Books

I've not spent more than a week in one place since I left Belgium (i.e. for the last 3 months), but here I go - I did manage to spent 10 days at my grandma's place. Well, can't really say 10 days at her place, but in this city. Thus not wandering around for a while I've had enough time to selfless (or you can say selfish) reading. Lemme share some of my recent discoveries with you.

Welcome to Nastya's literature nerd club!

I started with buying 4 books in a nearby shop the day I arrived here (obviously expecting my grannny to be way entertaining): "City" by Alessandro Baricco, "Where Rainbows End" by Cecilia Ahern, a book by Jorge Bucay, and "The Death Ship" by B. Traven.

1. I bought this book because I like the author, I didn't bother checking the content. Having bought "City" I immediately thought of gifting it to a friend of mine after reading, who is also fond of Baricco. I understood I had read this novel as I opened the book and went through the first page. I also remembered that I had gifted it also before. To the same friend I thought about now :)

2. A friend of mine advised me to read anything of this author. I came across "Rainbows". It turned out to be completely out of my preferences but nonetheless held me on till the very end. I kinda feel I consumed the product of a popular scribbler, feel poisoned in a way, but hell I liked the story and it made me pour real tears more than couple of times during reading. Well, I can admit she has a talent in creating a story the mass will swallow with pleasure, but she doesn't have a clue about the talent to make me enjoy reading the way I want it - enjoy the language, enjoy the complexity of the plot, and its integrity!

3. This guy is a psychologist, and it didn't help him. The book was crap. Stopped reading it in 3 pages.

4. 'Never-heard-about-him' writer produced a nice, but a little boring (at some point, but gets better in the end) and quite depressive story. Worth reading though.

Having finished this bunch I moved on to a book lying on my bedside table since I was in India: "The 3 Mistakes of My Life" by Chetan Bhagat. Btw what's with the numbers in the title? He has it in each and every book he released. Has anybody noticed?!

Started reading with a tag 'worth book of Bhagat' in my head given by a friend, thus not expecting much. In fact it earned 'the best book of Bhagat' tag given by me. This is a great story, with religion and politics issues, business, love, death, friendship, insanity, cricket, real historical events, all together mixed and put in one short novel. Though I still think he could have been less 'real' about the whole 'based on a true story' thing, it looks a little cheesy on the last page, but the first 250 are just great!

Yeh, there is really no accounting for taste...

Another journey to the bookstore added 2 more items to my collection of the week: the last unfinished novel by Bulgakov (haven't started it yet) and yet another masterpiece of my favorite Milorad Pavic - 'Paper Theater'! I am in the middle of it, but I can already say: He is great, he was great, and I once again understood what I am searching in every book I read, what I want them to be like, and why I fail to enjoy most of them! Pavic has an extraordinary imagination, memory, language, and he does have a message in everything he writes. I love this dude!

That's all for books now. Feel free to share your recent findings on this topic! Anything I must not miss reading?