I wouldn’t mind going back to Cambodia (Siem Reap) again. It is one of my favourite places to (re) visit.
Tag: historical
Valley of Two Lakes
About 3 hours drive from Dunmanway is a place called Glendalough (pronounced as Glen da Loch), a place known for its monastic settlement. If you visit that place you will know why it is a perfect place for a monastery. So much peace, so much calm, so much nature. Ufff! It was so beautiful. There are also trails you can hike depending on your stamina level. And the place is huge. We decided to go on the long walk around the place upto the upper lake and then walk back. Again close to 3-4 hours to visit the whole place. This place holds a special place in my life now đ Would definitely go back if I get another chance and may be next time, will try one of those hikes too.
A-Z Book List: Q for Question
If I had started this series almost 3 months ago, I wouldn’t have found a book that I had read which starts with the letter Q. I might have ended up listing a book which I wanted to read as Linda once suggested when I started this series. But recently I read this mystery series in which the second book’s title started with the letter Q. So I got a save. How many other books do you know that starts with the letter Q? Goodreads lists only 102 books according to this list. Mostly starting with the word Question or Queen which are the most common ones used.
Name: A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Historical Mystery, Fiction, Suspense
Thanks to the Amazon Kindle Unlimited trial period to which I was subscribed at that time (and then later went ahead with my subscription paying 9.99$ per month) I got introduced to this series called A Very English Mystery and enjoyed both the books that is available in Kindle Unlimited. It is a historical mystery with a slight hint of romance. It is not a fast-paced story, flows at a medium speed, but never boring, at least to me đ The male protagonist, Hugo, is slightly disabled (for now) and reminds me of Cormoran Strike (the Robert Galbraith’s series) and uses his sharp senses and with a huge help from the female protagonist, Freya solves the murders that happen in that small town. In this second book, the Selchester Castle (where Hugo, Freya, Hugo’s sister are staying for now) has got a new Earl, that too from America (the first book deals with the death of the Earl of the castle). But when he lands, people start to drop dead. And the very quiet town gets into a frenzy all again. I gave it 4 stars in Goodreads because I loved both the books in this series and will be eagerly waiting for the nex tone.
PS:Â Check out the rest of the A-Z Book list here
A-Z Book List: M for Memoirs
Not many books are successful as a movie. It is not very easy to convert a book into a movie in the first place. Books can be anywhere between 10 pages to 800 pages (a rough estimate that is) but a movie cannot be more than the max of 3 hours (if by then it doesn’t put you to sleep that is) Adapting a novel and delivering it with a good screenplay is always a challenge. That is why we have so many movies which failed to impress us visually even when their book counterparts were very successful. But, like everything else, we have exceptions to these too. And this book falls on that list.
Name: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance
Honestly, I had a tough time to choose from my selection of books for M. I could have chosen Mahabharata by C. Rajagopalachari (which is an abridged version of the epic tale) or Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayanan or The Mirror, by our very own Navigator (a fellow blogger) I am listing these here so that you might have a chance to check these out too đ And I have done a set of posts on ‘The Mirror’ already which also included an interview with the author himself đ
Coming back the book of the day, Memoirs of a Geisha. I gave this book 4 stars in Goodreads. It is very poetic in nature. That is how I felt about it when I read it. Can you bring a certain grace and calm and elegance to characters with your words? It is not that easy. But this book does that. The pain, the suffering, the love, the yearning, the hate, the disappointment – we feel all that the Geisha feels. We are taken into a whole new different world in a different era and go through a whole life. A very well written book. The movie also was equally amazing. Mesmerizing performances by everyone involved. Very well adapted movie. One other book that comes to my mind where I was equally enamored with both the book and the movie was ‘Gone with the Wind’.
PS:Â Check out the rest of the A-Z Book list here
A-Z Book List: H for Honor
Jeffrey Archer: One of my cousins is a huge fan of this author. I remember how she wanted to get one of his latest books the day it was released. Her father, my uncle, is also a huge fan and so the father-daughter duo always takes turn to read the books and obviously the daughter gets the first chance. I am not a big fan of political drama and even though this father-daughter duo did convince me that unless I have read Kane and Abel my life isn’t complete (I am exaggerating it a little bit here…but well, that is how it did feel by the way they were convincing me about that book) I haven’t yet found the time or the mood to get to that book. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t read his other works. The person who started me on these fictions when I started working, had a couple of Jeffrey Archer’s novels and I did read them during my early days of reading.
Name: Honor among Thieves by Jeffrey Archer
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Drama, Historical Fiction, Suspense.
One of the very few books of Archer’s that I have read. The others were “Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less”, “Shall we tell the President”, “As the Crow Flies”.  This does take place after the Gulf War and the story is very political in nature and is about how the defeated party is trying to outsmart the victorious one and how it is contained by the mighty powers, with the help of some intelligent and smart people. Since I am not interested in Politics that much, as far as the story goes, it was OK. It did keep me engaged. But among the ones I have read, I really really liked ‘As the Crow Flies’. I don’t know why. Even though that book was so huge (and I did remember wondering why it was going on and on and on) I sort of ended up liking that story more than this one. And I still haven’t touched the one that was suggested in the first place. ‘Kane and Abel’ and ‘The Prodigal Daughter’, but for some reason, I read ‘Shall we tell the President’, which is the third book in the series. My uncle was shocked that I read the third one without reading the other two. What can I say? It was the only one that my friend had at that time and I read it. Will I ever read Kane and Abel? I guess it will be on my to-read list with many other such famous and good books that I have planned on reading, probably in my old age.
PS:Â Check out the rest of the A-Z Book list here
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