Wilt on High (Published in 1984) - More fun with Wilt - Authored by Tom Sharpe

Wilt on High, is the third installment in the Wilt Series written by comic novelist, Tom Sharpe, who made a bawdy and vulgar style of writing into an art form. His writings are quite similar to those of Wodehouse, from whom he took great inspiration. But funny is where the similarity ends. Tom Sharpe takes funny and adds more crass and vulgarity to the story. Even though he started writing comedy only by the age of 43 years, his stories were an instant hit, and found a large loyal reader base.
Wilt on High, follows the exploits of Henry Wilt, a mild mannered teacher, who always gets involved in sticky situations which make for an extremely entertaining read. In this book, Wilt is shown to still be teaching at Fenland Tech. His attempts at drilling English into the minds of plasterers and dozing his way through drab committee meetings is all rudely disrupted when a dark cloud hovers over the college in the form of drug dealing. And invariably like a magnet for bad things, the cloud of suspicion finds its way to Henry Wilt.
Henry Wilt goes about his mundane life, when suddenly a departmental inquiry is conducted. Someone in the department at Fenland Tech is dealing drugs. Wilt’s friends all find themselves resenting Wilt, as they all feel that he is the reason that the department has come under such investigation. Inspector Flint, an old adversary of Wilt, takes charge of this investigation. Seizing the opportunity to try and pin everything on Wilt, Inspector Flint goes about his job with double vigor to leave no stone unturned. Knowing that Wilt is guilty of something, he sets about to try and settles a number of old scores.




Wilt’s wife is of no support to him. Like every wife, she has her doubts about Wilt, and this does not help his cause. To make matters worse, Wilt only complicates matters for himself with his talent for creating new enemies. Wilt’s inborn talent to make people hate him, starts off with an allegation of voyeurism in the ladies staff lavatory, and ends at a showdown at a US airbase, with forces of law and order on both sides, and is Wilt as always, right in the middle of this messy affair!
The book is a constant topsy-turvy journey through oddities. And where Tom Sharpe’s brilliant writing shines through is how all these eccentricities come together to make sense. From situations involving a group called Mothers Against The Bomb, to the set of murderous quadruplets and a thermonuclear war that could be set off all because of the misusage of Spanish Fly, the book is a classic Tom Sharpe novel where things just keep getting worse and as a reader we wait for it to collapse in on itself. Only it doesn’t collapse, it just keeps getting better.
Tom Sharpe is known as P. G. Wodehouse on acid! He has more or less the same comic style of writing, but with loads of vulgarity and crude humor and bold satire. Wodehouse’s influence maybe visible in Sharpe’s plots and settings, but it’s the absurd and completely unbelievable twists and turns in the story that involve the reader.  A thoroughfare of absurd situations which grips the reader to follow the simple yet odd ball character called Henry Wilt.

Washington Square (published in 1880) - Originally published as a short story by Henry James

Henry James was one of the greatest literary figures of the 19th century and his works are considered mini masterpieces of the time. He was born in New York City in to a wealthy and intellectual family. Young James was tutored in the many learning centers of Europe and also studied at the Harvard Law School for some time. But he liked his literary pursuits to the study of law. James preferred living in Europe than in America and even renounced his American Citizenship for its refusal to enter in to World War I. He was a regular contributor to literary magazines and started his first novel “Watch and Ward” in his early twenties. His masterpieces like “Daisy Miller” and “Portrait of a Lady” quickly followed. His protagonist are complex individuals battling personal and provincial prejudices and many a time bring about the complexities of American and European lives. Henry James died at the age of 65 and his ashes are interred at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Washington Square is a tragi-comedy by Henry James which tells the relationships and conflicts between a father and his dutiful daughter. This short novel appeared as a monthly piece in the Corn-hill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine.
Dr. Austin Sloper is a widower who resents his plain daughter Catherine and still mourns the death of his wife and a brilliant son. He considers Catherine to be a dull and boring personality devoid of any personality. His house is maintained by his sister, widowed Lavinia Penniman who is a hardcore romanticist. She is a brash old thing who pokes her nose in to other's affairs.



