Miss Wisey Pants

"That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice... I want a louding voice." The title if this book was reason enough for me to read the book.   This is the story of Adunni - 14 year old, precocious, wise beyond her years and driven. Born and raised in a small village, Ikati, in Nigeria, she's always yearned for only one thing in life - education. Something that's beyond her reach because she's a girl. After her mother, who was also her strongest ally, passes away Adunni finds herself unmoored in life. Her father, unscrupulously, marries her off to a man triple her age in exchange for a bride's price that would be enough to see him and his two sons off  comfortably  for months to come. Adunni somehow manages to flee from her husband's torments only to find herself in a lif...

" ...But it is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy. We can't tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on. " The Midnight Library, for me, was a perfect segue from "Man's search for Meaning". At the risk of sounding absurd, I might go so far as to say that my choice of reading these two books, in that order, felt like a preordained plan by destiny. This book speaks of life at length - the choices we make, the regrets that follow from the choices we do not make and the vicious cycle that sets into motion because of all the could-haves, the should-haves and the would-haves!  'The Midnight Library' revolves around the concept of parallel lives or multiverses...

"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." I've never felt this unsure about writing a review for a book. I'd go so far as to say that this book is like Bible, it doesn't warrant a review. It's beyond that. I'd rather try to write a testimonial here. For once, I thought of just posting all the beautiful lines from the book verbatim. I think I've dog-eared almost every page of this book. For it had so many things I'd want to go back to over & over again! In his memoir, the author and psychiatrist, Victor E. Frankl, narrates his own experience from the Nazi death camps and talks about man...

"In the world outside of the monastery, nobody looks after you. The ducks swallow the worms, and the foxes kill the ducks, and the men shoot the foxes, and the devil hunts the men." Such is life anyhow. This story just reinforces this over and over again. In my honest opinion, The Pillars of the Earth is a story of Kingsbridge, the cursed town I would've fled early on had I ever had the misfortune of inhabiting it. Our protagonists, however, had the nerves of steel to brave one setback after another and yet stay loyal to the ill-fated land!  Among the protagonists, we have the foolishly naive and ambitious Prior of Kingsbridge, Philip, who is kind-hearted but a righteous leader; Jack, the builder, who's simple-minded and probably the most practical of all the characters in the story. Jack & Philip, both, have a common dream - to build a cathedral in Kingsbridge, which would be the largest cathedral in the whole of England and they dedicate their lives toward fulfi...

"The war would end. We would all go home.  Wouldn't we ?" That's war. An endless cycle of wait, hope & despair. I feel like no matter how much one reads about war, it's never enough. No amount of writing or reading could ever cover the enormity of the inhumanity, the raw emotions that bled free and the desperate longing for families and love that the victims of the wars felt. On top of this, the futility of it all drives one mad with rage. While the crucial questions about the "value" of a war are still unanswered, imagine the plight of those who end up becoming a pawn in the pitiless game of power politics. Salt to the Sea raises those questions in the mind of its readers.  There's a quote from the book that stuck with me long after: " What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or did it just activate an evil already lurking within us? " Every word you read in this book would make you question every thread of your being. It...

"When people were happy they were slow to quarrel and committed fewer crimes. It was in the miserable depths of winter that men strangled their wives and knifed their rivals, and it was in the hungry spring that women stole from their neighbors to feed their children." When I began reading this book, I wondered in my head if I had made a mistake picking this for my next read. The sheer size of the book was a deterrent. I wasn't sure if I'd remember any of the characters introduced early on in the story by the time I reach the second half of the story. To my surprise, my doubts faded away pretty soon.  The Evening & the Morning is a page-turner. I tore through the 900 pages in no time. The protagonists are interesting and full of substance. Edgar the builder, Ragna the Norman nobleman's daughter and Aldred the Ambitious Monk - all three always forge on with persistence and indefatigable spirit even in the face of evil and oppression. Their quick-wittedness and ...