Pirate Latitudes This is a book by Michael Crichton that was published posthumously from a completed manuscript that they found among his things. It is set in the sixteenth century in the Caribbean waters. The book starts off quite well. The plot begins in the town of Port Royal, Jamaica where we get a glimpse of the colonial lifestyle of those ( Read more... )

By now, anyone who has an email address has probably received one of those infamous Nigerian scammer emails. These scammers are often referred to as 419ers after the penal code section under which such crimes are punishable. Interestingly, this is very similar to the Indian name for fraudsters - char sau bees(420). This is probably not as ( Read more... )

John Updike's Terrorist is a tale of the times that we live in. At first look, it is the story of the Ahmad - an inner city teenager who turns into a terrorist. However, it is interesting to note that the actual story could have been summed up in five pages. What forms the meat of the book is Updike's examination of the various characters that ( Read more... )

Judge it by what the previous borrower left between the covers - a plane ticket, or a Sunday Matinee ticket to the Oregon Symphony :)


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This is one of the criticisms about the recently deceased writer John Updike(about the book Terrorist from Wikipedia):

In the case of Ahmad, however, it is arguable that an American high school student, even one of Ahmad’s intelligence and principled views, would possess so sophisticated a grasp of the world and (English) language as Updike seeks ( Read more... )

I was at a used book sale when I spotted the novel Jurassic Park. The cover proclaimed Soon to be made into a major motion picture!. I recently finished reading it. When I told a coworker that I was reading that book, I was met with a laugh of the "Surely you're joking" variety. "Reading" Jurassic Park ( Read more... )

In my experience, movies based on books rarely live up to the promise of the book. But as I started reading Q&A by Vikas Swarup while comparing it to Slumdog Millionaire I found it hard to unequivocally decide which was better - the book or the movie. So I decided to do it the quantitative way!. I wanted to compare the two and assign points as I ( Read more... )

I recently read Netherland - a novel by Jospeh O'Neill. It is a great read and, at the same time, hard to categorize because it touches so many themes. One review (I think in New York Times) starts off comparing it to 9/11 novels; in another review it's described as "an Indian novel that happens to be written by an Irishman".  It is the story of a ( Read more... )