I say again, lest my last post failed to register with the ‘deaf futtbucker’ demographic hiding amongst you: The Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 is about to get underway.

There are Lit Fests and there are Lit Fests. This one, though, is not your average overdose of book readings and (equally lackluster) panel discussions. The authors will not brood and the audience will not snooze.

For one, it’s a free festival.

So you see..? It is a chance for bottom feeders (like you) to approach Salman Rushdie, sip coffee with Michael Ondaatje, rub shoulders with Amish Tripathi, or admire Fatima Bhutto in toto for her, er, literary excellence.

Choosing what events to attend may be the only stress of the day for your cheap derriere. You’ll pay nothing to get in; then mull difficult session choices over a free lunch.

The atmosphere will be informal, interdisciplinary, and infectious. Actors, directors, fashion designers, economists, travellers, politicians, scientists, students, bloggers and all manner of urban hipsters will congregate in the gardens of an old and intimate Rajasthani palace to spend 5 days “in conversation”.

At night, the wine will flow. Expect the stage to come alive with the Dionysian revelry that typically follows a literary salon.

But there’s a catch.

Thanks to a rise in the number of programmes (and an ever increasing attendance) over the years, the venue is straining to breaking point and the nature of the event is changing. Last year, J.M. Coetzee had to clamber over hundreds of people squeezed next to speakers, crouched next to seats, or sitting on folded newspapers on the churned-up grass.

To reach the stage.

Those who have experienced the intimacy of earlier editions of the JLF lament that it is now impossible to have conversations with their favourite writers. The authors, too, may bemoan the festival’s increasingly unwieldy size.

Junot Diaz, a witty and thoughtful commentator on the lot of migrants in America, used one session to blame capitalism for encouraging writers to pursue their work not because they have something important to say, but for the sake of getting approval from the largest possible audience. “We know that we need less applause and more conversation,” he told a packed room.

Promptly—inevitably—the audience clapped.

One can certainly nitpick, and criticism has always been a blood sport in India. My money, though, is still on Dalrymple (co-Director of the event) to put up a great show. The self-confessed “Indophile” has always had an acute understanding of the way things work (or don’t work) in India (a fact amply demonstrated in his books). Vikram Seth may well buy George Herbert’s house and own an umbrella but he won’t ever really be ‘British’; while one may safely proclaim Dalrymple is more ‘Indian’ now than when he first came here (as a backpacker in 1989), and less of an anglophile than a lot of us.

Ergo: Mister William aage badho, hum tumhaare saath hain.

Homies!

The Jaipur Literature Festival (20-24 Jan ’12) is about to get underway.

It’s been a bumpy ride - The inaugural event in 2006 drew a crowd of about 100 attendees, including some who “appeared to be tourists who had simply got lost,” according to the event’s co-director William Dalrymple.

And the naysayers feel the festival is all about pretenders and post-colonial sahibs. Like Hartosh Bal; in a caustic piece appearing in Open Magazine in 2011, he wrote the festival  “works not because it is a literary enterprise, but because it ties us to the British literary establishment”—exemplified, first and foremost, by Dalrymple himself (whom he went on to deride as the “pompous arbiter of literary merit in India”). Incidentally, Bal is an Oxbridge-educated Indian who sounds more British than the Queen herself.

Dalrymple hit back immediately, lambasting Bal’s screed as racist cant akin to “pouring shit through an immigrant’s letterbox”.

Sadly, things are less acrimonious now.

Let’s take one final, longing look back at some of the funnier and more candid moments from events of years past. To set the mood for the serious business that follows.

Literary foreplay, if you will.

At the 2011 Jaipur Lit Fest;

1. Orhan Pamuk, that grave purveyor of melancholy, is evidently also a funny man.

During the Q&A session, someone asked Pamuk if the theme of his new novel ‘Museum of Innocence’ was whether philosophical love was deeper than physical love. Without skipping a beat, Pamuk responded, “That depends on the penetration.”