Catherine meets Morris Townsend, a penniless gold digger who sweeps her off her feet. Townsend woos her and proposes marriage. Mrs. Penniman who loves romance and melodrama encourages and aides Townsend's actions. But Dr. Sloper sees through him and forbids Catherine to have any relationship with him. Townsend moves back to live with his sister and Sloper takes his daughter away.
Catherine, for all her waify ways has an iron will and she decides that she wouldn't not throw away her love on mere suspicion. She goes with her father on a twelve month grand tour of Europe. All through the journey Sloper mentions Townsend only twice signaling his contempt. His threat to disown Cathrine also does not have any effect on the girl.
On the final leg of the journey Slopper broaches the subject of Morris Townsend and Catherine firmly refuses to give him up. Her loyalty enrages him and he refers her derogatorily as a “pig fattened for slaughter”. This is the last straw for Catherine who has put up with his contemptuous behavior and she distances herself away from her father.
Upon her returns Catherine convinces Townsend about her loyalty and love, but he breaks off the relationship when he discovers that she has been cut off from Sloper's money. This breaks Catherine's heart which would never mend again. She rejects suitors and lovers as the injury despairs her soul. Dr. Sloper passes away with out leaving her all the money for the fear of Townsend making an appearance again. His suspicions are proved correct. Townsend indeed makes a return after a long time, smelling money. He tries to rekindle the relationship. But Catherine sees through his ploy and refuse to be led down the garden path again. At the end of the novel she picks up her life and resolves to live it as it unravels.
This novel was not very much liked by James and he had fought its inclusion in the New York Edition of his work. But it still proves one of Henry James's popular novels. Its breezy romance and the ever suffering heroine does evoke sympathy. It has all the ingredient of a tragic love story which brings a lump to your heart. Read it for its poignancy.

Nicholas Nickleby (published in 1839), written by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens is more famous for the novels such as Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, novels that deal with life, with despair, with happy endings after struggle, and so on. At the same time, Charles Dickens is less known for the comedies he wrote, and he wrote a fair number of them such as "The Pickwick Papers" (his first novel), and "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby". The book, like his other books, was presented in serial form through 1838 and 1839, in a total of 19 serial releases (the length of each serial release was 32 pages). This book, although not so widely know as his other books, has received a fair amount of praise, and has been used for different adaptations for film, the stage, and for television multiple times. As for criticism, the book has a large number of characters, and the criticism of the book develops from the opinion that not sufficient space has been given by Dickens to develop the story of these characters.
The novel was written during the time that Dickens was writing Oliver Twist, and showed that there was a reversion back to comedy in the form of this novel.



The novel carries on with Dickens quest against social injustice of the British society of that time, and shows specifically the injustice against boys at a all-boys boarding school run by Wackford Squeers (and as mentioned by Dickens, this behavior seemed so realistic that Dickens was threatened by legal action by many people running boarding schools who felt that Dickens was portraying their boarding schools).
The story is about Nicholas Nickleby, an impulsive and given to anger young man, whose father died leaving the family penniless and leaving Nicholas responsible for his mother and sister. He has a rich uncle, Ralph, but Ralph does not like Nicholas, although he has a soft corner for Kate, the sister of Nicholas. Given that Ralph feels some responsibility for the family, he gets employment for Nicholas and Kate in other that they can support the family; and Nicholas gets employment at a Yorkshire boarding school for poor boys called "Dotheboys Hall" run by Wackford Squeers where the boys are badly mistreated, and Nicholas retaliates against this treatment.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1963

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a number of books that were satire, and were insightful comments into human behavior; he used to weave in the areas that caused the strongest of human emotions such as organized religion, different brands of politics, and the quest to run our daily lives. The name of the book, Cat's Cradle, is derived from a string game (played with strings manipulated by the fingers of both hands), and is used because the fictional character of one of the leading scientists, Felix Hoenikker (a fictional character, and a leading scientist, who played a key role in the creation of the atom bomb) was playing Cat's Cradle when the atom bomb was first used. Felix was a hard nosed scientist who did not care about what his inventions would do, and was indifferent on the uses of his invention. This attitude in the book was based on the real life experiences of Vonnegut, who used to interview scientists from GE as part of an effort to generate some good stories from the research work ongoing.



