Write-ups and book reads of our members in November, 2023
November was a month of literary exploration for HydRAW members as they delved into a wide array of genres and narratives. Arun Kumar led the pack with an eclectic selection, ranging from the thought-provoking The Illuminated by Anindita Ghose to the captivating tales in Before The Coffee Gets Cold: Tales From The Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. The club’s members ventured into realms of mystery with John Grisham’s The Exchange and historical intrigue with Lesley D. Biswas’s A Conspiracy In Calcutta. Meanwhile, Manohar Grandhi delved into personal development with classics like James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh and David Goggins’s empowering Can’t Hurt Me. Fizza Younis embarked on a thrilling journey with titles like When Murder Comes Home by Shana Frost and Darynda Jones’s Eleventh Grave in Moonlight. From naval wisdom in The Almanac of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, explored by Surya Sriki, to Usha Sreedharan’s literary immersion in Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, HydRAW embraced a rich tapestry of literature. This month’s selections sparked discussions that resonated with the diverse tastes and interests of its members, making November a memorable chapter in the club’s literary odyssey.
- The Illuminated by Anindita Ghose
- The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
- Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag
- Before The Coffee Gets Cold: Tales From The Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- The Exchange by John Grisham
- Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Before We Say Good Bye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- One Big Thing by Phil Cooke
- The People On Platform 5 by Clare Pooley
- Loki Takes Guard by Menaka Raman
- Common Yet Uncommon by Sudha Murty
- Animals In The House by Ruskin Bond
- The Nemesis by Manoranjan Byapari
- Visitors To The House by Shashank Gupta
- A First Time For Everything by Dan Santat
- The Train To Tanjore by Devika Rangachari
- A Conspiracy In Calcutta by Lesley D. Biswas
- Postcard From Lushai Brigade by Hannah Lalhlanpuii
- The Door to Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
- That Year At Manikoil by Aditi Krishnakumar
- The Letter to Lahore by Tanu Shree Singh
- Letters To My Mother by Vikas Arun Pareek
- Welcome To Paradise by Twinkle Khanna
- 20 Manchi (thanam) Kathalu by Yandamoori Kamalendranath
Before The Coffee Gets Cold
It deals with a cafe, where one can travel in time. Of course there are rules try reading about rules and people try using that despite knowing rules. Well written book, translated.
The People On Platform 5
It’s from the idea in the modern times people are busy no time to talk to other travelers on train. What’s that a positive attitude book.
- As A Man Thinketh by James Allen
- Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
- Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dispenza
Evolve Your Brain
This is the story of a person who struggled right from his childhood because of an abusive father. He then describes about how he spent time in Seal Training, one of the toughest on the planet. The main takeaway from this book is that if you have the right mindset you can overcome any Adversity.
- When Murder Comes Home by Shana Frost
- The Curse Of Tenth Grave (Charlie Davidson #10) by Darynda Jones
- Pick Your Poison (ARC) by Kim Bruce
- The Dream Heist (Dreamscape #1) by Christina Farley
- Whiskey & Gumdrops by Jean Oram
- A Most Unsuitable Earl by Ruth Ann Nordin
- Eleventh Grave In Moonlight (Charlie Davidson #11) by Darynda Jones
- The Dream Hunt (Dreamscape #2) by Christina Farley
- The Trouble With Twelfth Grave (Charlie Davidson #12) by Darynda Jones
- Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yarros
The Dreamscape series
This series is my favorite among this month’s reads. Both books (1 & 2) are thrilling and take you through the twists and turns of a fun adventure-filled journey, that you are sure to enjoy. I loved the characters and the premise, but more than that it’s the writing that keeps you turning pages. These were hard-to-put-down books for me.
The Dream Heist starts with introducing the characters. Aria’s parents are scientists, and her father has developed a groundbreaking technology to enter people’s dreams. They are working toward a method to retrieve and restore human memories to deal with illnesses like Dementia. However, some people want to exploit this tech and steal a lot of money by retrieving codes from someone’s memory. Now, her father has been kidnapped, people are dead, and they must find the stolen money to make sure the wrong people aren’t accused of theft. The answers to all their problems are somewhere in dreams. Aria and her teammates are willing to go to any length to save her father and protect their technology from falling into the wrong hands.
The Dream Hunt is even more thrilling. As we get to know the main characters and watch them grow, we also witness the stakes getting higher and twists & turns getting more interesting. A groundbreaking technology is something many people would kill to get their hands on. And it doesn’t help that Aria’s father designed it using her brain. No wonder she is now at the center of the misadventures that are unfolding far away from her home in Florida. I also loved how the story takes you through different places as Aria, her friends, and even her enemies try to navigate both the real world and the dreams.
The premise of the story is amazing, and they are very well-written. The books combine Young Adult, Fantasy, Sci-Fiction, and some Romance. I think everyone can enjoy these action-packed books regardless of their favorite genre.
- A Bloody Bilateral Affair
- The Almanac Of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
- The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
- Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida
The 2022 Booker prize winner is based on the Sri Lankan civil war held during 1980’s. It’s written in second person, representing Maali Almeida, professional war photographer, gambler and a gay, who is a dead person. He gets seven moons ( days) to investigate his killing and to get release the photographs of horrific slaughter of human beings.
Thus he exposes the brutalities of killing, piles of chopped bodies, disappearance of journalists, activists, extension of human rights violation. The plots are interwoven about his life journey, people engage in, to ascertain the actual cause of his killing and after life and a ghost traveling. The theme of the novel : All the possession of the statehood by Sinhalese Government is dreadful to mankind.
- Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- Verity by Colleen Hoover
- Consciousness: An Introduction — 3rd edition by Susan Blackmore
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Concise Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
