Gods, Demons and Others

Here is R.K. Narayan's delightful selection of stories from India's vast treasure- house of myths and legends handed down through the ages. Drawing his stories from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and other great Indian epics, Narayan tells the tales as they might be recounted by the wise village storyteller.
In the legends, where all things are possible, one thousand years seem only a second, and good ultimately triumphs over evil. The Devi, who is the personification of the highest beauty and energy, vanquishes the demon Manisha who has invaded the heavens: Manmata, the god of love, is burned up physically when he enrages the austere god Shiva. Yama, the god of death, is persuaded for the first time to relinquish a soul when the mourning but determined Savitri pleads for the return of her husband.
The spectacle of battle, the fascinating mystery of the supernatural, the passion, devotion and laughter of love, the quest of the spirit for eternity- such are the ingredients of the legends. And Narayan's retelling evokes them all with superb skill to provide the reader a treasury of enchanting myths which have for centuries painted the landscape of Indian life and mind.

The Mahabharata

The great Indian epic the Mahabharata is at least 3,500 years old. In its original in the Sanskrit language it runs to one hundred thousand stanzas in verse- by far the longest of the world's epics. Also, together with the Ramayana it embodies the very essence of Indian cultural and religious heritage, laying down values of individual life and society which have shaped the texture of Indian life.
The Mahabharata fairly bursts with an astonishing treasure of riches. At one level it is a great tale with a huge, truly memorable cast of vivid characters- men, noble and ignoble, warriors, saints, kings and women of beauty. Unbearable sacrifice, shining nobility, great courage and virtue, insatiable greed, satanic hatred and sinister intrigue are all part and parcel of the dynastic struggle between two branches of a family which culminates in a bloody eighteen- day war on the plain of Kurukshetra.
At another level, the tragic battle of Kurukshetra symbolises man's constant struggle to distinguish between right and wrong, of choosing correct action over misdeed- issues tackled in the Bhagvadgita which forms a part of this epic and which is perhaps the single most influential scripture of Indian philosophic thought and spiritual understanding.
R.K. Narayan's splendid retelling offers the modern reader a magnificent initiation into the Mahabharata. With the consumate skill of a great writer, he recreates the rythm and grandeur of this epic which has endured through the ages with stonishing vitality.

The Client

Here's another by John Grisham...
Eleven- year old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought - after dead body of America.
Now mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only alibi is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for the past four years.
Prosecutors are willing to break all the rulers to make Mark talk. The Mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client- even make a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom... or claim both their lives.

I was talking to a moth the other evening
He was trying to break into an electric light bulb
And fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows pull this stunt I asked him
Because it is conventional for moths
Or why if that had been an uncovered candle instead of an electric light bulb
You would now be a small unsightly cinder
Have you no sense
Plenty of it he answered
But at times we get tired of using it
We get bored with the routine
And crave beauty and excitement
Fire is beautiful
And we know that if we get too close it will kill us
But what does it matter
It is better to be happy for a moment
And be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
And be bored all the while
So we wad all our life up into one little roll
And then we shoot the roll
That is what life is for
It is better to be a part of beauty for one instant
And then to cease to exist than to exist forever
And never be a part of beauty.

-Unknown

On the Death of Anne Bronte

There is little joy in life for me,

And little terror in the grave;

I’ve lived the parting hour to see

Of one I would have died to save.

Calmly to watch the failing breath,

Wishing each sigh might be the last;

Longing to see the shade of death

O’er those beloved features cast;

The cloud, the stillness that must part

The darling of my life from me;

And then to thank God from my heart,

To think Him well and fervently;

Although I knew that we had lost

The hope and glory of our life;

And now, benighted, tempest- tossed,

Must bear alone the weary strife.

- Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte who was born in 1816, was the eldest of 3 sisters who lived in their father's parsonage at Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. Their home's remoteness and their lack of any companionship outside the family, as Charlotte said, to be ' wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study for the enjoyments and occupational of life.' And amongst their activities ' the highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we knew from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition. In 1845 they managed, with great difficulty, to publish a volume of their poems under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Each of them then set to work on novels, Charlotte (Currer) writing 'The Professor' and 'Jane Eyre', Anne (Acton) 'Agnes Gray', and Emily (Ellis) 'Wuthering Heights'.
'Jane Eyre' was the first to appear in print- in 1847 the year, also, of Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' and Disraeli's 'Tancred'. It quickly became one of the most talked about novels of the day, while 'Wuthering Heights' which also followed later in the same year, was for a long time regarded as an earlier and cruder attempt by the same author. Emily and Anne Bronte died soon afterwards, but Charlotte wrote 2 more novels, 'Shirley' in1849 and 'Vilette', a re- handling of the material used in 'The Professor', in1853. In 1854 she married her father's curate, Rev. A.B. Nicolls, but died a few months later.

The Firm

This can be termed undoubtedly the best from John Grisham as of yet...

When Mitch McDeere signed on with Bendini, Lambert and Locke of Memphis, he thought he and his beautiful wife Abby were on the way. The firm leased him a BMW, paid off his school loans, arranged a mortgage, and hired him a decorator. Mitch McDeere should have remebered what his brother Ray- doing fifteen years in a Tennessee jail- already knew. You never got nothing for nothing. Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch's firm and needs his help. Mitch is caught between a rock and a hard place, with no choice- if he wants to live.

Jane Eyre

Orphaned Jane Eyre endures an unhappy childhood, hated by her aunt and cousins and then sent to the comfortless Lowood School. But life there improves, and Jane stays on as a teacher, though she still longs for love and friendship. At Mr. Rochester's house, where she goes to work as a governess, she hopes she might have found them- until she learns of the terrible secret of the attic.

Charlotte Bronte with this masterpiece has captured the hearts of millions- including mine. She is truly, a jewel among the Bronte sisters.

Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, a wiaf found on the streets of Liverpool, is brought home to the Yorkshire moors by Mr. Earnshaw and raised a sone of his own children. Hindley despises and ill- treats him, but wild Cathy becomes his constant comapnion, and he falls violently in love with her. But when she will not marry him, Heathcliff's terrible venegeance ruins them all- but still his and Cathy's love will not die. Considered to be a crude model on sister Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte too marks a niche for itself.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It potrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious 'tenant' of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son form his father's influence, and earns her own living as an artist. Whilst hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her.

Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey archer was educated at Oxford University. He became the youngest member of the House of Commons in 1969, was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in 1985, and was elevated to the House of Lords in 1992. All his novels and short story collections- including Kane and Abel, Honour Among Thieves, and to Cut a Long Story Short- have been international bestsellers, selling over 120 million copies worldwide. Archer is married with two children and lives with England.

Kane and Abel

TWO STRANGERS BORN WORLDS APART... ONE DESTINY THAT WOULD DEFINE THEM BOTH...

William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless Polish immigrant- born on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world- are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream.

Two men- ambitious, powerful, ruthless- are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fuelled by their all- consuming hatred. Over sixty years and three generations, through war, marriage, fortune and disaster, Kane and Abel battle for the success and triumph that only one man can have....

Shall we Tell the President

WHAT THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T KNOW MAY KILL HER>

After decades of struggle, sacrifice and personal tragedy, Florentyna Kane has finally attained her goal- the presidency of the United States. Yet even as she gives her inaugral speech, those who oppose her are plotting to silence her forever.

Only one man knows when the assasins will strike, and even he doesn't know where, how or more importantly, who they are. He has only six days to track down the senator at the heart of the cold- blooded conspiracy. Siz days in which he can waste no time, leave no trail, and trust no one. One wrong word, one false move, and both a nation and a dream will crumble.

