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Summary from Goodreads : It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby's narrator is an early-thirty-something English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way-on vinyl-and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music. I think the first thing that calls attention in High Fidelity is Rob Fleming, and how he seems to fit the category of what they call an unlikable protagonist, a character who has been purposely made to have unpleasant traits and/ or a skewed moral compass, and to generally behave in a way that people find hard to swallow. And I think this can be trick...

Summary from Goodreads : Ambitious New York City teenager Craig Gilner is determined to succeed at life - which means getting into the right high school to get into the right job. But once Craig aces his way into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School, the pressure becomes unbearable. He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself. Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety. I heard this particular story about a teen being asked this: Why are you depressed? There is so much good in this world? To which he replied: Why do you have asthma? There is so much air in this world. (Teens can be absolutely brilliant.) This kind of lack of understanding is perhaps one of the causes of the stigma surrounding d...

April 2015: Required Reading Report 1. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - (5/5 Stars)  It's funny, insightful, and a bit sad, for the most part. But it's still good fun. 2. T he Whispering Muse by Sjon - (3/5 Stars) Beautiful prose, lyrical and poetic. Sjon tells Greek myth, as it should be told. But I think the story ended too abruptly. 3. Mythology Class by Arnold Arre - (5/5 Stars) Great story! Amazing illustrations! The chase sequence in particular is exciting and gripping! 4. I Don't Want to be Crazy by Samantha Schutz - (4/5) An honest account of anxiety disorder but the prose could have used more music.  May 2015 Required Reading: 1. Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz - TFG book of the month. I am a little more than halfway through already and it's pretty character-centric. And Ari and Dante are shaping up to be interesting ones. 2. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - This has been bestowed u...

Summary from Goodreads : "They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much." The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, fraternal twins Esthappen and Rahel fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family. Their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu, (who loves by night the man her children love by day), fled an abusive marriage to live with their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), and their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt). When Chacko's English ex-wife brings their daughter for a Christmas visit, the twins learn that things can change in a day, that lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river... The first thing that caught my attention about The God of Sma...

I have been having trouble coming up with book reviews lately, nothing beyond a measly 5-7 sentence containing words like I like it, I wasn't into it, it was great, It was slow. Nothing of substance is coming out of my brain. It has lately been harboring too many songs though, as a result of our High Fidelity (by Nick Hornby) discussion. And I have taken to Spotify-ing and YouTube-ing more often than usual. And the thing with these two, is that it brings up suggestions, recommendations, based on those you have been listening to. You click one and a bazillion other music videos pop up for you to consider. It is endless. It is sinister. So what am I leading to? Today also marks the start of HBO's Game of Thrones Season 5. Music plus GoT? Why not? Also credit needs to be given to Meliza of Mecanism for perpetuating the idea of a Game of Thrones inspired post. Check out hers HERE . Okay so, after doing an introduction that seems to be as long as The Long Night that descended up...

March 2015 Required Reading Report: 1. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - (5/5 Stars) Beautiful prose that evokes sadness and viciousness and youthfulness and innocence and more. 2. Van Gogh by Pascal Bonafoux - (4/5 Stars ) Tackles both the art and the artist with passion and ardor. 3. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini - (4/5 Stars) Funny and honest and captures how crippling mental illness can be.  April 2015 Required Reading:    1. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - TFG's book of the month. Very hipster. Haha. But loads of fun. (And I get to brush up on my British slang! Bollocks! Rubbish! Wanker! Shag! Arse!)   2. The Whispering Muse by Sjon, Translated by Victoria Cribb  - This book is endorsed by my crush, David Mitchell and discovered via Bennard of The Book Hooligan . (BR Task 19: A book that was originally published in another language) 3. Mythology Class by Arnold Arre - A Christmas present (with a scheduled budd...

Summary from Goodreads :  The artistic career of Vincent Van Gogh streaks across the history of modern art like a flashing comet. When Van Gogh arrived in Paris in 1886, at the apogee of the Impressionist revolution, he associated with Pissarro, Cezanne, Signac, Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard, and explored with them such new forms of painting as divisionism and cloisonnism. But Vincent, fascinated though he was by Gauguin, knew that he carried within himself a message, a genius, that was his alone. He left Paris and in a few years - he was to commit suicide four years later - in Arles, in the psychiatric asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, near Saint-Remy-de-Provence, and finally at Auvers-sur-Oise, he accomplished his life's immense work.  The Starry Night has enjoyed immense popularity. It's on Barbie dresses, and sneakers, and mugs, and tile mosaics and cakes. And I can see why. I was enthralled by it the first time I was introduced to an image of it. It's a beautifu...