The primary character of the novel is a man called Jonah, who wants to write a book that details what some important Americans were doing on the day that a nuclear bomb was used, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. During his research, he gets acquainted with the family of Felix Hoenikker, Nobel award winning physicist who was involved in the creation of the atom bomb. Jonah soon learns of another creation of the scientist, a chemical called ice-nine, a pretty dangerous material that freezes water even at room temperature, and can do so even if it is one crystal of the material coming into contact with a huge amount of water.
Soon, Jonah is on his way to a Carribean island of San Lorenzo, a very poor island that is ruled by a dictator, "Papa" Monzano. San Lorenzo has a religion called Bokononism, which is very popular in the island, and is a new type of religion, combining peaceful rituals with a nihilistic thoughts about humanity and God's role. Soon, a series of events occur in which Jonah is handed over the Presidency of the island, and ice-nine causes first the death of the ailing dictator, and then a freak accident causes the freezing of the entire water of the earth's oceans and seas, causing mass deaths. It is then revealed that the book is a memoir written by Jonah.

The Sirens of Titan by author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, (1959)

The Sirens of Titan was a novel that was nominated for a Hugo Award, published in 1959. It is acknowledged to be one of the best books by Kurt Vonnegut, even though he has several other famous books such as Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions. The book is not actually true science fiction in the mould of books by writers such as Asimov or Arthur C Clarke, more in the lines of satire, a satire on humanity. The book is especially critical of concepts such as religion, treating religion as a concept that can make its followers do weird acts, as well as how these concepts are used as a powerful weapon to influence people, and equally and weirdly, how people allow themselves to be influenced by such use of religion.



This novel was controversial, given its treatment of religion, and churches, and how the fervor of the book was seen to be almost similar to Marxist disdain for religion. At the same time, there are a huge set of fans of Vonnegut, who cannot understand the controversy about the book. The book should be seen as a funny and humorous look at overall society, and this book is indeed pretty funny.
The novel is supposed to be about the richest man on Earth (in the 22nd century), Malachi Constant, who is extremely rich, but whose life is mostly stagnant. In actuality, the novel seeks to portray the entire human existence, its civilization, its development, all this as something that was necessary only to help an inter-galactic traveller. This traveler, called Salo, from a place called Tralfamadorian, is a robot meant to carry a message to another galaxy. However, his ship breaks down, and needs a new part. And this is where the meaning of humanity takes on a different air, since the entire human existence and development was meant for the level of civilization to reach a point where this part can be manufactured and given to Salo.
Constant is actually manipulated by a strange set of events, manipulated by Winston Niles Rumfoord. Rumfoord is a person who knows the past, present and future, and can appear on different planets, primarily because his ship entered a strange phenomenon called 'chrono-synclastic infundibulum', something not defined, but which gives him strange powers.

Maneater: Gigi Levangie Grazer (2003) - Positively witty

To be honest, I had not heard of the author (Gigi Levangie Grazer - biography site) before this book. I am a sucker for book sales, and I saw a sale where this book was also there, and I don't know what made me pick this book as opposed to other books, but I don't regret it one bit. Once I had picked up the book, it was hard to put down. It is hard to easily describe the novel, but if I were to summarize the book, it would be in terms of calling it a 'hard to put down, biting witticism filled description of Los Angeles society. The book portrays a chilling portrayal of what a middle-aged (by her standards) lady needs to do in terms of her future, and how all her plans go haywire when she is fooled by somebody even more expert than her.



Clarissa is 28 (actually 31), somebody who has never worked for anything her whole life. She depends on her father and mother, and lives a life of parties, gossip, and the close company of her group of friends (called the Star Chamber - some of them are close friends, and with one of whom she has a relationship that is more enemy like than with friends). Clarissa is very clear on her priorities in life, such as food (good), sex (good), shopping (good), work (bad). She also realizes that since she is actually 31 years old, her biological clock is indicating that she needs to get a move onto finding a man for her (and obviously, it has to be a rich man since she needs to be supported in life as per her expectation). It is a biting satire of the lives of the rich and famous that Clarissa even has though through her future, including when to have children, when she will get divorced. Her relationship with her mother is also shown as pretty interesting, somebody on whom she depends at times of extreme stress, but not otherwise.
So, after crossing through a number of potential husbands and rejecting them (such as Bruce Springsteen, John F. Kennedy Jr. (who is a good potential, but dead), Ted Field, etc), she narrows her choice down to young Aaron Mason, a person rich enough that he can afford to be what he wants (he wants to make a movie about an old subject). Now starts the process of planning for the marriage (even though the groom does not know that he is the target, and that his marriage date has been decided). She finds out that Aaron is not as dumb as he would appear, and is wise to what she is trying, but he plays along and finally they get married.
And this is where the novel takes a twist, with Aaron having far more secrets than Clarissa would like, one of which leads her to living in a much smaller apartment than the swanky house and comfort that she had expected. Clarissa is shocked, but slowly starts to get used to it, and then she gets more shocks from Aaron. The end is different, but the novel starts to meander a bit, and loses the wit and bite soon after the marriage, and slowly starts to become more saccharine sweet. On the whole, it is still enjoyable.