2. Junot Diaz (author of ‘The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao‘), during a session titled ‘Storyteller-in-Chief’, told a packed crowd under the Mughal tent, “I can’t imagine anything more foreign to Indian readers than the Dominican Republic or New Jersey. But white people were looking for YOU when they found US.”

3. During one of the interactive sessions, Gulzar amused the audiences with little anecdotes on the birth of songs in Hindi cinema before Javed Akhtar (who arrived 20 minutes late) could join him. He later apologised to Akhtar saying,” ‘Maaf Kijiyega, main inhe behla raha tha (Forgive me, I was just managing them).

4. During a Q&A session, a school girl asked Gulzar, “There was simplicity in our old songs. The vocabulary was simple and it touched our hearts. Why can’t we have a similar vocabulary in new songs?” Gulzar shot back, “You have used ‘vocabulary’ twice in your question. Can you tell me what it is called in Hindi?

5. An angry Indian editor from a well-known and respected publishing house was heard  describing Dalrymple (who at last year’s festival was reading his own texts while Paban Das Baul sang and swayed, even as certain sections felt as the Director of the Festival he should not have been hogging so much of the limelight) as “that self-promoting ‘White Mughal‘ who has turned down all my authors”.

This Children’s Day celebrate the spirit of writing…share your thoughts and opinions and win prizes, not just for yourself but for your school as well!!!!

INDIAreads, the country’s premier Online Library cum Bookstore announces the ‘INDIAreads Inter-School Creative Writing Competition, 2011’.

The Contest:

To inculcate healthy reading and writing habits amongst students, and to pique their curiosity about the wonderful world of literature, INDIAreads is organizing a Creative Writing Competition among select schools in Noida. This contest will be held across 3 categories: Junior, Middlers and Senior. Two prizes will be announced in each category.

1.      1st Prize: Certificate of Merit plus One Year INDIAreads Membership worth Rs. 1,550 for the winning student; Books worth Rs. 10,000 for the School Library.
2.      2nd Prize: Certificate of Merit plus Six Month INDIAreads Membership worth Rs. 800 for the winning student, Books worth Rs. 5,000 for the School Library.

The candidates shall be judged by an eminent panel of judges comprising authors, prominent policy makers and book lovers.

The Categories:

Junior Writer: Classes VI-VIII
Topics:
The Festival I Enjoy Most
A Must Watch Television show
The One Person I would like to meet
My Favourite book

Middlers: Classes IX-X
Topics:
The Politician who Inspires me most
The Tech Company I adore
My favourite Historical Figure
This world would not be the same without…

The Professional: Classes XI-XII
Topics:
Price Rise: Global Crisis or Domestic Blunder
Anna Hazare: Boon or Bane of Indian Democracy
The Arab Spring: Dawn of a New Era?
Rewriting History: If I could change one event, it would be…

Contest Rules

Candidates may choose to write on any one of the topics in their category. Only one entry per candidate is permitted. However, there is no limit to the number of entries per school.
Entries may neither be less than 500 words nor exceed 3,000words. There can be only one entry per student.
Students need to submit original pieces of work. 
Registered INDIAreads users (Registration is free – http://www.indiareads.com/user/register) may submit their entries via email to m.mishra@indiareads.com; while others may post the same on the INDIAreads Blog as a comment to this post.
The last date for entries is 26th January 2012. Entries received after 10 pm on January 26th 2012 shall not be accepted.
Students should mention their Full name, Contact number, Email id, School name and class on their entries. Incomplete submissions will not be accepted.

We’re waiting!

New releases

1. Non Stop India – Mark Tully: Jugaar may loosely be translated as ‘muddling through’, or making
do. This quintessentially Indian ability has seen India through numerous crises which would have
easily dispirited a less resilient people—four wars, for instance. But while jugaar can be said to
have served India well in the past, it has a downside.