Master storyteller Jeffrey Archer keeps the pace sizzling in this daring political thriller where treason and betrayal threaten to topple an American dynasty.

The Eleventh Commandment

Connor Fitzgerald is the professional's professional. Holder of the Medal of Honour. Devoted family man. Servant of his country. The CIA's most deathly weapon. But for the past 28 years, Fitzgerald has been leading a double life. And only days from his retirement from the Agency, he comes across an enemy even he cannot handle. The enemy, is his own boss, the Director of the CIA. And she has only one purpose: to destroy him. Meanwhile, the Unites States is faced with an equally formidable foe: a new Russioan President, determined to force a military confrontation between the two superpowers.

Ranging form the oval office in the White House to the Russian Mafia's secret luxurious hideaway outside St. Petersburg, the Eleventh Commandment sets new standards in contemporary thriller writing by Jeffrey Archer.

Jack London

The life of Jack London (1876- 1916) reads exactly like the plot of one of his adventure stories. He was born John Chaney, the illegitimate son of an itinerant Irish- American astrologer and Flora Wellman, the black sheep of a well- to- do family. Before Jack was one year old, Flora had married a groccer called John London and settled into a life of poverty in Pennsylvania.

Young Jack increasingly found escape from the grimness in his surroundings in books borrowed from the local library; his reading was guided by the kindly local librarian. But when he was only fifteen, he left home and travelled around North America as a tramp. He even served thirty days in prison once on a charge of vagrancy.

By the time he was nineteen, he could drink and curse as well as his fellow boatmen in California. but he had never lost his love of reading, and his socialist creed also stressed the importance of education; by dint of cramming all his lost schooling into a few months, he managed to gain entry into the University of California. He soon left, however, and in 1896 was caught up in the gold rush to the Klondike river in north-west Canada. He returned from there with no gold at all, but with the seed of a story which in 1903 became a huge bestseller- The Call of the Wild.

His very next novel was the Sea Wolf (1904), one of the most exciting sea stories ever written, and bassed as usual on Jack's own experiences as a sailor in the early 1890's. By 1913 he was the highest paid and most widely read writer in the world. He spent all his money, however, on his friends, on drinking, and especially on building himself a castle- like house, which was destroyed by fire before completion. Financial difficulties forced him to drive himself mercilessly, and to drink heavily, until he could stand no more. In 1916, at the age of forty, Jack London took his own life.

The Sea Wolf

This book comes from Jack London- the mind behind the classic- White Fang.

When fate lands Humphery van Weyden on board the 'Ghost', a sealing schooner bound for Japan, little does he know of the weeks of brutality which lie ahead. Captain Wolf Larsen is feared and despised by all on the board, and only the chance arrival of Maud Brewster spurs Van Weyden into action in a deaperate attempt to free them both from the terrifying power of the Sea- Wolf.

White Fang

A book that could have easily been a self- help guide on courage...

Part wolf, part dog, with the strength and courage of both in his blood, White Fang is an orphan cub in the frozen frontier of the Yukon. His is a world of enemies, animal and human. His inborn instincts and acquired ways teach him to hunt... to fight... to win! Nothing else matters. Men exploit and abuse him until one man teaches the noble animal to recognize his own greatest attribute- his loyalty. Only then can White Fang face the most dangerous challenge of all!

Rebecca

Today's book is the timeless masterpiece by the author Daphne Du Maurier, a must read in one's lifetime.

This is Manderly- notorious, ridden by evil. Its mistress, Rebecca de Winter, has benn dead for eight months, drowned in a sailing accident. She was glamourous and adored. But through the eyes of Rebecca's successor at Manderly- Maxim de Winter's shy young wife- we come to know Rebecca as she really was. We realize with horror, the power she holds over Manderly even in death, and we watch her satanic curse paralyze Maxim de Winter's ove for his new wife. Then suddenly, a dramatic and bold revelation shatters Rebecca's spell...