"Malgudi Days" By R.K. Narayan

Nearly everyone of us (from my generation) would never forget the "Malgudi Days" we used to watch on the television in our childhood. That title music still lingers on our lips. To hear the tune, click here. Well, the serial was based on a wonderfully written collection of short stories from one of India's greatest novelist, R.K. Narayan.



It is a collection of short stories written by the author (around 32 in number) which are based in a fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. The fiction town of Malgudi has been imagined and described in such a form that it could be any town of India. The vast majority of the stories are less than ten pages long; several are under five; and only one is more than 20. Narayan wrote many of these stories under deadline, within the limits of word count and column length for The Hindu, a Madras newspaper for which Narayan had a contract for a weekly submission beginning in 1939. At the same time they all seem spontaneously and effortlessly composed. Each stands on its own, but they are inherently intertwined while remaining independent from each other. The only force binding them is the town of Malgudi.

The main characters in each of the short story is a real life character - be it a school boy, a retired old man, a gardener, a maid, post man, snake charmer, cobbler, a gateman or even a dog. They all seem so familiar (especially for people like me who were born and raised up in a small city - not a metro); they are people from every walk of life. In nearly all the stories, the description of Malgudi is very real-like - you can actually imagines its market place, its school, its main roads and other things while reading the stories.

Here are some of the best stories from the lot:-

Attila: Attila is a small pup in a family who is bought with the expectation that he will grow up to fierce and protector of the house, after all he has the right pedigree. He turns out to be the friendliest dog in the world and when a thief enters the house he turns protector in most unexpected fashion.

Leela’s Friend: Sidda works as a domestic help in an affluent household. His main task is to play with the daughter of the household, Leela, who is just a small girl. Leela is very fond of Sidda. One day her gold chain goes missing and Sidda is accused and handed over to the police. The chain is found later on.

Iswaran: In India, we seem to have very little tolerance for failure and Iswaran flunks his 12th board examinations more than once. He seems not to care and develops a tough exterior. This story rings true for many Indian youngsters even today.

Lawely Road: Lawely Road pokes gentle fun on the fixation of changing names of everything British after India got independence. In this story, the municipality wants to pull down a statue of Sir. F. Lawely with hilarious consequences.

Father’s Help: Swami (a small child studying in first standard) develops an headache in the morning just before school. Father is adamant that Swami has to attend school. Swami tells tales to father that his class teacher Samuel has a fascination of skinning people alive. Father writes a strong letter to the Headmaster of the school and Swami has to deliver it. The dilemma Swami then faces makes this story the best one.

A must read classic in my opinion.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Whats great about this book is that it will change the way you look at things. Economics, for me, has never been my cup of tea. It is a science much bigger than reaching to Mars, I think. But this book is made for people like me. It is fun reading, all the while using data mining, to prove why things happen as they happen in terms of economics.




"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" is a book by Steven Levitt (University Of Chicago) and Stephen J. Dubner (New York Times). It proves that economics is not dull all time and not all related to finances most of the times. The book's topics include:
Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers (See below)
Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocaine dealers
Chapter 4: The controversial role legalized abortion has played in reducing crime
Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children

Authors ask a lot of hilarious questions like: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? or Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? or Do real estate agents have their clients’ best interests at heart? or What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? or How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

The book was first published in 2005 and was a best seller, selling more than 3 million copies till now in around 30 languages. For many people, this book is an absurd book. But for me, this has been a "aha" effect book - nice one time read. Wonderful way of looking at things - it surely turns conventional wisdom on its head.

For more, have a look the book's official site.

Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

Notes From A Small Island is a travelogue by Bill Bryson about his farewell journey through England, Wales and Scotland before leaving for U.S. so that to "give his children the opportunity to live in another country, his wife the ability to go shopping after 10 P.M., and rescue Americans from the delusion that they were being abducted by aliens" (all is his own words). He travels through his adopted homeland by rail, bus or foot and captures, as usual, the details wherever he goes.