It has led to a dangerous complacency: the belief that since India has managed to ‘muddle through so many times before, there isn’t much need for a sense of urgency in tackling the problems it faces. In Non Stop India veteran journalist Mark Tully draws on his unmatched knowledge of India, garnered from thirty years of living in, and reporting from, the country to examine how this approach impacts her much-touted prospects of becoming an economic super-power. From Maoist conflicts to huge industrial houses; from the Tiger project to farmer suicides; from the Ramayana to the remote valleys of the north-east, Tully examines India’s myriad negotiations with modernity and her prospects for the nextcentury and beyond.

2. Get To The Top – The Ten Rules For Social Success by Suhel Seth: When it comes to getting
ahead in life, who we know is as important as what we do.How do you draw people to you?
Impress the powerful? Make an impact and extend your circle of acquaintances? Cultivate
influential friends?

Suhel Seth, a man who knows almost everyone there is to know in the country, brings you the
ultimate guide to social success. From the secret to throwing a successful party to the benefits
of befriending the less important half of a couple, he gives you canny advice and strategies to
become a successful networker.

Inspiring, provocative, and wise, Get to the Top is the ultimate book about wielding soft power.

About The Author :

Suhel Seth is the Managing Partner of Counselage India, the only strategic brand management
and marketing consultancy in the country advising chairpersons and CEOs on branding and
marketing.

His clients include R.K. Krishna Kumar of the House of Tata, S. Ramadorai of TCS, Analjit Singh of
Max Hospitals, Pawan Munjal of Hero Honda, Sanjiv Goenka of the RPG Group, and Prannoy Roy
of NDTV.

Suhel writes columns in The Financial Times, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, and The Indian
Express on current affairs and has co-authored two books on Calcutta with Khushwant Singh and
R.K. Laxman.

3. Classic Saratchandra Volume I – By Saratchandra Chattopadhyay – Translated By Malobika Chaudhuri & Sunanda Krishnamurty: One of the greatest Indian novelists of the early twentieth century, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay is unputdownable even seven decades after his death. His canvas of human relationships is rooted in the everyday lives of families in turn-of-the-century Bengal. Saratchandra’s carefully crafted stories, brimming withemotion, and his sharply etched characters, are unforgettable. This omnibus that brings together eight of his novels in translation is a collection to be cherished.

Biraj Bou, Parineeta (A Married Woman), Palli Samaj (The Village Life), Arakkhaniya (The Unprotected), Srikanta, Devdas, Swami (Husband), Grihadaha (House of Cinders)

4. Secrets – by Ruskin Bond: This brilliant new collection of stories by one of India’s best-loved storytellers richly evokes Dehradun of the 1940s, with its quaint cinema halls and crumbling villas, its modest chaat-shops and ubiquitous tongas. But, as young Ruskin—the narrator in these interconnected tales—soon discovers, not all is as it seems in this sleepy town. Behind the tranquil facade, Dehra is home to a cast of colourful characters: from plucky old women to possible murderers.

‘The Canal’ is a joyful tribute to adolescent mischief and adult resolve, in which a group of roguish boys must face the consequences of antagonizing the much-feared Miss Gamla. ‘Over the Wall’ celebrates the resilience and hard-won dignity of a man ravaged by leprosy as he struggles to come to terms with his malady. The dashing young army captain in ‘At Green’s Hotel’ might be the perfect gentleman—or a murderer. And in ‘The Skeleton in the Cupboard’, an old scandal is revived following a chance discovery, leading to wholly unexpected results.

By turns charming and poignant, witty and exhilarating, Secrets is vintage Bond.

5. The Mahabharata Volume 4 – Translated by Bibek Debroy: The Mahabharata is one of the
greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the
epic than the dispute between Kouravas and Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It
has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and
it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets.
This magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition
compiled at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

The fourth volume of the Mahabharata includes Virata Parva and almost all of Udyoga Parva. It
describes the Pandavas’ thirteenth year of exile which they spend in disguise in King Virata’s court.
When, during their stay, the Kouravas and Trigartas invade Matsya to rob Virata of his cattle, the
Pandavas defeat them in battle. With the period of banishment over, the Pandavas ask to be returned
their share of the kingdom. This is refused and Udyoga Parva recounts the preparations for the
inevitable war.

Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why the epic continues to
hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes
the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers.

6. Lucknow Boy – A Memoir by Vinod Mehta: Sharp, insightful, shocking, delightful. In this
sparkling memoir, Vinod Mehta, India’s most independent, principled – and irreverent – editor
finally tells his own story.

And by any reckoning, it is an extraordinary story. Mehta grew up as an insouciant army brat from a Punjabi refugee family, in the syncretic culture of Lucknow of the 1950s—an experience that turned him into an unflagging ‘pseudo secularist’. Leaving home with a BA third class degree, he experimented with a string of jobs, including that of a factory hand in suburban Britain, before accepting an offer to edit Debonair, a journal best known for featuring naked women. With the eclecticism and flair that were to become his hallmark, he turned it into an intelligent, lively magazine, while managing to keep fans of its centrespreads happy. The next three decades saw Vinod Mehta becoming one of India’s most widely- read and influential editors, as he launched a number of successful new publications, from the now legendary Sunday Observer to the weekly newsmagazine, Outlook.

This remarkably candid memoir, with its ringside view of many of the major events of our times, brims over with wit, wisdom, scandal and gossip. Mehta recounts with zest how he was wooed and then summarily sacked by sundry media proprietors when their much-vaunted respect for editorial freedom broke down in the face of political pressures. There are riveting accounts of his encounters with personalities from the worlds of politics, business, films and the media. There are masterly pen portraits of personalities ranging from Shobhaa De to V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie and Sonia Gandhi. ( And ofcourse, Mehta’s dog Editor who now, like his master, gets quantities of fan and hate mail.) There are the stories behind the scoops Mehta has brought before a fascinated public, from the alleged mole in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet, to the cricket match-fixing scandal, to the Radia Tapes.

Embedded within these racy tales are thoughtful insights on Indian politics and society. There are valuable lessons, too, in Mehta’s inside stories of his successful media launches, in his tips for aspiring journalists, and in his struggles for editorial independence through his nearly four-decade-long tryst with Indian journalism.

COMING SOON

1. Diary of A Wimpy Kid – Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney: The sixth book about the comic adventures
of Greg Heffley and family. The funniest books you’ll ever read!

Greg Heffley is in big trouble. School property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is, he’s innocent. Or at least sort of. The authorities are closing in, but when a surprise blizzard hits, the Heffley family is trapped indoors. Greg knows that when the snow melts he’s going to have to face the music, but could any punishment be worse than being stuck inside with your family for
the holidays?

2. God Save the Dork – The Incredible International Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese by Sidin Vadukut: Maestro management consultant and strategy guru Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese has been dispatched to London to the Lederman account. Things in the mother country are not all tally-ho as Einstein must make do with convoluted remuneration, temperamental digestion and a comely coworker who revels in mixed signals—not to mention a bizarre conspiracy by museums all over the city to frustrate his every attempt to imbibe in high culture.

Things are not all that much better with his love life. Gouri insists that he go to Madame Tussaud’s and take a photo with the Shah Rukh Khan statue. But who will pay for the entry ticket? Gouri’s father is not the proprietor no? Then? Just when things look like they can’t get any worse, Lederman threatens to shut down the project. Panic ensues. Once again Dufresne Partners turns to their most resourceful, inventive, original, strategic, out-of-the-box-thinking employee.

‘India’s Dilbert.’    – DNA
‘Nothing else skewers corporate India’s assorted silliness so accurately. Or so funnily.’   —Outlook
‘Unputdownable.’   —The Hindu
‘[Dork] will have you in splits.’   —The Asian Age
‘Hysterically funny.’    – Hindustan Times

‘I want to put a dent in the universe.’

