The Seaside Library

Author: Louisa May Alcott Acquired in: September 2010 Little Women  made Louisa May Alcott a legendary figure in English literature, but her writing talent cannot be defined by this book alone. Apart from the popular series featuring the March sisters, she has numerous other pieces, including poetry, novels and short stories to her credit. Though relatively unknown, the short stories in this anthology— The Quiet Little Woman ,  Tilly’s Christmas  and  Rosa’s Tale —number among the beautiful short stories that Alcott fans would love.  This short book contains three heartwarming Christmas stories about the little virtues that give this beautiful day a deeper meaning.  The Quiet Little Woman  is a story about Patty, a lonely orphan who wishes with all her heart that a good family would take her in, even if only as a helper. When the jovial Murrays adopt her, she works hard to show her gratitude but realises that their appreciation is just not the same as ...

Author: Umberto Eco Acquired in: October 2020 Umberto Eco was a professor at the University of Milan, specialising in semiotics or the study of signs and their interactions with circumstances. As he dabbled in writing, he introduced his rather obscure subject in his first book. His publisher had her hopes low for his book dealing with 14th century Christianity, apocalyptic biblical symbolism and a Poirotesque monk. Well, lucky for us, the book was a roaring success and even got a screen reprisal starring Sean Connery in the lead role. Eco’s debut novel is a murder mystery set in 1327, in a Benedictine abbey renowned as a centre of learning. The bizarre death of a young monk gives rise to speculation of malevolent spirits or worse at play, plunging all the other monks into fear. To quell the hubbub and resolve matters before an important papal delegation headed by a notorious inquisitor arrives, the abbot sends for Brother William of Baskerville, an English Benedictine monk with ideas r...

Author: Victor Hugo Acquired in: August 2020 It takes some courage to lift a hefty classic from the shelves and set out to read it. Reading such books is like a mining expedition; you never know what hides within. Apart from the intimidating size, there are many possibilities for mishaps, particularly when holding the book aloft while on the bed and unfortunately for your face, you doze. But making even this scenario trivial is the towering spectre of boredom. Over-eloquence makes a book tedious, a universal truth that we learn from our school books. The Penguin version includes an unapologetically criticising preface by Norman Denny, who expressly warns the reader of Victor Hugo's extravagance and his tendency to bore his readers with over-elaborate language.  Those already acquainted with this book would have encountered the long passages which abruptly put an end to the spell cast by the author. Interruptions like these when an engaging plot is unfolding irritated me to no end. ...

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe Acquired in: April 2019 "I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak... I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.", said Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of a book that outraged as well as reformed America. Pouring her experiences of witnessing slavery, racist riots and heckles by non-Abolitionists onto paper, she produced a book that broke sales records in the US and UK at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.    It's a moving tale about a man being torn away from his family as if it was natural to do so, and other stories about how he brings about a sea change in whoever he meets along his journey. In the end, we may feel like we owe something to this meek but faithful man- a feeling of regret and shame. Tom is a faithful slave; his master trusts him, his fellow workers respect him, the master's little boy adores him. As always, what...

Author: Sylvia Plath or under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas Acquired in: October 2020 Much like music, books can easily influence your mood. A skilled writer can move you to feel things as you have never felt before and open your mind to the vast expanse of his/her imagination. And all this through a single piece of writing! Such books are few but when you find them, take care to never let them go. Sylvia Plath’s unassuming book encompassed far more than what I thought it would- though I may not remember it verbatim, its singular prose is forever etched in my mind.  Her book stands testimony to the trivialisation of mental health issues from time immemorial. Perhaps the conditions were worse in her time and even before that when psychological breakthroughs were emerging. It chilled me to read about people, women mostly, who endured much in the early sanatoriums and so-called nursing homes.  Sylvia Plath’s part-autobiographical novel portrays her as a young woman, Esther Greenwo...

Author: Boris Pasternak Acquired in: October 2020 Sadly, the last book I read in 2020 had to be a mediocre book like this! After reading War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov, I was looking forward to reading Doctor Zhivago. It had several good reviews online, plus, Pasternak won a Nobel Prize after publishing this. I feel a bit let down by the plot, which started in such a promising manner. After all, isn’t the Revolution, whether French or Russian, a good place to set your tale? The protagonist Yury Zhivago is your everyday man but rather inclined towards melancholy. As an orphan, he grew up with his relations in Moscow, eventually marrying Tonya, a graceful and wise woman. The story then details his life in the tumultuous period of Russian reformation. Yury falls for another woman, Lara Antipova, whose life can make an interesting story by itself. What's interesting is that Yury loves both women, but cannot choose between wife or mistress. How can he even think he could strik...

Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky Acquired in: May 2020 Dostoyevsky's last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, may as well have been his masterpiece. Globally acclaimed as an exceptional piece of literature, this book brings forth topics that I believe most writers avoid. Please do not drop the book and bolt when I say it is chock-full of how-to-go-about-a-parricide, a prolonged courtroom drama, tedious accounts of unattainable love and even more tedious arguments on religious faith. With a little bit of patience (which you need anyway while reading classics), you might love it as much as I do. Of course, I must warn you- heavy drama seems to be Dostoyevsky's forte. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is an old and wealthy landowner whose sole purpose in life is to get richer and woo women. This wastrel of a man even forgets to look after his sons, who then survive on the kindness of servants and strangers. This neglect by their father kindles hatred in the family and adds fuel to the father-son ri...

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: 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: Louisa May Alcott Acquired in: 2019 The book that enthralled many youngsters over more than a hundred years and has been adapted into award-winning films, Little Women is a well-loved classic that everyone should at least read once. Set in the American Civil War, the book tells how a mother and her four daughters, each with polar temperaments, deal with the hardships that wartime presents. The March sisters; Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, are young girls striving to fulfil their dreams. But dreams aside , the older sisters work to provide for the family, albeit grudgingly, for their jobs are not light or enjoyable. Beth stays at home, too shy to go to school, but determined to make home a happy place, assisted by kittens and dolls. Amy is just a child, who loves sweets and talking ' commy la fo'  ( comme il faut ) , and is especially concerned about her 'snub' nose and walks around with pins on her nose to make it Grecian. Over this medley, presides kind Mrs ...