The best part about Bill Bryson is his eye for detail and his laugh-out-loud humor. This book has the details part intact but the laugh-out-loud factor is somewhat subdued. If you are truly a Bill Bryson fan, you will be a little disappointed by this one - at least I was. The book is more about his experiences rather than the history, people and other local things for the places he visits. Also, the second part of the book goes rather boring with his same type of rant about hotels he stays in, strange place names, identical places etc. Maybe it is because, as he says, there is everything identical in all the British places.

Overall, single time read. Not as good as "Walk in the Woods" or "Down Under" but still it has its own moments.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

I'll admit it right away, there are many of Bill Bryson's books that I really liked. I had read some of Bryson's later books before I read this one, so there was always the thought that maybe his earlier books would not have the same level of humour, and the great style of writing that I always liked. Well, I felt great while reading the book and did not regret it one bit. He writes a lot about travel and adventure, while presenting a great deal of information. And to tell the truth, I had not heard of the Appalachian Trail before reading this book; by the time I had finished, I knew a great deal more. And it was not only me; after this book was published in 1998, there was an upsurge in interest about the trail, with a lot more people wanting to hike the trail.


The book is about the attempt by the author and his old college buddy, Stephen Katz, to walk the 2100 miles of the Appalachian Trail from start to finish. Neither of the 2 is in top physical condition, with Katz in a much worse physical condition. By the end, neither of them has done anything like what they attempted to do, having covered a very small section overall of the trail (and for which the book was criticised to some extent, as a travel book that did not even cover the whole trail).
In addition, the book was also criticized to a large degree because of the depiction of fellow hikers, with the author having been accused of turning them into absurdities.
However, the fact remains that this is not just a travel book. The book is not supposed to be a guide for traveling the trail, instead it is a humorous depiction of a journey, with the focus on the effort and the adventures while on the trail. The book is chock full of humour that makes you laugh, and makes you want to read more. About the travel of the author with his old friend, the entire adventure from the start (preparing what to take, and what to discard), and how whether their physical condition is adequate for the trip that they are considering.
The fear of bears, and maybe of mountain lions, is apparent in the writing, and the time where the author described how a bear came into the camp makes for some riveting reading. The book also tries to explain a lot of geological information (how the mountains and its various aspects came into existence), how the trail was formed due to the efforts of 2 dedicated people, and a lot about the fauna and flora along the trail. You also get to read a lot about the various stops, towns, and fellow hikers that they meet when on the trail.
The only time when the book deviates from the light reading and humour is when you can perceive the author's anger against the mismanagement of the trail by various administrative bodies such as the Parks and Forest Services of the federal Government, as well as the ineptitude of the US Army Corps of Engineers. He is downright hostile to their mismanagement, and when you read the way in which the information is presented, you can tend to agree with him.
Overall, this is a book that is worth reading, and you might find yourself chuckling along with the author.

Neither here nor there - Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson

In this book, Bill Bryson attempts to recreate the travel itinerary of his youth some seventeen years earlier when he backpacked across Europe with one of his high school friend; He is alone this time with rucksack and notebook. This book a mixture of his lively anecdotes, sharp observations, and flashbacks to his earlier tour.

The book covers Norway (Hammerfest, Oslo), France (Paris), Belgium (Brussels, Bruges, Spa, Durbuy), Germany (Aachen, Cologne, Hamburg), Holland (Amsterdam), Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Gothenburg, Stockholm), Italy (Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, Florence, Milan, Como), Switzerland (Brig, Geneva, Bern), Liechtenstein, Austria (Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna), Yugoslavia (Split, Sarajevo, Belgrade), Bulgaria (Sofia), and Turkey (Istanbul).



The book is pure entertainment (provided you must not fail to catch the humor there). He is quite honest about what he liked or what he did not liked. And he was prompt is downgrading his rating for a "well-known" place once he reached there and did not found it up to the mark. He also diligently lavishes praises on lesser known places. He surely avoids the usual travel writer obligation to adore every place (read famous places) they visit.

I know that some of you may find this book rather strangely funny - or, even absurd at times. But only if you're obsessed with political correctness, he may offend you, but he is democratic in his targets. He has some quite interesting observations to make. Although most of the observations are now out of the date (he wrote the book in 1990) but they are funny and a refreshing change from the breathless romanticism of so many guidebooks and travel brochures. He also shows that Europe and Britain aren't as perfect as they look from the windows of a tour bus.