These words best describe the tenacity and vision of Stevie Jobs; the man who turned a drab technology
company into a pop-culture phenomenon.

I never personally interacted with Stevie (rrreally, you might ask as you roll your eyes), and yet I do it —
we all do it —every day when picking up an iPod or working on a macbook. These devices aren’t dumb
terminals. Each one has a story, both in creation and execution.

So while he may not be with us anymore, he has still managed to leave a lasting impression in our
minds, our hands, and our ears. Let us get to know our friend a little better.

1. “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences,” he once said. “So they don’t
have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions.” Billy Gates, he suggested,
would be “a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”.

2. “I don’t wear the right kind of pants to run this company,” he told a small gathering of Apple
employees before he left in1985, according to a member of the original Macintosh development team.
He was barefoot as he spoke, and wearing blue jeans.

3. When asked what market research went into the iPad, he replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job
to know what they want.”

4. He was the ultimate arbiter of Apple products, and his standards were exacting. Over the course of
a year he tossed out two iPhone prototypes before approving the third, and began shipping it in June
2007.

5. As an eighth grader, after discovering that a crucial part was missing from a frequency counter he was
assembling, he telephoned William Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Hewlett spoke with the
boy for 20 minutes, prepared a bag of parts for him to pick up and offered him a job as a summer intern.

6. In 1971, he collaborated with Steve Wozniak on designing, building, and selling blue boxes: devices
that were widely used for making free – and illegal – phone calls. They raised a total of $6,000 from the
effort.

7. In 1980, he lured John Sculley to Apple to be its chief executive. A former Pepsi-Cola chief executive,
Sculley was impressed by Stevie’s pitch: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared
water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”

8. In September 1985, after leaving Apple, he started NeXT Inc, with the intention of building a
workstation computer for the higher education market. Although NeXT never became a significant
computer industry player, it had a huge impact: a young programmer, Tim Berners-Lee, used a NeXT
machine to develop the first version of the World Wide Web at the Swiss physics research center CERN
in 1990.

9. If he had a motto, it may have come from “The Whole Earth Catalog,” which he said had deeply

influenced him as a young man. The book, he said in his commencement address at Stanford in 2005,
ends with the admonition “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

10. Stevie was a stickler for design details. Bruce Tognazzini, a former user-interface expert at
Apple who joined the company in 1978, once said that Jobs was adamant that the keyboard not
include “up,” “down,” “right,” and “left” keys that allow users to move the cursor around their computer
screens.

11. His pursuit of aesthetics sometimes bordered on the extreme. George Crow, an Apple engineer in
the 1980s and again from 1998 to2005, recalls how Stevie wanted to make even the inside of computers
attractive. On the original Macintosh PC, Crow says Jobs wanted the internal wiring to be in the colors of
Apple’s early rainbow logo. Crow says he persuaded Jobs it was an unnecessary expense.

12. Within months of taking control at Apple once again in May 1998, Stevie flexed his power on Apple’s
Cupertino, Calif., campus. He replaced four of the five top executives with former NeXT underlings. He
issued emails forbidding employees to bring pets to the office or to smoke, even in parking lots. He
threatened to fire anyone caught leaking company documents.

13. Stevie was typically hands-on in the creation of the iPhone. People familiar with the matter say
the former CEO was the one who made a decision to change the screen of the iPhone from plastic to
glass after he unveiled the product at the Macworld trade show in 2007. The iPhone team scrambled
to procure glass that would meet his standards, so the devices could be manufactured in time for the
launch.

14. Those who knew Stevie say one reason why he was able to keep innovating was because he didn’t
dwell on past accomplishments and demanded that employees do the same. Hitoshi Hokamura, a
former Apple employee, recalls how an old Apple I that was displayed by the company cafeteria quietly
disappeared after Jobs returned in the late 1990s.

15. He insisted that the first Macintosh should have no internal cooling fan, so that it would be silent – putting user needs above engineering convenience. He called an engineer at Google one weekend with an urgent request: the colour of one letter of Google’s on-screen logo on the iPhone was not quite the right shade of yellow. He often wrote or rewrote the text of Apple’s advertisements himself.