Rose in Bloom

In this sequel to 'Eight Cousins,' Rose Campbell is six years older, returning to the 'Aunt Hill' after twi years of travelling around the world. Suddenly, she is surrounded by male admirers, all expecting her to marry them. But before she marries anyone, Rose is determined to establish herself as an independent young woman. Besides, she suspects that some of her friends like her more for her money than for herself. How can Rose tell who her real friends are? Is there anyone she can count on?

Eight Cousins

Needless to say... another by Louisa May Alcott

Left an orphan after her father's death, Rose Campbell is sent to live at the 'Aunt Hill' with her six aunts and seven roudy boy cousins. For someone who is used to a girl's boarding swchool, it all seems pretty overwhelming. Her guardian, Uncle Alec, makes her eat healthy things like oatmeal, and even tries to get her to give up her pretty dresses for drab, sensible clothes. Will Rose ever get used to her uncles's crazy notions and all her noisy relatives?

An Old Fashioned Girl

Another wonderful book by L.M. Alcott...

Polly Milton never questions the way she is- until she goes to visit her cousins in the city. Her cousin fanny looks too glamourous to be Polly's age; and wouldn't be caught dead playing in the snow. Will Polly ever learn to be like the other girls? And does she even want to? Sometimes being old- fasioned is right in style.

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott (1832- 1888) was brought up in Pennsylvania in the United States. Her father was not a practical man and Louisa and her three sisters spent their childhood witnessing the failture of a school based on his own radical, idealist and educationalist theories (as in Little Men), a farm and a Utopian vegetarian community. By her midteens, Louisa had to find a way to support the family income.

For some years, she wrote lurid stories for the magazines and newspapers, and for publishers of dime novels- cheap paperback novels with melodramatic plots. Then, in 1862, when the fury of the American Civil War was at its height, Louisa went to Georgetown to work as a nurse. The conditions were frightful and she contracted typhoid fever and pneumonia. Her health was ruined for life, but her reputation was made. From her experiences she wrote a series of Hospital Sketches which won wide acclaim on publication in 1864. In the same year, an adult novel, Moods, based on her love for the famous American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, was also published.

She was now in demand as a writer, and a forward- thinking publisher persuaded her to write a children's book. At first she was reluctant, but then she realised that in herself and her three sisters, she had the perfect models (Jo March is modelled on Louisa both on build and character). The result was 'Little Women,' first published in book form in 1868 (Little Men followed in 1871). This was the earliest American children's novel to become classic. The tone is moralistic, but not dictating; and though it is called a children's book, the lifelike characters and situations had adults too, eagerly awaiting the next installment (it was originally published as a magazine serial) and grown men weeping at the tragic episodes. Even after, so many years of the author's death, the book has still just as much power to move its countless readers.

Little Men

The storyline may have shifted from the March girls, but like in all books of Alcott, the magic continues...

With two sons of her own and twelve boys and two girls filling in as students in the informal school at Plumfield, Jo March couldn't have been happier. But boys have a habit of getting into scrapes, even when they are bieng cared for by the warm and affectionate March family. Both trouble and adventure follow the boys from one day to another as they carve a place for themselves among the Marches.

Good Wives

Louisa May Alcott continues to spin her magic in this sequel to Little Women...

Three years on from Little Women, the March girls and their friend Laurie are young adults with their futures to find. Although they all face painful trails along the way- from Meg's sad lesson in housekeeping to Laurie's disappointment in love and the terrible tragedy that touches them all- each girl strives to find a happiness they know is out there somewhere.

Little Women

This timeless classic always brings hope and light in the hearts of its readers.

The good- natured March girls- Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy- manage to lead interesting lives despite Father's absence at war and the family's lack of money. Whether they're making plans for putting on a play or forming a secret society, their gaiety is infectious and even Laurie next door is swept up in their enthusiasm. Written from Louisa May Alcott's own experiences, this is a remarkable story.