Shakespeare - The world as a stage: By Bill Bryson

I am not a great reader of biographies (or that too from Jacobean or Elizabethan literature) but I just finished a new book by Bill Bryson (and you say - but Bill Bryson is not about bioraphies). Yes, you are true - but this book is about a prominent figure from that era. The book surprisingly is not a travel book (oh thank god, I would not have to laugh-holding-my-stomach-till-I-cry a lot like I do while reading this travel books) but a biography of Shakespeare.

It is a very clean book - it actually does not gives its own theories about many mysterious facts of Shakespeare's life; but just tries to be itself. It is author's attempt to decode more of what Shakespeare was as a human being not as a writer. He traces William Shakespeare journey from Startford-upon-Avon to London (in Lord Chamberlain's Men) and then back to Startford-upon-Avon, where he died in 1616.



Bill Bryson highlights the major feature of Shakespeare's life (or whatever we know of him) - scant facts as we know. For example, it is rather strange to know that for nearly eight years of his life - nobody knows where Shakespeare was - before he actually surfaced as one of the most prominent play writer in London. Or, that there are hardly a dozen writings of Shakespeare in his own hand writing - and half of them are his signatures - each one different from another. And there is not a single painting of William Shakespeare in which we can say for sure how did he looked like - or even if the guy in the painting is indeed Shakespeare. Few records of Shakespeare's life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about matters such as his sexuality (just because he wrote a rather risque poem dedicated to an Earl & some sonnets of intense friendship), religious beliefs (just because it was so confusion out there at that time in general) and whether the works attributed to him were written by someone else (this is height of... !!). Bryson documents the efforts of different scholars (some bizarre and others more bizarre) - where each one tried to prove a point about Shakespeare's life. Consider this, an eccentric Delia Bacon, who developed a firm but 'unconvincing' (read "no proof") conviction that, Francis Bacon, was the true author of Shakespeare's plays.

Emulating the style of his famous travelogues, Bryson records episodes in his research, including a visit to a bunker like room in Washington, D.C., where the world's largest collection of First Folios is housed. Bryson celebrates the great era of English literature & London play circuits with facts rather then defining them on speculations. Bryson also points out that we know so little about Shakespeare because till hundred years after his death there was no serious attempt to write about his life - was it because he was not so popular at that time?

Overall, a nice read if
1. You love to read about history.
2. You love to read Bill Bryson, which I do.
3. You can imagine Jacobean or Elizabethan era and its descriptions.

The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil wears Prada is the classic story of a girl who has to choose between the shortest path to her goal and the right path. After trying the shortest path for a while, the girl finally gives it all up only a short while before she is about to succeed and starts again on the right path.

If you compare the novel and the book, both seem to convey a different message. While the book seem to preach following your heart to your goal, the movie has been twisted to advocate "Good wins over Evil" where Andrea is good and Miranda is Evil. Needless to say, I like the book better.



Andrea Sachs is a graduate in English and is about to start her career. She gets a lucky break in the Runway magazine as the junior assitant of the legendary Editor-in-Chief, Miranda Priestly. Though she joins a fashion magazine, Andrea's ultimate goal is to work for the New Yorker and she sees Runway as the shortest route to it. But after working with the "boss from hell" Miranda for about an year, she realizes that her priorities rest with her family and friends. She gives it all up and starts out on the longer route by writing short fiction.

All through this, Andrea comes out as a girl who is in a dilemna about what path to take even though her goal is always clear to her. When she is ignoring her family and friends, her conscious always keeps chiding her for this. At the end she has the guts to throw away a good chance of reaching her goal, when she needs to be with her friend. The novel ends with she and Alex, her boyfriend with whom she has a fallout because of her job, staying as friends but taking time away from each other. The movie shows them getting back together as if nothing went wrong.

Miranda Priestly's treatment of her juniors cannot be called pleasant at any time during the novel. In fact, she makes life perfectly miserable for them. But on the other hand, she is a successful professional woman who adores her daughter and spends considerable time on phone with her husband. This streak of her character has been completely turned around in the movie where she is shown to be divorcing her husband at the end.

Out of Andrea and Miranda, I would say that Miranda's character sketch is far more interesting.

In case you are in a dilemna over your career and would like to cross over to a field that seems to be closer to your heart, reading this book may give you the strength to take that final step.