16. Stevie was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such
were his powers of persuasion.

17. When Jobs and Wozniak were designing the first Macintosh computer, he remembered the
calligraphy lessons he had taken after dropping out of college in 1972. He decided to incorporate the
fonts he had learned into the Mac. “It was the first computer with beautiful typography,” said Jobs.
Windows would later use these fonts as models.

18. A significant thing about Stevie’s public performance and interviews was his use of the
pronoun “We”. Almost every time Jobs spoke, he never said “I”, and said “We” instead. During an
interview at D5, Walt Mossberg curiously asked him, “Who’s ‘we’?” Jobs replied, “Well, ME!”

19. Stevie had been a dedicated vegan ever since his teenage years. At the age of 19, in Reed College, he
explored strange diets which, according to him, would let him get rid of all mucus and hence the need to
shower.

20. A title of one of the press articles written about Stevie’s difficult character was “The Trouble
with Steve Jobs.”According to Robert Sutton, Stanford management science professor and author of
best-seller “The No Asshole Rule,” “The degree to which people in Silicon Valley are afraid of Jobs is
unbelievable. He made people feel terrible; he made people cry.”

21. Stevie studied Zen Buddhism in his youth. He used to say that he wanted to become a monk in a
monastery in Japan instead of starting Apple. But his guru Kobun Chino Otogowa later made him think
otherwise.

22. Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of News Corp.’s Fox Filmed Entertainment, recalls an incident. “He
came into a meeting one day and said, ‘Hey, you want to see something cool?’ And he reached into
his jacket and pulled out the first prototype of the iPhone,” Gianopulos said.”It was like someone had
shown you the first rocket ship.”

One could go on. But one shall not. For one is free.

One could, however, direct you to http://www.indiareads.com/book/steve-jobs-exclusive-biography :
where you may buy or rent (for a frraction of the price) Stevie’s exclusive biography written by Walter
Issacson; Harvard Graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and long time Stevie confidante.

Reviewed by Ruth Zothanpuii

After Stephenie Meyer’s remarkable novel Twilight, reading  New Moon (a sequel to Twilight) was another delightful experience.

Although many think that New Moon works well enough as a stand alone, I still think that the only way to have a better understanding of the story and to get maximum enjoyment is from reading Twilight first.

But if you think that New Moon is essentially the same as Twilight, it may prove to be a big disappointment because, here, we feel the absence of the Vampires ( much to the dismay of many vampire fans,I am sure).

The book begins with the celebration of Bella’s eighteenth birthday. The thought of getting older than Edward who turned a vampire when he was just 17 troubles Bella who, even if she joins him in immortality, will always be physically older than him. Bella desperately wants to be like Edward but he is afraid that she will lose her soul if he makes her like the rest of his family. An appalling incident at Bella’s birthday party makes Edward realize Bella’s fragility when among his family. He is convinced that the only way to keep Bella safe is for her to lead a normal life and for him to leave her. This changes everything. For Bella, Edward was her whole world and his abandonment was something that cannot be repaired easily. Her whole world falls apart and she withdraws from everything else, becoming even more isolated and lonely. But this is also the situation that makes us see Bella more clearly and she is definitely worth a thousand credits. No doubt she is a fighter. While pushing through the agony, and not having enough strength to live for herself, she lives for others – Charlie in this case – this has always been her style.

The next thing I love the most about this novel is the development of Jacob Black’s character. That a minor character in Twilight has developed into such a fantastic character is the great strength of this novel. I love Meyer’s idea of blending the actual Quileute’s legend into this.

A must read if you haven’t already.

Buy, rent New Moon and other Stephenie Meyer novels from INDIAreads Online Library cum Bookstore. Membership plans start @ just Rs 150 per month. Enjoy up to 30% discount on book purchases. Register Now!

