Tag: love for books

  • Guest Post #1 – Looking Through My Glasses – Disha Prashant

    DP 20171203_191722Hey guys,

    Here I present you the amazing Disha Prashant as my first guest writer for Adi’s Journal. Disha and my friendship is very modern “Internet Era” friendship as we have met only couple of times. But, the bond we share is cemented with our love for books and the virtual cups of Hot Cocoa we shared when we read at late night. I kind of owe the success of Adi’s Journal to Disha as she is the one who trusted me and asked me to keep writing in English. The next text you read will be written by her. Over to you Disha.

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    LOOKING THROUGH MY GLASSES

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    Photo by Disha Prashant

    Hola Amigos!! The weekend is almost about to end but since it’s December the entire month seems to be weekend. So here’s to the weekend where in I got an opportunity to interact with all of you through my best friend Adi’s blog. Today I will share insights about my feature write ups and venturing into book blogging. Me and Adi have known each other for long and it is indeed a pleasure to write for his blog.

    Working in the field of journalism I secretly wished to try my luck at feature writing for that is where my soul longed to be. The best thing about feature write ups is that you can put your heart and soul into what you write irrespective of any unknown being judgemental about it. To precisely define it, feature is your perception about things that make you happy, it is about sharing things that would make someone smile or help them into exploring a jazz chapter of their life.

    Thanks to a friend from a newspaper I got this opportunity of writing features for a newspaper and there began a journey for which I had booked my tickets way back (P.S… A lot of waiting you see). What made me happy while writing these features was I met many people belonging to different fields, hailing from different countries, liking different genres and creating a story of their own thereby making this planet a better place to live.

    I came across numerous topics and places which I assumed only existed in dreams and were able to explore them by myself. Writing features not just gave me an identity but it also brought me closer to an altogether unique world of infinite possibilities.

    Walking on unknown paths brings you closer to lovable oblivion as you come back with hands full of little treasures. I was never into reading books as such, rather I ran away from bookstores. A chance meeting with an old friend and the book stars collided. He gave me my first book to read and insisted on reading it. I was not so keen on reading it but then things never go as planned and this time I was glad they didn’t. That one book came like a wild drug and I took a deep plunge into the enigmatic world of books.

    Venturing into book blogging was never on the agenda. However after reading a book I wanted to share all the stories, the excitement, the suspense and a lot more bookish masala to share with fellow readers but failed at finding such company. And again the book fairy struck me and I chanced upon meeting people who were in love with books just the way I am. Adi was that first friend with whom I shared a bookish relation.

    It was this friendship that triggered me into writing book reviews and blog them on my page. So far the journey has been a roller-coaster ride and fingers crossed hope it stays like that. Thank you Adi for believing in me and giving me this opportunity to write for your blog. Awaiting more such opportunities. Till then love you beloved bibliophiles…. HAPPY READING… Signing off LAZY LIZZIE TALES.

  • 3 and a half murders – a review

    Name of the book: 3 and a Half Murders 41igaXTEreL._SX321_BO1,204,203,200_

    Author: Salil Desai

    My rating: 4.5/5

    While going through my Goodreads bookshelves, I stumbled upon Salil Desai’s latest novel from Inspector Saralkar Series. But, this discovery was really late, almost 10 months from the publication. I am kicking myself for not following this amazing author, who gave us our own mystery hunters duo, Senior Inspector Saralkar and PSI Motkar from Homicide Unit of Pune Police. I was fascinated by the first two books from the series and that lead me to pick his latest title instantaneously.

    Maintaining the track record of the earlier titles from series, Salil Desai has managed to keep the reader’s attention with him until he completes the story. This time story takes you to Kothrud, another part of Pune, to almost open and shut case; the murder-suicide of married couple Sanjay and Anushka Doshi. But as the story unfolds, mystery hunters duo’s attempt to answer ‘why’s behind the ghastly and spine-chilling murder-suicide, brings the puzzling facts about human behaviors.

    The plot takes many twists and turns leading inspectors to various cities and dive in the old case papers of Karnataka Police in for the unsolved murder in Banglore entangled with shady land deals, recruitment scams and many other irregularities related to Doshis.

    I have observed in Salil’s this series, he had tried to talk about human psychology and the social stigmas around various issues like sexuality and gender identity. He has developed the characters around these issues so that he can create the dialogue in the reader’s mind about these issues. This is the quality which makes you read through the last chapter where the criminal tries to explain his side of the story, and the end where protagonist put some key pieces of the puzzle on display for us.

    Senior Inspector Saralkars one-line punches and jibes to PSI Motkar add the spices to the story along with the development of their personal stories, as PSI Motkar is now an amateur actor in a play and Saralkar is trying to fight with the diagnosis of hypertension. The blurb of the book and the cover is so catchy that you can’t leave it until you dive deep into it. This is how the blurb goes:

    “Two corpses . . . a woman lying dead on her bed,
    a man hanging from the ceiling fan.
    A suicide note cum murder confession.
    And a name . . . Shaunak Sodhi.
    When the case comes their way, Senior Inspector Saralkar has just been diagnosed with hypertension and PSI Motkar is busy with rehearsals of an amateur play.
    What appears at first to be a commonplace crime by a debt-ridden, cuckolded husband, who has killed his unfaithful wife and then hung himself, soon begins to unfold as a baffling mystery. As clues point to a seven-year-old unsolved murder in Bangalore and other leads emerge closer home, Saralkar and Motkar find themselves investigating shady secrets, bitter grudges, fishy land deals, carnal desires, the dead woman Anushka Doshi’s sinister obsession with past life regression and her husband’s links to a suspicious, small-time god-man, Rangdev Baba.And then, suddenly, the murderer resurfaces and yet another life is in grave danger . . .
    Can Saralkar and Motkar get to the bottom of an unimaginably shocking motive and stop the malevolent killer from committing the fourth murder . . .?”

    Paperback: 328 pages

    Publisher: Fingerprint! Publishing (8 February 2017)

    Language: English

    ISBN-10: 8175994258

    ISBN-13: 978-8175994256

     

    Buy your copy at

    Amazon Paperback

    Kindle

    Flipkart

    And book store near you…

  • Starting a new

    Turn the page — by Lori Spray

    It has been days for me turning that page. I put the full stop on our relationship. You know how difficult it is to move on and starting a new life. When there is no further page to turn, you have to accept the end. We had such a good time together. But alas, the journey has its destination. Wait, wasn’t I aware of this destination since the beginning? Ever since I took that first step with her, back of the mind I was always staging for the moment when we reach the end of this road.

    Isn’t it obvious for a book? If you open the cover and dived in the amazing world created by an author, there is always “the end” written on the last page of the book. When the book is so fascinating, it kind of cast a spell on you and take you along the journey of its characters. I get involved in the story so much that I start thinking of being part of the story. The author takes the characters by hand and takes them to their destination by the end of the book. They fulfill their destiny. If writer gave them happy moments at the end, they enjoy them. If it’s tragedy, characters at least get closure at the end. But hey dude, you forget to write something for me? What about my destiny at the end? What about my share of the closure? Haven’t you thought about me as an uninvited traveler of this journey when you wrote a book?

    This is my condition when I turn that last page of every fascinating book. I need more time to come out of the world between those covers. I know it’s crazy to some other level, but hey my fellow bibliophiles, aren’t we all crazy in the same way? Just like some love yearning person, I fell for a new world. I get pulled to the bookshelf. Aroma of those printed pages always fascinates me. It entices me to pick up a new book and start a new.

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    I am participating in A to Z challenge with Blogchatter and this is my take on day 14 challenge. “N for Starting a new”