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Showing posts from July, 2017

White Teeth

The first novel of the author, I came across this when I read up about Zadie Smith's new book, Swing Time. I thought let me start with the very first one and opened White Teeth. Set in North London in very ordinary neighbourhoods filled with immigrants and their second generation children, I could understand it as could many people I would assume given the success of this book. As with such books, the story and the end of where it takes us is less important than the journey itself. Andrew, a white guy who is racially blind ends up marrying Clara who is a Caribbean black woman raised in London and decades younger. They have a daughter Irie who is more black than she is white. Andrew's friend from serving in World War II is Samad, a Bangladeshi who marries his decades younger cousin Alsana from Bangladesh. They have twins Magid and Millat. Samad and Andrew often reminisce the war days, spending more time with each other alienating their younger families. Samad also has a pet pe

Never Let Me Go

This is so deep on so many levels and yet is such a refreshingly light read. It does make you cry at the end. If you want to read it I recommend you don't read any preamble and for that reason, I will keep this very spoiler proof. No, it's not a thriller. The book is written from the perspective of one Kathy H, a student at Hailsham and about her greatly ordinary life. Over time as people grow older, we chance upon information about the bad bad world out there and learn to deal with it. So does Kathy, supported by some friends. It's endearing in a way to see campus life in Hailsham and remember that my six years of campus life were similar. We all have things that seem so important at that stage within the confines of that word, that outside it they seem so silly. And that is what makes this book so very special. The author was able to look at the world through the eyes of this little child and then a young adult all the while. This is also what makes epics like To Kill a