Rajat Narula's Blog, page 2
January 16, 2022
Mindset: Carol. S. Dweck
‘Mindset’ expounds on the concept of how a growth-oriented mindset helps you excel in life as opposed to a ‘fixed’ mindset that believes in people being inherently smart or dumb. It is a concept that rings true and is easy to embrace. So, as the objective of the book goes, it succeeds in conveying its message successfully. The only flaw, and that applies to a number of books in the genre, is that the message gets repeated endlessly and becomes a bit monotonous.
Read.
January 15, 2022
January 9, 2022
If I Could Remember: Vedant Saxena
Vedant Saxena picks two topical issues of today – women’s exploitation and mental health – and weaves an engaging story combining the two. Arman and Ananya develop a kinship stemming out of their exclusion from the mainstream and the story follows their sweet and yet strange relationship. Saxena does a great job with the telling. Two points that particularly stood out for me: One, he keeps the reader guessing till the end. As with any thriller, the reader (at least this reader) makes several guesses as he reads, but Saxena still manages to surprise one at the end. Two, in his exposition, there are several insights on various dimensions of life that make you pause and think. For such a young author to be able to do that, it is quite remarkable. It’s an excellent read indeed!
Read.
January 2, 2022
American Dirt: Jeanine Cummins
American Dirt is a heart-rending account of a mother and son duo making it from Mexico to ‘El Norte’ after a cartel kills fifteen members of their family. What worked for me were the story and the situations it created. The shocking realities of the brutality and reach of the cartels, the hazardous journey migrants have to make from Mexico and beyond to get to the promised land, the common acceptance of the phenomenon of migration were all captured really well. The scenes are stark and disturbing. The writing is ordinary and does let down the story a bit.
Read.
December 26, 2021
The Silent Patient: Alex Michaelides
Psychological thrillers are in vogue. ‘The Silent Patient’ tells the story of Alicia, a woman accused of killing her husband and that of her psychotherapist in a two-track format where their stories come together in the end in a twist-in-the-tale mode. The pace is the best feature of the book. It proceeds at a super-fast clip throughout with mini-cliffhangers to keep the readers engaged. The writing is functional, but fits the genre. As in a good thriller, information is parsed out to the readers in tiny bits and keeps them on their toes. The book delivers on the promise of its blockbuster ending. Despite half a dozen plausible and unrealistic scenarios I had going in my head, I couldn’t anticipate the real ending. The minor characters’ stories could have been handled better, with more satisfying completion.
A must read.
November 3, 2021
Azalea Heights
Pleased to announce that Azalea Heights is launched!
iBooks: http://books.apple.com/us/book/id1592185454
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w?ean=2940161109243
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=QXdKEAAAQBAJ
October 11, 2021
September 12, 2021
Educated: Tara Westover
Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. Tara Westover’s journey from no schooling at all to Cambridge and Harvard is as strange as it gets. That you still have people in today’s world who have no use for hospitals and schools and no regard for safety of their own children is difficult to believe indeed. Tara’s Mormon family is eccentric many times over. The father speaks to God directly (and lets everyone know that), believes strongly in the ‘end days’. Her mother is a blind follower and her brother, an abusive man who knows no boundaries. To grow up in such a world and come to understand its grotesqueness after a lifetime of brainwashing is an accomplishment. ‘Educated’ – as Tara calls it. Tara does a great job in capturing the different worlds she inhabits – the scrapyard wasteland of Idaho to Cambridge’s gothic buildings. She also succeeds in keeping a pace in the narrative that never slackens. However, in the end, it’s just the uniqueness of her story that wins the day.
Do read.
September 11, 2021
End of Summer
As the summer draws to a close, here are some pictures of flowers in our neighborhood to mark the end of the blossom season.
This one is special. From our front garden.
September 7, 2021
People’s History of the United States: Howard Zinn
Zinn presents an alternative history of America, a perspective in which the US is the oppressor. Always. It traces the atrocities towards Indians, Blacks, women and the working classes. The book didn’t work for me because the view is extreme left. Capitalism is bad and all the Presidents of the US including Lincoln and Eisenhower were villains. Zinn doesn’t apologize for an unbalanced view of history. In his view, he is countering a viewpoint of American bravery and enterprise that has been taught and preached all along, so he is allowed to be biased. While there is some logic in that reasoning, an unbalanced view does not make good reading, as the preaching behind the history comes through and is not very attractive. His Utopian ideals of socialism, obsession with labor strikes, and such other things make the book hard to read. The length of the book (729 pages) doesn’t help either.
Don’t bother.
