Hi Everyone!

Hello Everyone,

I am Veens and I blog at Giving... Reading A - Chance!!!

I came to know about this site through S. Krishna's post on her Booker Reading Challenge post. And I thank her for that post. I immediately joined her and decided that this would be an interesting challenge.

After failing in almost all the short-time challenges,  I think the long term challenges [ with no time frame ] will work for me :-)

Laura, thank you for inviting me to this wonderful blog. I can't believe it took me so LONG to find this blog. I wasn't looking at the right places, I am sure.

Till date, I have read just 2 Booker Prize Winners [I know sad...] -

The Gathering by Anne Enright

I read this in Oct, 2008 and didn't like it. I struggled with this book a lot, trying to make sense of what was happening to Veronica. I never wrote a review of this one, as I knew I needed to re-read it to understand it better. I think a re-read with the right set of mind will help me appreciate this book much better than I did then.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

I read this in Nov, 2008. I read my own review of it today and found it very bad, very inadequate. I admit that when I started on this book, I was hoping to be completely immersed in it, but was totally disappointed when it didn't happen. I struggled for sometime with this book too. The fact that this book revolves around people, whose ethnic background is same as mine didn't help me get into the swing of things.

But eventually, I don't know when, I was sucked into it. I was eager, sad and I was heart-broken. I could "feel" the characters and hate some. The writing is lyrical, but the book in itself is melancholy. I shed a few tears when I was finished with it!

There are so many quotes from this book that I could quote but here is a link to the review by a reviewer who has penned down some of the best quotes from the book. Here are some from my review -

It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain.To let it be, and to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do!
[Page 190]

If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.
[Page 330]

I hope these quotes give you an idea of how beautiful her writing is. I think this is one of the most underrated books in the Booker Prize win-list. And I definitely think everyone should give it a try.

Once again, Laura thank you for letting me "in"!

And I am sure I am the one who will benefit from all the great reviews being posted here.

I have one more booker winning book "White Tiger by Aravind Adiga [ 2008 ]" in my TBR that I need to read in the coming days!

And HAPPY DIWALI to all of you!