KhepiAri

Book Review: Shard by Megan Stevenson (Webtoon link at bottom)  Quote: Fate is a cruel, cruel mistress. Sure, she can be fulfilling and generous...but mostly just lures you into a false sense of purpose and direction in life...and in one instant takes it all from you. Leaving you in a situation where you really have to sit back and wonder just how the hell you got there . Shay a rebellious and overpowered witch needs to perform a complicated spell, to reunite with her lover. She has all the ingredients for a spell, except one, she needs a 'Virgin adult'. In this modern world, where does a witch find one such creature? One she stumbles upon thanks to her roommate! Kieran is that 'Virgin' a geologist, who is not so innocent and has his own plans. While the Witch Coven is looking for Shay, her twin and soulmate Nikhil is brewing his own plot in the Demon World. The story was very refreshing, there are many subplots that crafts the main plot, the parallel ...

Book Review: A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen Quote: Having Bob gave me a chance to interact with people.... Cats are notoriously picky about who they like. Seeing me with my cat softened me in [others] eyes. It humanized me. Especially after I'd been so dehumanized. In some ways it was giving me back my identity. I had been a non-person; I was becoming a person again . In general I am reluctant to pick Non-fiction, as my occupation is to proofread and edit Non-fiction! But during the book sale last week, this came to me because of mistaken identity, I didn't pay attention and assumed it was A Streetcar Named Desire. Now I have a soft corner for cats and books on animals are welcome to my shelf. This was an adorable, entertaining and educating read for a human who doesn't have many philanthropic or empathic desires, I do drop in a coin or a cupcake once in a while to homeless people out of sheer guilt of being a privileged human. It was an eye-op...

 About Murakami. Next week, my book club is going to have a Haruki Murakami Meet. Where my fellow club member and me, we have been trying to make people read and meet our favourite author’s works. The biggest struggle we faced was the confusion people have about him and the question: Which book to begin with? Now, the most common answer fellow Harukist [Fans of Murakami] have given over the years has been Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood. An answer I strictly disagree with, because these two books have done more damage to the cult of Murakami than any other book, like Hundred years of Solitude has to the realm of Magical Realism. In our excitement to make people love Murakami, we end up making them pick the hardest book! Our innate tendency for the best; best food, the best clothes, the finest wine, and the most aesthetically pleasing cinemas, doesn’t work in certain aspects. Reading is an act of familiarizing, reading Murakami’s works is th...

Book Review: A Discovery of Witches, Book I of All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness. Quote: What a complicated, delicate business it was going to be to love him. We were the stuff of fairy tales-- vampires, witches, knights in shining armour. But there was a troubling reality to face. I had been threatened, and creatures watched me in the Bodleian in hopes I'd recall a book tha t everyone wanted but no one understood. Mathew's laboratory had been targeted. And our relationship was destabilizing the fragile détente that had long existed among daemons, humans, vampires, and witches. I saw the trailer of the series and I had to get the books before I watched it. Before people judge me, I loved Twilight Series when I was young, Vampires have since then made a space in my mind. But for a long time, I was craving a big book with fictive facts, logic, and research in its story. This book is an answer to my discovery. A Romeo-Juliet love story set in Oxford Universi...

Book Review: Odd and The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Chris Riddell. Quote: The fox tossed its head and walked away. Odd put his knife down and took out his hatchet once more. 'I've seen rainbows on the snow sometimes,' said Odd, loud enough for the fix to hear, 'and on the side of the buildings when the sun shone through icicles. And I thought, ice is only water, so it must have rainbows in it too. When the water freezes, I think the rainbows are trapped into it, like fish in a shallow pool. And the sunlight sets them free.' Odd knelt on the frozen pool. Set in the Viking land, Odd is an unusual boy on an unusual adventure. A cripple, son of a beautiful woman and a sailor warrior (cough-cough raider of Scottish water villages). After the death of his father, Odd hurts himself, becomes unfit for sailing. But that doesn't stop our boy from finding his joy. One particular day after his mom has remarried, when winter refuses to l...

Book Review: The Mahabharata: a Child's view by Samhita Arni Quote: Once, Shantanu the king of Hastinapur fell in love with a maiden. He asked her for her hand in marriage, and the maiden, being equally attracted, agreed. However, she laid down certain conditions--that Hemant never asks who she was or what she did. He agreed and they got married. A book I have reread multiple times over the years. I have not read Mahabharata in actual Sanskrit, closest I have come to read it in regional tongue was in Hindi years back. Samhita Arni's book is from the perspective of a child. The book was in making since Arni was a child. At the age of four, she read the epic, her mother had asked her to rewrite the epic during vacation because the author was finishing her books too fast. At age of four, I barely could construct spellings! The author even illustrated the scenes in simple pen and ink. This book is special because it just narrates, minus the higher thought ...

Book Review: Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and Andrew Winegarner Quote: I call myself a warrior--a Peaceful Warrior--because important battles we face happen inside us. And even now, as we speak, invisible forces--forces of light and darkness--are fighting a great battle. But what does always have to do it-- A great work and sometimes we won by a single battle. The battles been fought right now, Dan . . . Inside you. A book picked up in a mad frenzy called Bookfair. I bet I fell for the cover and the words graphic novel and didn't bother reading the blurb. Three years later it is haunting me. Adapted from apparently a famous book of the same name, which has been dubbed classic. This book is a part autobiographical and fictional story of spiritual coming of age story of a young athlete called Dan, who meets a weird old man in a gas station who changed his being. Karate Kid plot meets Robin Sharma spiritualism meets Paulo Coelho's language meets White Ma...