Everyone who has read Eclipse, the third book in The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, knows the fate of Bree Tanner, a newborn vampire who is killed by the powerful Volturi. This is the tale recounting the last five days of her second life as a vampire.

In Eclipse, readers were introduced to Bree as a girl with negative character shades. She thirsts for Bella Swan’s blood, and is completely used to violence, death, and mass bloodshed. Besides the fact that she is a bloodthirsty newborn vampire named Bree, who does not want to die, readers do not know anything much about her. In this book, written from her perspective, readers will see how she lives, and find out why a Vampire Army is very difficult to sustain. This book takes a journey into her daily life to find out how she must have felt throughout the whole period of time.

Bree’s story is much different from Bella’s. Where Bella’s world always seemed muted because she was shielded from much of the violence throughout the series, Bree sees and experiences violence on a day-to-day basis. As far as the storytelling goes, the way the details of Bree’s conversion to the vampire life is revealed gradually throughout the first half of the story is both dramatic and engaging. Even the fact that Bree ended up trading her humanity for a cheeseburger, of all things provides a great sense of tragic irony to the story. A nice touch by Meyer is how the contemporary culture references in her books always act as a nice reality contrast to the more fantastical elements.

Meyer seems to finally get into her genre and fully explores her creation. We see that newborn vampires have absolutely no loyalty to each other, no self-control, and no qualms about sinking their teeth into their poor human food banks.  While it is difficult to give a more detailed review without adding a spoiler here and there, another nice touch is the inclusion of several new characters who add to the story quite interestingly. The characters of Fred and Diego in particular are sure to generate added interest for readers with their quirky abilities. Also seeing the Cullens from Bree’s point of view is quite fascinating.

However, a lot of possibilities seem to have been cut short, even though there are some memorable characters who seem to have the potential to take the story much further ahead as mentioned before. On the bright side, though short, the tale is somewhat bittersweet, and seems to  actually be a bit of a metaphor for how real life actually is. Bree’s life and even her roots are much more relatable than Bella’s ever were. Her circumstances are far from desirable, yet she works with the lot she was dealt . . .even until the bitter end.

Overall, this is a quick, yet very enjoyable read recommended to all Twilight fans. It will also change the way that readers view Newborn Vampires.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer is available for rent and purchase at the INDIAreads Online Library cum Bookstore. Members get to avail huge discounts and points on every purchase. Register now!

Other related titles:

Most people must have grown up with a reading list that included a couple or more of books by Judy Blume. However, anyone who wants to test one of the books she wrote for adults will readily agree that they would have never could stories so involving and complex. The characters come to life on the pages; and the storyline is brilliant in its commonness. Whether it is kids, teens or adults, Blume’s characters have always been real people with real problems.

In Summer Sisters Caitlin and Victoria are two friends who spend almost every summer together and despite their very different social backgrounds. have developed a strong relationship through the years. Even though they are very close to each other, they each want to live the other person’s life rather than their own. While Victoria wants to have parents and richness like Caitlin, Caitlin is jealous and longs for an organized, wealthy life like Victoria’s. Finally a summer comes when the friends are teenagers that Victoria can no longer tolerate Caitlin’s behavior and decides to cut ties with her summer sister. Soon their friendship which has been so pure through all these years starts to become difficult and two of them form a complex friendship of love and rivalry that spans a lifetime for the both of them.

As their story carries us from Santa Fe to New York and then Venice, we come to know the men and women who shape their lives. And as we follow the two women on the paths they each choose, each waits for the inevitable reckoning to be made in the fine spaces between friendship and betrayal, between love and freedom.

