The Seaside Library

Author: Heather Morris Acquired in: October 2021 Staccato—an Italian word signifying a kind of music where you would hear the notes in a sharply detached manner—can complement a musical piece if artfully utilised. However, a choppy narrative in a book only makes for difficult reading. Sadly, Heather Morris does just that. This book about the true story of a Slovak Jew incarcerated in Auschwitz-Birkenau disappointingly lacks an essential sense of cohesion. Lale's account of the horrors he witnessed at Auschwitz had the potential to become one of the most gripping Holocaust stories but instead took the form of a mediocre rendition by a screenwriter-turned-novelist. Nevertheless, the story deserves some attention despite the writing which leaves a lot to be desired.   Lale Sokolov was one among the many who went voluntarily to the concentration camps in Poland under an order by the Slovak government. These young men bade farewell to their loved ones believing that they would only ...

Author: Gerald Durrell Acquired in: December 2016 A life as a wildlife conservationist is not everybody's cup of tea. Dealing with animals- stuck, scared, enraged, injured- certainly seems eventful, maybe too much to my liking. But Gerald Durrell could do it all; from wishing for a zoo as a child, he went on to become a naturalist, writer, TV presenter and yes, a zoo owner. Does it still sound tame to you? That's because I've omitted the hilarious animal rescues of truant tapirs at night in the pouring rain, an incensed porcupine and a hungry bear.  Menagerie Manor  is just one among the many he wrote about his eventful life devoted to the care and conservation of animals. Ever since reading two excerpts from his books at school as part of the English course material, I've been itching to get my hands on a Durrell book. As far as first impressions go, I'm surprised by this book. In this book, Durrell takes us through the founding of Jersey Zoological Park on the Eng...

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...