The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
Anthony Bourdain
Read: May-2017

This took some time for me to finish and exactly for the reason as it says in the book's title. It's a mismash of travel stories where you don't know what's next on this tasting menu. This also gives a glimpse into why he is such a phenomenon, incuding the fact that he doesn't mince words. Good read, definitely not to be completed in single seating but to be chewed, gnawed and ravished at your own pace.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1805608175?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Book: The Guide, Author: R.K. Narayan

Read: Sep-2017

I almost forgot how good RKN is, before I picked up this book. His writing has a sense of eternal continuance that defines the civilization in the subcontinent; a sense that things were, are and will be forever. At one level, particularly to the western world, it appears like dumb, slow and/or lazy Indian but at another level thats exactly the wisdom gathered over millenia of existence. I would put RKN next to Premchanda (Hindi) in the way he captures India, Indians and Indianess. The same was later, much later discovered by VS Naipaul. As RKN says- "You don't need to go out to find a story in India; just look out of your window and there's a story."

This book itself had been successfully made into a classic Indian movie. Most of Indians actually are introduced to the film before this book itself. While the film has done more than enough justice to the book (right from casting, acting and setting), there's something missing which the reader realizes only after completing the book. That 'something' ethereal, difficult to put in words, is what underwrites this civilization and therefore the stories from RKN.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2106058458?book_show_action=false

Book: In a Free State, Author: VS Naipaul
Read: Sep-2017

I am a Naipaul fan, so take this with a dash of salt.

This book is nothing similar to anything from Naipaul that I have read earlier, whether it's the Indian trilogy or The Mystic Masseur or other books. The reason may well be, as VSN himself explains in preface, that this period in his life was full of grief, gloom and an overall sense of directionless. Mind you, all hallmarks of VSN's writing are there; like brilliant prose, development of character arcs or the lurking restlessness in the background.

As for the book itself, its an easy read which is to be understood at multiple levels. Two protagonists looking at their context and their own role in a society, where they have been juxtaposed, from very different angles. One is exhausted and weary with the entire experience, while other feels helpless and guilty at the same time. Interesting book to understand a part of the psyche of colonists. Recommended.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1875459698?book_show_action=false