“No one writes to the colonel” by Gabriel García Márquez

“The only thing that comes for sure is death”
-Gabriel García Márquez, No one writes to the colonel

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Fifteen years have passed since the Thousand days war ended in Columbia, and the colonel is still waiting for his letter of pension to arrive which was promised after the war.
Struck in poverty, the old man lives with his wife, the couple had lost their only son, lives off by selling little objects around the house and now they are just left with an old clock and their son’s rooster.

“An Offbeat Yellow Back : A book without a genre” by Aditi Bakshi

A collection of short stories and funny anecdotes, that perfectly resonates with the millennials of today’s life where everyone is slogging to make ends meet at a desk job. The ones that live on peanuts and yet spend recklessly on weekends because how else would one ‘relax’. And once the weekend is over, they are back to the mundanity of their lives, slowly giving way to insomnia and anxiety in hopes of life to turn exciting somehow.

“The Shining Tiger” by Moshank Relia.

Thank you @reliaofficial for providing a copy in return for an honest review.

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Raja and Baja, two boys living in a village have grown up listening to the fable of a mysterious tiger that shines in the dark.
Thus they embark on a journey leaving their own village, traveling places in search of the mighty beast.
How far will they go to fulfil the quest? Will, they ever find the tiger, or is it just in the stories?

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In simple and easy to read words, from the point of view of a grandmother who is telling the story to her grandson, the author has weaved a beautiful and interesting story that every kid will enjoy. The illustrations at different stages of the story make the read all the more fascinating!

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Highly recommended for kids and adults alike.

Genre: Children, fiction, illustrated
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Reading difficulty: ⭐⭐.5/5

“Tin Man” by Sarah Winman

“And I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.”
-Sarah Winman, Tin Man

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A short and beautiful story of two boys Ellis and Michael who are friends since childhood. Having been through a lot, turmoil in the family life, troubled childhood and loss of their dear ones made them close friends. They spent a lot of time together exploring the town and then their relationship became something else.

“The ministry of utmost happiness” by Arundhati Roy

“Enemies can’t break your spirit, only friends can.”
                                                              – Arundhati Roy, The ministry of utmost happiness.

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After the immense success of Arundhati Roy’s debut novel, The God of small things, winning the Booker prize in 1997 for the same, comes another novel by her, almost after 20 years.
Set in parts of Delhi( old and new), the story takes you on a journey all over India, from the capital city, of the valleys of Kashmir, to the forests of Central India.

“Ghachar Ghochar” by Vivek Shanbhag

“Words, after all, are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered.”
                       -Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar

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A story of a close-knit family which goes from living in a cramped, small house to being the owner of a large house in a posh area of Bangalore, all because of a member of the family, turning his spice business into a fortune.
The story unfolds how when money comes along, the family dynamic changes, how the definition of love and support in a joint family transforms and how ‘Ghachar Ghochar’ things go once an average middle-class family, turns rich almost overnight.

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself”
                                   -Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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Jane Eyre is the perfect Victorian classic, with the title being the name of the main protagonist.

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Jane, an orphan kid living with her aunt and cousins at the Gateshead hall. As any other orphan of her time, she is pretty much treated very badly, to the extent of being locked up in a room to learn to ‘behave’.

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Jane, a young kid of ten years, sent away to a religious boarding school – Lowood Institute. Even though she has good company, the inhabitants of the institution are constantly starved and cold for the lack of warm clothes.

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Jane, a young lady now, works as a governess for two years in Lowood and goes on to be a private tutor to a little girl named Adele, at a country house called Thornfield. There she meets  Mr. Rochester, the owner of the house and a series of events conspire between the two of them.

“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” by Agatha Christie

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”         – Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

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As always, Agatha Christie never disappoints you. The murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of the most popular novels by Agatha Christie, also the only one to be featured in the 1001 books to read before you die list. And once you read it, you can’t deny that claim.

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The tale is about the murder of a rich man Roger Ackroyd who gets killed on the evening of a widow’s suicide, amidst rumours of a secret affair between the two deceased. The village of King’s Abbot is full of suspects, the nervous butler, Ackroyd’s stepson, his sister-in-law, the house help. It is now up to the famous detective – Hercule Poirot to solve the mystery with the help of the village doctor and narrator, James Sheppard and James’ sister, Caroline.

“The handmaid’s tale” by Margaret Atwood

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”  -Margaret Atwood, The handmaid’s tale

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The handmaid’s tale is a dystopian narrative set in the Republic of Gilead where a theonomic military dictatorship exists in what is present-day Massachusetts. The government is thrown off and a totalitarian Christian theonomy reigns. Human rights are diminished and women’s rights are heavily curtailed. The women of the society are now compartmentalised based on various functions and emphasis is now wholly in the act of reproduction making it the centre of the order.

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As the protagonist puts in these words:
” I am a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black.”

“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger

“I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.”      -J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

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Ever came across a book that has no solid plot or storyline but still gets to you in so many different ways. Well, this is that book for me. “The catcher in the rye” by J.D. Salinger is a classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion. It is a story about Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old teenager, who has to leave his prep school in Pennsylvania, under some circumstances. So instead of going back to his home in New York, he decides to go underground, exploring New York for three days.

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What follows is a simple and yet complex account of a child’s understanding of the world. A world in which he tries to fit again and again but being sixteen-year-old, he is too naive and confused. Still, he has his own expectations and he eventually finds himself lost.