The Blog of Small Things

  Name :  Onam in a nightie Author : Anjana Menon Year of Publication : 2022 Genre : Non-Fiction, Memoir Rating : * 1/2 ( One and a half stars out of 5) The author tries to conjure a literary memoir out of her quarantine and homecoming experiences but unfortunately, the life of privilege which the author lives dampens the prospects of the book's success. Mosquitoes are the biggest threat, home delivery of payasam is the biggest thrill and other such issues keep cropping up time and again in the book - issues which people who lost close ones and jobs due to COVID19 would be annoyed with. The author keeps comparing the efficient service delivery and civic life of Kerala with the dangerous urban life in Delhi but does not try to address the irony of why despite waxing eloquent page after page, God's own country is still her guesthouse while the purgatory of Delhi is where she has to go back to for her livelihood. Nostalgia is a good thing but with no introspection,such nostalgia ...

  Name :  The Mystery of the Blue Train / Murder on the Links / Hickory Dickory Dock Author : Agatha Christie Year of Publication : 1928/1923/1955 Genre : Fiction, Thriller , Detective Fiction Rating : ****/***/** (3,2 and 2 stars out of 5, respectively) While the ingenuity and restless creativity of Agatha Christie are not in question, the exercise indulged in by yours truly to complete the entire canon of Hercule Poirot has gotten rather tiring. The author's depiction of non-English characters in "Hickory Dickory Dock" is rather cliched. "Murder on the links" is too convoluted and unreal, even for an Agatha Christie plot. "The Mystery of the Blue train" has its charm especially because the murder happens in a train. It is a pity that Agatha Christie could not write a murder mystery based in the Outer Space because all other possibilities on Earth have been explored by her.

  Name :  After the funeral/ One, two, buckle my shoe/ Murder in Mesopotamia Author : Agatha Christie Year of Publication : 1953/1940/1936 Genre : Fiction, Thriller , Detective Fiction Rating : ****/***/** (4,3 and 3 stars out of 5, respectively) Hercule Poirot is in the thick of things again solving crimes in the country, dentist's clinic and an archaeology dig at Mesopotamia. "After the Funeral" is the last Great Christie in terms of vintage mis-directions and well placed clues. "One, Two, Buckle my shoe" is good but the politics is silly and the connection to the eponymous poem is contrived. In "Murder in Mesopotamia", the characters are not well-developed thus serving the single purpose of hurtling towards the inevitable climax of Poirot conjuring the magic solution out of thin air.

  Name :  Three Act Tragedy/Death in the clouds/The Hollow Author : Agatha Christie Year of Publication : 1935/1935/1946 Genre : Fiction, Thriller , Detective Fiction Rating : ***/****/** (3,4 and 2 stars out of 5, respectively) 1930s was the decade when Agatha Christie was in her prime, reeling off one blockbuster whodunit after another. "Death in the clouds" published in 1935 is vintage Christie set in an aeroplane wherein an "improbable" crime has happened and Hercule Poirot employs his little grey cells to crack the case. "Three Act Tragedy" (1935) is again a cleverly plotted Christie but the first murder in the novel is more of Christie showing off that she has found another new motive for murder than plausible story-writing. "The Hollow" (1946) could have been a complete novel even without Poirot or a murder - the characters are so well written and the sub-plots make for a good romance. The flaw is that we do not enter Saravana Bhavan expec...

  Name :  Myth-busting : Indian cricket behind the headlines Author : Gulu Ezekiel Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Cricket Rating : *** ( Three stars out of 5) Any Indian cricket fan will explain why Kapil Dev's immortal 175 not out vs Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup was not recorded on video : BBC workers were on strike that day. This is a standard quiz question across the country. Gulu Ezekiel painstakingly ties the loose ends and proves that the BBC strike is a myth and the reason for the innings not being available on video is something more prosaic (Read the book to find the reason). Another example is how when the word Viv Richards is mentioned, we think of the swagger, the gum-chewing big man walking out without wearing a helmet. The author tries to unearth circumstances when even the Great Viv wore a helmet. These are two examples from a delight of a book which finds meaning in the otherwise mundane and celebrates the game. When a person purely loves a f...

  Name :  Stargazing  Author : Ravi Shastri Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Cricket Rating : * 1/2 ( One and a half stars out of 5) A successful cricketer-commentator-coach writing a book of short pieces on his favorite cricketers is  a great idea. Sadly, the idea does not get converted into magic on paper as the author dishes out one glorious cliché after another. Even the anodyne demi-God Sachin Tendulkar got critical of Greg Chappell in his autobiography but Shastri steers clear of even a single critical remark throughout. Kohli is "intense", Dhoni is "cool", Laxman is "stylish", Steve Waugh is "tough", Mark Waugh is "gifted", Gower is "elegant".. The  cliché fest is endless. A good book should linger long after reading but to borrow the author himself, this book will go out of our minds "like a tracer bullet".

Name :  400 days Author : Chetan Bhagat Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Fiction, Novel Rating : * 1/2 ( One and a half stars out of 5) After initial successes, the best-selling author was saddled with lack of creativity and was forced to cook sugary romances with socio-political commentary for dessert. Then, he resorted to whodunnits with an upper caste Holmes and a fatso as Watson. This formula actually worked as his crime plots were grounded in contemporary upper-class Indian society providing a window to how India lives even as the crime detection happened in parallel. Unfortunately, this new book lacks the thrills, the red herrings are too obvious and the romance (like in all his other novels) is an excuse for sex. Chetan Bhagat has potential to write Bollywood screenplays but unfortunately, the number of copies his novels sell (contributed to by this reviewer, as well) make him still believe that having a story plot is literature.