Category Books
London Stories: Ann of Oxford Street by Thomas De Quincey
I wish London Stories had an introduction to each story in the collection. A little bit of background to these stories would have enriched my reading experience, especially given that some of these are biographical essays and old ones at that with little to no information on the internet! 😐 I think Ann of Oxford […]
The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (Book Vs. TV)
Agatha Christie had started writing The Mystery of the Blue Train while she was going through a rough patch in her personal life. Christie had already put out a book that she did not like (The Big Four) and according to her autobiography she never really liked The Mystery of the Blue Train either. While […]
London Stories: A Visit to Charlotte Cibber by Samuel Whyte
I wasn’t familiar with Charlotte Cibber or Samuel Whyte before reading A Visit to Charlotte Cibber. (Some of you might be familiar with Colley Cibber though, who was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. Charlotte was Colley’s youngest child.) Samuel Whyte was a writer, and Charlotte in her early life was an actress and […]
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
I’ve never been a big fan of Greek mythology. But reading Prometheus Bound converted me! Prometheus Bound, which is probably the oldest book I’ve ever read (I am yet to read The Iliad and The Odyssey), is an ancient Greek tragedy. The play has been historically attributed to Aeschylus (525 – 456 BC, however, the […]
London Stories: Love Among the Methodists by James Lackington
And the struggle continues! My understanding of Christendom is pretty limited. I know the difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism thanks to my interest in Tudor period in England, but I haven’t got a clue about Methodism. So reading Love Among the Methodists required me to do some homework. Love Among the Methodists is a […]
The Big Four by Agatha Christie (Book Vs. TV)
The Big Four is a story about a gang of four super-villains who want to dominate the world. At the beginning of the novel, Poirot is the only one who is after the Big Four with officials thinking Poirot is following a mirage. So Captain Hastings, whose steadfast loyalty has been proven before, joins Poirot […]
London Stories: A Ragged Boyhood by Daniel Defoe
I’m in England with my husband who is here for a summer internship. Now we are halfway through our stay, and finally, I think we have settled in! 😀 (Not that it was hard to figure things out, but opening a bank account was a nightmare!) So I decided to pick London Stories as my […]
Jezebel by Irène Némirovsky
I’m falling behind my Irène Némirovsky year-long project. I’ve been crazy busy these days (more about it later), and I couldn’t read Jezebel which was supposed to be my June read. Hopefully, I’ll have time to read another Némirovsky this month, so I can be back on track with my project! In Jezebel, we see […]
Tenth of December by George Saunders: Tenth of December
I struggled a lot with this story at first. It starts with Robin, a little boy who is constantly bullied at school. So his fantasies, in which he is a hero, has become key to his survival. On the day the story takes place, Robin is on a mission to save Suzanne from homeroom who […]
The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies
There aren’t a lot of books set in Sri Lanka, my motherland. So I was thrilled to read The Tea Planter’s Wife, a story set in the early 1900s when Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon. The protagonist of the story is Gwen, a nineteen-year-old white lady who joins her older, widowed husband, Laurence in […]
