very sure. But then, in the end, I was glad I stuck with it. Hannah Rothschild’s debut novel, ‘The Improbability of Love’, is confusing and takes time to build up, but it keeps you wanting to know more.

Annie McDee is a 31-year-old struggling chef. She is also recovering from a devastating break-up. Then, she buys a painting at a junk store for this guy she met at a speed-dating event and he never shows up. The painting becomes a sad reminder of her recklessness and she wants to get rid of it but her mother thinks it could be something of value and forces Annie to find out and thus delve into the world of art.

Since the novel opens on the night of an auction where there’s a lot of commotion over a painting with many people trying to profit from the sale, you get an idea that the painting is important. But you don’t really understand what is happening. As the novel jumps back and forth between six months, after Annie discovering the painting at a junk shop and the night of its sale at the auction, the story slowly starts to unravel.

The Improbability of Love was apparently penned as a satire on the corruption in the London art scene—the painting, the one being actioned that Annie eventually buys, is fictional but the artist, Jean-Antoine Watteau, isn’t. Rothschild meant to pose serious questions regarding the value of art. But more often than not it falls flat and comes across as silly. Though there are a lot of things going on—with romance, intrigue, murder, and more—and the book has all the potential to be a riveting read, you can’t help but feel the story could have been better narrated.

On one hand, Rothschild’s descriptions of the elaborate feasts that Annie prepares makes you want to read more, on the other, the frequent inconsistencies (and there are quite a few) make you cringe and put the book down. The same man has different colored eyes in different instances. It’s almost as if Rothschild was so invested in the art part of the story that the details elsewhere were written as an afterthought and thus feels slapdash.

The novel’s saving grace is that Rothschild knows a lot about art. And that knowledge shines through, which makes reading The Improbability of Love a pleasure, albeit in bits and pieces. Also, the eclectic mix of characters are well developed, each with their own frailties that warm you up to them. The painting itself becomes the narrator too, recalls its maker, and expresses grievances at being confined to Annie’s flat. It’s so amusing that it’s worth putting up with the problematic bits.  

By the time I finally got my hands on a copy of ‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee, I had heard and read so many reviews and book club discussions that I was sure my reaction to it would be extreme: I would either enjoy it immensely or be severely disappointed. But Pachinko, mostly because of how smoothly the nar­rative flows, reminded me of ‘Good Earth’ by Pearl S Buck and that has forever been on my list of all-time favorite books.

Pachinko narrates the story of four generations of Korean immi­grants between 1910 and today. The story is set first in Japanese-occu­pied Korea in the early 20th centu­ry and then in Japan itself—Osaka, Tokyo, and Yokohama—from before the World War II to the late 1980s.

Pachinko is a Japanese version of pinball and for most ethnic Koreans living in Japan, pachinko parlors are the primary source of stable income and eventual wealth build­ing, and the characters in the novel run pachinko parlors too. But the title serves a metaphorical purpose as well. Just like the first strike of the ball in a pachinko machine deter­mines how it will move, the life of the characters in the novel too are determined at birth.

At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to Hoonie, who is born with a cleft palate and a deformed foot, as he is getting mar­ried to Yangjin. This takes place in Yeongdo, a fishing village at the southern tip of Korea. The two have a happy life and go on to have a daughter—Sunja—who makes the central character of the story.

Then, Sunja is seduced by a yaku­za (member of transnational orga­nized crime syndicates originating in Japan), Koh Hansu, and she gets pregnant. But Hansu can’t marry Sunja because he already has a wife back in Japan. So he offers to put her up in someplace nice and take care of her and his child but Sunja doesn’t want to be Hansu’s mistress.

Sometime later, a young mission­ary, Isak, who Sunja and Yangjin nurse back to life, asks for her hand in marriage after coming to know of her situation and, to save her family from disgrace, Sunja agrees. The two then immigrate to Isak’s brother’s house in a Korean neigh­borhood in Osaka, Japan, where the rest of the story unfolds.

Spanning nearly 100 years, the novel chronicles Sunja’s story and that of her children, Noa and Moza­su, and grandson, Solomon. Lee narrates the struggles of people who are treated as outsiders in a country they call home so skillfully that you can’t help but empathize with the pains of second-class citizens.

What I liked the most about Pachinko was how noble most of the characters were. Here, every person is as he/she should be ideally. Husbands love their wives, chil­dren respect their parents, and the young care for the ailing. It just feels right and you wish things were that way in real life. Even Koh Hansu, a morally dubious character so to say, spends the rest of his life look­ing out for Sunja and his son Noa, despite Sunja clearly not wanting him to do so.

However, it’s the women who shine in Lee’s story. Yangjin, Sunja, Kyunghee (Sunja’s sister-in-law) and Etsuko, Mozasu’s girlfriend after his wife’s death, are all women who have gone through a lot in life but, instead of being hardened by their circumstances, they do everything they can to better the lives of those around them.

Pachinko makes you weep and it makes you smile but the best part is that it gets you thinking—about life, love, and the little things that we take for granted every single day O