The Forged Genius By Nimai Joshi

Genre: Fiction

Date Read: 1st May, 2012

Overall Rating: 4/5

The Forged genius is a book by Nimai Joshi, an Engineer, a genius himself. The book is about a lot of things. College life, love, drug addiction, life and search for happiness in general.

Summary:

The story is about Arjun, whose childhood is disturbed due to his fighting and addict parents. He curses his life but then learns to ignore such things and move on with his life. In the process he becomes indifferent towards life. In college, he gets addicted to drugs. Meanwhile does find happiness in many things, but the loss of such things kept on making him like a machine and more addicted towards drugs. But then he finds the love of his life. A nice job, getting his friends back in life, family. But life again takes a turn and everything seems lost again.

With such ups and downs, the genius in Arjun keeps finding his way out.

My Views:

The book is written in exceptionally well manner with a story full of turns and twists but still very close to reality. The writing is full of witty and sarcastic sentences and incidences. The book is written by an engineer which depicts in many places with beautiful and easy explanation to many simple things. The symbolic references like the child learning tables, indifference towards life are a charm in the book. The genius and the instinct of the main character really impresses the reader and shows the intelligence of the author.

Conclusion:

A lovely book. Quite Under-rated. Deserves a applause. 

The secret of the Nagas By Amish Tripathi

Genre: Fiction, Mythological Fiction

Date completed: 23rd April, 2012

Overall Rating 3.5/5

The Secret of the Nagas is the sequel and the second book of The Shiva Trilogy. It is written as a continuation of the story as left in the previous book. The first book set a benchmark to be achieved in the forthcoming sequels. 

Summary:

The story begins where it ended in the first book. After conquering the war against Chandravanshis, Shiva realizes that they are not evil in actual and are just different from Meluhans. The search for the Nagas make him discover new lands of Branga, and the further during the end the land of the Nagas, panchwati itself. Many secrets are revealed in this book and a lot many characters are introduced. The characters are well known in Hindu mythology but are used in the book with different story line and characteristics. The legend Neelkanth finds it hard to differentiate between good and the evil as everything which looks evil turns out to be just different from others existing. The search of the evil continues in order to establish an equilibrium. The book yet again ends at the beginning of a new episode, which makes us wait for the third and the final book.

My Views:

The story is written in continuation which makes it easier to read. But surely the simplicity of the first book is missing. Too many characters are introduced and that too without much description. In the first book, each character was described beautifully. That is missing here. Moreover, use of mythological character is too much modified. which makes it hard to swallow. Apart from this, the concept is nice and the language is above average.

Conclusion: 

The charm does not match with the first book but still it is a good read. And coming up to the expectations raised by the first book are very difficult to match. and hard attempt to do that is clearly visible. Slightly overdone. The story description leaves the readers in waiting for the third and the final book. Hope it comes soon.

The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Genre: Classic, Children Book, Graphic

Overall Rating: 5/5 

Date Completed: 15th April, 2012

The Little prince is a graphic novel by a French author and fortunately translated in many languages. Apparently the author himself is a pilot and has written many classics in french. "The Little Prince" in itself is a class of literature. It is a reminder to every adult that they have a child in them and one should not let lose it somewhere. The author has explained this by telling his childhood events and how he used to describe things. And then he grows old and sees the world through mature eyes. Then he meets a little boy once again and realizes that he yearns to go back to his childhood.

Summary:

The Author on his voyage has to do an emergency landing in a desert where he meets a little boy who says that he is a little prince from some other planet. In his stay with the little prince he comes to know more about his little planet and his voyage to earth. The Prince tells him about one rose on his planet whom he loves and three small volcanoes etc.

The book shows the world through the eyes of a little boy. Where adults are trapped on their own planets and think that they are the owner of the world and have big things to do. Other people are just means to accomplish his jobs. 

The essence and beauty of small things is beautifully described in this book. The little prince describe how simple it is to be and stay happy and also spread happiness all around. The only thing is that one tries to see the beauty in everything and a reason to smile in small things. 

My Views:

It is said that sometimes small packages have the best gifts hidden in them. So is the case with this book. Less than a hundred pages that too including sketches by a kid on every other page, generally it would take less than an hour to read this much amount of text. But not with this book because as you read it, you get lost in your childhood and how creatively you used to think and everything had a simple explanation and sometimes most complicated. 

Conclusion:

In one of the chapters one line says, "no grown up will understand this." Similarly I say that No Grown up can love this book. You have to have a child in you to understand the simplicity of the thoughts. No sensible thinking shall work. A Must Must Read Classic.