The story and characters are quite interesting and Blume explores each emotion in a very real manner. . The book begins with a little mystery which keeps readers interested enough to keep going. If you loved Judy Blume’s writing as a child, you would love her writing in Summer Sisters. It’s a perfect story about friendship, betrayals, first loves, lust, family, and everything in between. However, be prepared to make a drastic shift from the Shielas and Iggies you might be used to. The characters are realistic and credible, so be prepared to be a little shocked if your favorite childhood author starts being a little too ‘bold.’ Yet that is the very reason which sets Blume apart from other writers, her willingness to explore the real, more complicated side of emotions and growing up. So one thing is certain, this book is different from what you get with most chick lit. The writing itself is quick and easy. And while most of the plot is straightforward, the ending had a little twist which is quite unexpected.

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume is available for rent and purchase at the INDIAreads Online Book Rental Library cum Bookstore.

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Cornelia Funke’s books always provide a magical escape from the usual world. This time, it is the story of a dragon searching for a new, yet ancient, home and a boy who has never had either home or family. In a fantasy world where the fantastic creatures of legend truly exist; the adventure begins with humans planning to invade a remote territory where dragons moved to get away from them. Finding their lair threatened, a single dragon -Firedrake, and his brownie companion Sorrel set out to try to locate the fabled Rim of Heaven, a legendary location somewhere in the Himalayan mountains that is reputed to be the home of dragons and a place forever safe from humans. Along the way, they encounter many different characters who accompany them on their expedition. Among  them is a little boy named Ben, who turns out to be a dragon rider. But before Firedrake and his companions can complete their quest which will take them on a journey halfway around the world, they must also deal with the most fearsome and deadly creatures who try to stop their every move.

Like her other books, this is another tale by Cornelia Funke which takes off at a rapid pace and yet is unbelievably imaginable. She puts the reader right at the moment with her fluid descriptions and grasps attention with her intense details. Despite being a little ‘chunky’ to hold, this one is a sure page turner where new characters and storylines come alive on each page. For lovers of the fantasy genre, there is definitely no shortage of creatures and magical beings; right from mountain dwarves to peace-loving dragons. Every character, both big and small finds a voice through the author’s narrative and each of them is indeed memorable.

With her Inkheart series already set into production, this book, like Cornelia’s other novels are light, easy to follow and not-too-serious fun. Anyone looking for a good book to keep them occupied for a while will love this book with its imaginative storyline, thrilling suspense and wealth of characters.  It’s a book that would make people who don’t like fantasy and fiction books, fall in love with the genre.

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Ronnie Miller won’t be eighteen until the end of summer, so she is forced to follow her mom’s rules and has to go to North Carolina to spend the vacations with her dad. She hasn’t spoken to him in three years and still blames him for ruining her life with his decision to leave his job and family in order to pursue a dream of becoming a concert pianist. It was because of his time away that eventually her mother was forced to separate from him.

Till here it seems like the usual Nicholas Sparks novel. Slow start, emotional ride and then an amazing ending. But this one is completely different. Remarkably done and truly touching, The Last Song will surely share shelf space alongside The Notebook and A Walk to Remember for any Sparks fan. This one will make readers sigh with pleasure. Why some might even feel sad having to finish this book and put it down!

As the summer continues both Ronnie and her brother Jonah discover something magical about the little island they have been shipped off to. Slowly but surely, love comes creeping into their lives once again. As each chapter is viewed by a different character in the book stating how they feel about situations going on,Sparks reveals more of the story and at times flashes back to the past to provide more history through each perspective. Each character has something to add to the events of that summer and reading it in their own voice adds to the realness of the story. Painting images into your mind on the many lives that live in the beach environment where Ronnie’s dad lives, Sparks does a fantastic job at illustrating through the characters that despite the past, if there is faith, through God, new beginnings are possible.

Made into a Hollywood movie starring Miley Cyrus, Nicholas Sparks actually wrote the screenplay before he wrote the novel.

The Last Song is an emotionally charged novel. With this book Sparks finds a way to explore not only adult emotions but those of a child on the brink of adulthood who faces fears and mistakes. When readers discover the reason behind the book’s title, there will be feelings of joy, pain, and of course the greatest gift a writer can bestow upon a reader, which is the sadness felt  that a book has just ended because you feel like a friend is being parted with.

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