Sunday, June 04, 2006

The Patiala Quartet

Another one of the books picked up due to the three factors - indian story, female author, debut book. Such things must be encouraged. if only so that Shobha de's books are drowned out.
Though this book was kinda of mediocre, about 4 people in patiala , but i dont think the story went anywhere leaving with a promise unfulfilled sort of feel to all of it.

American Gods- Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman writes a story about probably what he knows best. Gods of various cultures engaged in a war with each other, a protoganist with a dead wife who watches over him. Lots of interesting tidbits of information (like the origin of easter) and the usual guess why Odin can also be called wednesday.
An engaging story though nowhere near Gaimans best work which in my opinion is found in the comics he writes. Its probably due to the fact that his work in comics has been ground breaking but in the novel world it is merely really good.
Still worth a read, though i saw the end coming

Red Carpet - Lavanya Sankaran

I bought this book because i read its first page and it had a character called ramu who was on the lookout for an arranged marriage and criticised all the prospective candidates so it reminded me of a colleague similarly nicknamed and thought it would be a good prank. Besides it was a debut novel so i selected it.
turns out it was a good choice to make. The stories most of them are pretty good and written reasonably clearly. Theres a mix of stories and we should be expecting more from this lady.