Shreya's Treasures

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS KHALED HOSSEINI  GENRE: NOVEL, FICTION FIRST PUBLISHED: 2007 “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.” In his novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini provides a vivid portrait of a country shattered by a series of ideological leaders and wars imposed on it by foreign and internal forces. The narrative, which spans several decades, is driven by the stories of two women, Laila and Mariam, who, despite starkly different beginnings, find themselves intimately connected and dependent upon one another. Hosseini’s women, much like the country of Afghanistan itself, appear to be propelled by the whims of outside forces, familial and societal, with little chance of influencing their own lives and futures Yet Laila and Mariam are neither passive nor helpless as they make choices and accept consequences to affect desired ends, both hopeful and tragic. This portrayal of their dreams, trials, an...

THE BOOK THIEF MARKUS ZUSAK GENRE : HISTORICAL FICTION, WAR NOVEL, YA FICTION FIRST PUBLISHED : 2005 "Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would all smile at the beauty of destruction." Try­ing to make sense of the hor­rors of World War II, Death in Markus Zusak's book "The Book Thief" relates the sto­ry of Liesel, a young Ger­man girl whose book-steal­ing and sto­ry-telling tal­ents help sus­tain her fos­ter fam­i­ly and the Jew­ish man they are hid­ing, as well as their neigh­bors. Fortunately, this book isn't about Death; it's about death, and so much else. It is about love, kindness, friendship, trust, books, and lots of thievery. It is about finding small happiness during the dark times, and having faith in humanity. Liesel Meminger's little brother dies just before her mother leaves her with the foster parents in a dismal town in southern Germany (her father, a Communist, has been take...

CATCH 22 JOSEPH HELLER GENRE : SATIRE, DARK COMEDY, WAR NOVEL, ABSURDIST FICTION FIRST PUBLISHED : 1961 ""You mean there's a catch?" "Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy." There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind." Reading Catch 22 wasn't for me. It was a kind of book I had never expected it to be, with an altogether different writing style which I had never experienced before. So, I will be honest; it took me much more time than I had initially thought I would take to complete this novel. A novel full of satire and dark humour was definitely what I had signed up for when I started reading this, but I had no clue how very intelligent and mad this novel was going to be. Catch 22 is a slo...

GOING TO MEET THE MAN JAMES BALDWIN GENRE : SHORT STORY, FICTION FIRST PUBLISHED :  1965 It was indeed a great risk for Baldwin, an African - American author, to insinuate himself into the mind of a character of a different race - a political risk as a writer. He explores - from the inside - a character who is a southern white racist, Jesse. The story is a bold statement that transcends the festering sore of racism on the face of American history and cries out for the reader to examine all of the values which he or she subscribes to and to honestly appraise the foundations on which these beliefs have been constructed. We see how the novel begins with Jesse, a police officer, and his wife in bed. It seems Jesse is impotent. Blaming tiredness and heavy work for this, his wife goes off to sleep but Jesse moves into a recollection of his day's affairs with a black man, who "had caused them much trouble".  The narrative is in the form of flashbacks and soon enough...