Made in America - Bill Bryson (1996)

For those of you who have not read books by Bill Bryson before, be prepared for a blast. These books are non-fiction, but are incredibly funny. There has been many a time when I have had to go back and read a section that I just read since it made me laugh (and I wanted to laugh again). Some of the other great books of Bill Bryson that you should read are a 'A Lost continent', 'A walk in the woods', 'A short history of nearly everything', 'Down Under', and so on (you get the picture - I have yet to read a Bill Bryson book that did not appeal).
This book is about the development of English language down the ages, so you will find a lot of detail about how words came to be added to the English used in the United States, such as derived from the American Indians who were living there when the settlers first went in, from various languages (or rather from the immigrants of various countries such Germany, French, Irish, British, and so on,) and from whom many words of the language came to be derived, though many times these were twisted and turned in a way that the original speaker would not have realized.


But is this just a scholarly exposition of the development of the English language used in the United States ? That would be downright boring. To everyone's relief, such is not the case. The book delves into the history of the United States and presents a great many facts while reliving the story, at the same time, debunking many myths that we have. The book is a great read for anyone who wants to read about the history of the United states through its culture, not through politics or war. From the starting, the book is a wonder of facts and learning:
- Giving a lot more detail about the original settlers and whether there were people before them
- About the way that the original settlers almost got wiped out, but survived due to the help of the native Indians nearby
- About the nature of the apparently frigid puritans and the easy prevalence of sex before marriage as a way to measure compatibility and how many marriage were formalized after a baby had been conceived
- A great many myths around the American revolution including heroic words and actions ascribed to people who apparently did no such thing
- The womanizing nature of Benjamin Franklin
- The great debates and concerns around having the different time zones and even more so, the concept of daylight savings time
- A lot of description of the many inventions and the different nature of the investors (their human traits as compared to the noble myths around them)
and so on
Too many to tell, it is better read from the book which is a very enthralling reading.

A master of science: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, is not an auto-biographical book of this great scientist. It is a book of anecdotes about this great physicist and scientist, containing many stories transcribed from recordings made by his friend Ralph Leighton, in a period of 7 years of drumming with Richard Feynman. The person they describe, Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an extra-ordinary person. He had jointly won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics. He was also very famous for being part of the panel that investigated the disaster over the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, an incident that cast a gloom over the US space program for many years. Feynman actually had a public demonstration of the weakness of the material of the valve that caused the disaster.
To hear about such a physicist, you wold tend to think that this would be a normal persona for a scientist and professor of science, namely a dry person, totally immersed in science and far removed from other sort of emotions. In fact, the real Feynman was more of a teacher as well, who found great inspiration in trying to explain things, and explain them well. The book does a lot to present the true nature of Richard Feynman, who was a very colorful personality, and whose death in 1988 was a true loss.



Feynman was of Jewish origins, but not particularly observant. The earliest we hear from his is his tinkering in the house with wires, electricity, radios, speakers, and other such contraptions; trying to experiment more and more and invent new things. From reading about the early Feynman in the book, it would seem quite apparent that he had a natural urge towards practical engineering, and it was also quite clear that his family was not rich.
The book highlights the prankster that Richard Feynman starts to become, explaining the pranks that he starts to develop as he grows up, with a good enumeration of the many capers and mischiefs that he starts to deploy in college. You see his sense of humour, and you start to warm upto the person that he was. You also see how his career starts to develop, and how he was a personality not driven by the need to do better and better in a career sort of sense, but more in terms of developing better learning. At the end of the day, Feynman's most important teachings might come as: 'Never take yourself too seriously' (as other reviewers have already commented), 'Always keep an open mind' and 'Focus your efforts on what really matters'.
You also read about his attempts to get involved with the opposite sex, and that makes for some interesting reading. You also read about his humanness, when you see how he really did not enjoy his humanity courses while in college. I don't want to talk too much more about the anecdotes, since those are the best reading on your own. However, the impression that I got after reading this book was about a genius walking this earth.

