The Seaside Library

Author: PG Wodehouse Acquired in: May 2020  During these times where the state of mind alternates between horrified to bottomless boredom, the wise words of Mary Poppins come to mind- A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine (a.k.a. isolation) go down. If you are scouting for books to read during this far-from-relaxing holiday, Wodehouse is the ultimate pick-me-up (other than ice cream of course).  Wodehouse wrote many stories, broadly divided into the Jeeves series, Blandings Castle series and quite a few short stories. The book Aunts' Aren't Gentlemen comes under the weighty clan of Wooster and Jeeves.  Bertram or Bertie Wooster is an affluent and rather feather-headed young man making most of the sunny days of youth in London. Whenever ominous clouds loom on the horizon, his trusty right-hand man, Jeeves, comes to his aid, accompanied by an appropriate quotation by some great dramatist, often Shakespeare or Keats. On such a fine day, he discovers pink spots on his ches...

Author: Gustave Flaubert Acquired in: May 2020 While I was going through Pinterest one day, a pin piqued my curiosity. It gave a list of books to read, written by authors of different nationalities. For example, for France, it was this book. So when I saw Madame Bovary in one of my favourite book haunts a few weeks later, it took me only a second to buy. Set in France in the 1800s, Emma Rouault is a young woman with her head turned by romantic notions. Lonely in a farmhouse with only her father for company, she craves the passionate life the characters in dramas lead and waits impatiently for some excitement in her placid life. That excitement comes in the form of Charles Bovary, a medical officer tired of his unpleasant wife, Heloise.  After Heloise's death, Charles marries Emma and loves her to distraction. Yet Emma, who now faces the dull drudgery of rural life, realises with a rude shock that being married was far from the blissful life she admired in books and has only walled ...

Author: Paul Kalanithi    Acquired in: August 2020 I read a book two days ago that affected me in ways that very few books have. Franz Kafka once said that a book should be like an axe for the frozen sea within us. Well, this book was like Zeus' thunderbolt. I'm talking about When Breath Becomes Air, a memoir written by 36-year-old Paul Kalanithi, a brilliant neurosurgeon who died of stage 4 metastatic lung cancer. This pandemic has forced all of us to at least acknowledge our mortality, but how would it be like to anticipate a bright future and then face a crisis that blows everything out of proportion? Life would never be the same again. Kalanithi was a prime example of an educated individual- BA and MA in English Literature and BA in Human Biology from Stanford University, MPhil in history and philosophy of science and medicine from Cambridge and graduated with honours from Yale School of Medicine. Besides that, he was aiming to be a neurosurgeon cum neuroscientist at Stanf...

Author: Rudyard Kipling    Read in: June 2020 Kim was a book long overdue. I had often thought of giving it a try but always abandoned it for some new author. Now, I thought that this book would be a quick, silly read about some mischievous girl (yes, I thought that Kim was a girl just because my reading list a few years ago mainly featured girls like Matilda and books like the St. Clare's series) but it turned out to be so much more.  Kim, who turned out to be the  boy,  Kimball O'Hara, is a young Irish orphan roughened and toughened by  the Indian street. He doesn't even realise that he is British and lives the life of an urchin. Forever searching for adventure, he sets off as a disciple with a lama seeking enlightenment. Amid his joyful cross-country tour, flavoured with the myriad sights witnessed on the Grand Trunk Road and a few events where he lends his quick wit, he is recognised by a British garrison officer who knew his father and is forcibly put ...

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne   Read in: August 2020 The Scarlet Letter takes root in the Puritan community in Massachusetts. The Puritans are reformed Protestants who lay great emphasis on purity and piety. In such a town where everyone censures and is censured by others, Hawthorne places his main character- Hester Prynne.  Hester's husband has been missing at sea for many years, with no news of his whereabouts. Suddenly, when the townsfolk discover that she is pregnant, the entire town's scorn is heaped on her. Forced to bear the mark of her sin, she wears a capital letter A, made by herself in scarlet, emblazoned with gold. Living with her child, named Pearl, she lives in seclusion and makes a living with her beautiful needlework. Despite the trauma, she refuses to name her child's father.  During Hester's public trial, she recognises a man in the crowd, who is her husband, back home right at the moment when his wife was being condemned. Disguising himself and takin...

Author: Graeme Simsion Acquired in: December 2019 It's been a long time since I have posted something here, but I have a good excuse; exams! Online exams are no mean feat and I was so glad to see the last of it. Never mind the next one hurling towards me this time next month. So after a break, we're back and today's post is about the book caught in a series mashup- The Rosie Result. For those who have no idea of what I'm referring to, please check out the post titled The Rosie Project . The final book of the Rosie Trilogy involves Don, Rosie and a new character, their son Hudson, all settled in Melbourne. The story is centred on Hudson's life, that is his problematic school life and his aversion to change. His behaviour then leads to many thinking that he may be autistic. Don resigned his job as a genetics professor in the US after a fiasco at one of his lectures where he was accused of being racist. It's not entirely his fault too, his mannerisms, now well-kn...

    The Chaos at First First attempt Second attempt (The majestic first tower held for 10 minutes)

Author: Virginia Woolf Acquired in: May 2020 The first time I heard about Virginia Woolf was in the literary section of a newspaper in an article detailing her aptitude for portraying the human psyche with all its pain. A few years later, I finally got my hands on an old copy of Mrs Dalloway. And? It was an insightful book, which I may have to read once again, perhaps when I am a bit older to understand better. Clarissa Dalloway is a dissipated woman, unhappy with her life, yet trying to adjust to the way things turned out for her. Yes, that kind of difficult position is possible, such as when you leave something or someone you greatly love for the sake of what you think is right. The book takes us through what goes on in the minds of a handful of people, all who are remotely or greatly intertwined with this woman's life. The author takes us through Mrs Dalloway's memories, which come on suddenly following a visit by her former lover, Peter Walsh.  Stuck in a stagnant marriag...