In The Tall Grass by Stephen King and Joe Hill

Horror is not one of my favourite genres but I dip my toes into the pool once in a while. It was a bad reading slump when I first came across this one. Hadn't read a book for months but finished this one cover to cover, in a matter of couple of hours. For someone who understands the genius of Stephen King this is not surprising. Add Joe Hill into the mix and you have a party.

In The Tall Grass is all about building up that suspense. You know something is wrong right from the start. You know the protagonists are making a terrible mistake when they get out of their car. You want to yell at them to stop but you are compelled to keep reading. The silence and the voices are all eerie. Even when it is not an audiobook but prose on paper. It's an experience that can't be explained. Though I wouldn't willingly recommend horror to people but this is a decent place to start, considering it is a novella. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

Astronaut Sally Jensen was all set to land on Mars. It was her life's goal. An unavoidable space accident put an early end to her career and turned her into a pariah.  Decades later, she is the commander of the spaceship Orion on its way to make First Contact with what is supposedly an alien spacecraft hurtling towards Earth. 

In the vast expanse of space fiction there's a subgenre of horror that can scare the daylights out of anyone and this book fits the bill. The Last Astronaut reminds one of the Alien movie franchise with all the gory, gooey, weird details. Great writing and an engrossing plot.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick

The Rescue Artist is a fascinating account of the art world crimes. It chronicles the theft and recovery of Edvard Munch's iconic art piece Screamand reads like a Hollywood heist movie but with more logic and practical potholes.

Statistics on the masterpieces that have been stolen over the years is quiet staggering but you will be amused at the ingenuous ways used by the art thieves to knick these pieces over centuries. The book offers some thoughtful insights into the workings of art galleries, museums et al but to me, it is a legit starting point to plunge into art history.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Do You Dream Of Terra Two by Temi Oh

My unhealthy obsession of reading space travel based science fiction made me choose this book as my lockdown read.

Six young people from different walks of life are trained for years and chosen by the merit of fierce competition to join a manned space mission. This is not an ordinary mission. They are a part of the elite team which is aiming to colonize the newly discovered seemingly habitable planet Terra Two. The mission will take 23 years and will test them to their limits. Will they fulfill their mission or will landing on Terra Two remain a dream? It's space after all and you can never say what's heading your way.

Exploring the psychologically difficult aspect of space travel ( read - confined spaces, looking at same faces for years, uncertainty of the situation) Temi Oh does a wonderful job of making us see this setup through the eyes of these freshly suited up astronauts.

The extremely high possibility of having younger travellers in future, with commercial space travel plans in

offing, this is a very relevant read. Also, it's quiet unputdownable ( is that even a word?)

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Binti by Nnedi Okrofer

Binti is a Himba girl living with her family on Earth in a distant future. Her people follow traditions neither respected or understood by the so called civilized population. They also avoid much contact with the rest of the world, by choice. When a chance to study in one of the best universities in the Galaxy comes across, Binti chooses to give up her familiar life to seek knowledge in face of resistance by her loved ones.

If gaining knowledge was easy it wouldn't have made a great story. Like in real life, this futuristic world holds forth hurdles. Binti finds herself at the centre of a vicious attack by an alien race called Meduse on Oomza University. Her way out is probably also her way in to the new world. 

There is science fiction and then there is great science fiction. Binti belongs to the latter kind. From tackling themes ranging from migrant psychology to racial prejudices, the book doesn't shy either from calling out wrongs or stepping forward in to the unknown. Free from pretensions it treads a path that mirrors our present world scenario yet rarely preaches.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Right Time by Danielle Steel

Alexandra Winslow, the heroine,  comes with a lot of emotional baggage.  Difficult childhood, genius level of writing skills and  a secret identity. It has been ingrained in her mind that women writers of mystery don't sell so she writes under a pseudonym and shines. Her books are instant bestsellers but her real identity is a well guarded secret, known only to a select few. As she grows in to a confident young woman, her horizons broaden. Her novels get adapted to the big screen and very soon she is leading a double life that is not just complicated to manage but also full of adventures.

For a Danielle Steel novel, this one is pretty good. I remember reading Big Girl, loving the choice of theme but appalled at the way it was written. This one definitely doesn't feel like it is written for a story segment of a school textbook, so that's a relief. Plus the tragedy meter is pretty much in check. 

🌟🌟🌟

Casablanca - Movie Review

I was 12 years old,  when I first watched Casablanca. We the 90's kids have the coolest parents, I tell you. I picked this video cassette at our local video library (again, absolutely no check over what we could rent ) and watched away. It was a black and white movie about this really grumpy dude (Humphrey Bogart)and this pretty lady (Ingrid Bergman) from his past who just walks into his happening bar. 

You know the really cool line that people keeping quoting and which never seems to go out of fashion 'Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine' - This movie! The entire world war reference, the complexities of the Bogart-Bergman relationship was totally lost on me. My twelve year old self kept asking, why isn't the main man getting his girl?

Nurtured on too much of Bollywood drama this looked like  load of nonsense! If this was Bollywood, the hero would have realised his mistake, totally stopped the plane with his bare hands and the lady would have be out of the plane and into his arms in no time. They would sing a song and there would be a wedding. Definitely a big, fat wedding. Again, I was 12. 

Imagine my experience of it when I finally watched it at a later point in life. 

So what did my adult self think about the movie?
Here's what I thought - Casablanca is a wonderful movie set in French Morocco. A movie about people in the times of war. A movie about human rights and dignity. A  movie about refugees. A movie about being in love but giving it up for a greater good. A movie about unlikely friendships. A movie ahead of its time in theme and execution. It is also a movie that no twelve year should ever watch unsupervised 😁 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