William Dalrymple: City of Djinns

What does this title mean ? Well, the Djinns as referred to in this book are the spirits who cannot be seen, but who are the original inhabitants of the city and have been with the city as it prospered and withered (or was brutally sacked) many times over a period of thousands of years.
Delhi (or New Delhi as we now globally know it as) is the capital of a resurgent India, the epicenter of political and bureaucracy strength in the country. To outsiders, it is a city full of Punjabis, full of people with egos and show-off tendencies, but otherwise very severely restricted in terms of culture. In other respects, it is also a city with many decaying sections (especially its heritage and historical monuments); while at the same time, it is also a city that is like a magnet for outsiders, so rapidly is it growing that its amenities and infrastructure is falling apart.
This book was published in 1993, so it somewhat dated, and cannot be really seen as something like a 'Lonely Planet' kind of guide to the city, but if you want to know about the history of the city, there are very few books that can match this one. And this is not a dry book full of historical facts, it is a book full of humour, with many personal touches given by the author describing his struggles with the bureaucracy as well as the constant struggle that he makes in order to obtain the information that he seeks. It is quite true, it is only a committed seeker of information (or material for a book) who would do all the searching that the author has done.
The book initially itself divides Delhi into 2 parts, where one is the new part, capturing the essence of Punjabi culture brought in by the settling of Punjabi refugees from Pakistan into the city on a mass scale (in fact, large sections of the city are former refugee colonies); and the old part of the city (Old Delhi), representing the history and heritage of the city (although in massive decline with decay and no ability to manage the upkeep of many of these structures or prevent them from being trampled under). These are 2 almost independent sections with little inter-action. A vocal section that represents the old Mughal cultural tradition of the city is actually outside India, with many of them moving over to Pakistan at the time of partition; yet carrying the memories of Delhi with them. And of course, the current two sections of the city do not exactly love each other, with the Punjabi culture being seen as brash and arrogant (primarily being seen as uncultured) while the Old Delhi culture is seen as old, degenerate, living in the past and crying over things long gone.
The history of Delhi is replete with many "Delhi's" being built and destroyed; classical lore has it that the Delhi of today is the 8th in line, with 7 earlier Delhi's having come into existence and then replaced by a newer Delhi (each time bearing a vision of their creator).
What the author has done has has to start with the present (represented by the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 - one of the most recent shameful episodes of modern India), and then almost peel off the layers of the city one by one. In the course of these, you get to hear from people who you would not known have existed, the remaining Anglo-Indian community, the community of Eunuchs who once commanded great power in the harems of the emperor and are now living the life of outcasts (you even get to know the history of how does a person land up with the eunuchs). You get to get a second-hand visual of the ancient sport of cock-fighting. And what is Delhi without its various religious festivals, so you get a glimpse of all of them through the eyes and words of the author. I could go on and on describing what the author has written about, but you really should read the book by yourself.
Of course, you might find out about the things that you never knew about, the bloody part about Delhi; the mass killings during and after the First War of Independence, as well as the mass slaughters prescribed by victorious rulers. You might also get to know some facts about some of the city's prominent figures of the past (rulers, architects, etc) that you never knew.

Jeffrey Archer: Not a Penny more, not a Penny less

This was the first Jeffrey Archer that I read, and this was the first one written by him way back in 1974. It was a slow starter, but slowly picked up by word of mouth, and eventually became a big hit. The book was a bit raw, since it was his first book, but was still extremely enjoyable. The book was not terribly thick either, and was thus a good read.
So what was the book all about? It was essentially about the revenge thought up by a cold, calculating mind, that of a Harvard graduate now teaching at Oxford against a swindler. The story starts with the swindle though up by a man who has made his money by high-level cheating; in this case, Harvey Metcalfe, sells a story about an oil stock just about to hit it big. He manages to swindle 4 people out of a considerable portion of their money; Stephen Bradley, a Harvard mathematics graduate now teaching at Oxford; Robin, a physician at Harley Street; Jean-Pierre Lamans, an art dealer; and James Brigsley, a presumably vacant young English lord.
So when Stephen Bradley finds that he is now holding dud oil stock, he wants to get his money back, not exactly revenge, he just wants to get his money back, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. He contacts the other 3 people swindled, and while initially they are unwilling to admit that they lost money, they eventually do so. He forms his own small army to get their money back. Part of the plan is that all the robbed will make their own plans to get the money back, and all of them will play their parts in each plan. The rest of the book is about how each of them make their own plans based on their own areas of knowledge, and start making a fool of Metcalfe. The amusing part is also about how they treat James Brigley as the only person who is presumably not smart enough to make his own plans; but eventually in a twist, due to romancing Metcalfe's daughter, he manages to get money back.
The last twist in the story is contained in the final 2 pages, so it is possible like I did so, where the last 2 pages were stuck together, and it is only when I read a different copy that I realized the final twist.