Hitler was not born, he was created

“Masterful and domineering, but uncertain and hesitant; unwilling to take decisions, yet then prepared to take decisions bolder that anyone else could contemplate; and refusal, once made, to take back any decision: these are part of the puzzle of Hitler’s strange personality.” -Ian Kershaw (Hitler) After learning about the holocaust a few years back, I’d…

How did they survive a plague that killed millions?

“We’ll guarantee them their rights of free speech, but we won’t guarantee they’ll be loved” – Emory Folmar(Sourced from the book) It’s not hard to imagine how the people with AIDS (PWA) must have been perceived by the rest of the world, especially the heterosexual community back in 1980s. The question of struggling for cure…

Homo Sapiens – to be or not to be?

“We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow…

A Prayer from the Sea

Sea Prayer– This Hosseini’s book is a lot of firsts of mine. It is my first ever hardcover book, my first ever picture-illustrated book (excluding childhood story books), and my first ever book that took not more than ten minutes (this, I’m being generous) for its completion. Here is the thing about Sea Prayer- the…

How Fine is Eleanor Oliphant?

How many debuts have I read in gone 2 years? Hardly 10. Sole reason being- there is so much already accomplished work that I’m yet to read; so, to experiment with a debut always seemed bit dubious to me. But, with time, I’ve come to accept what I had realized long back- there’ll never be…

The Diary in the pages of History

“Finally I will get to know about the life in hiding that Anne Frank was doomed to lead for 2 years.” “War couldn’t be good, but how bad it was, will be revealed now.” “What could a diary of a 15-year-old in hiding possibly hold during the time of war, other than the misery and…

Did I just read 50 Greatest Short Stories?

If you were ever offered a book that claims to consist of 50 greatest short stories, won’t you be apprehensive in buying it? Or would you not reconsider, even once, the leap of faith that you’d be taking to buy it? Wouldn’t you think over, and over, and over the fact that how could someone…

Have you ever experienced ‘Big Magic’?

Before I start with the book, I’d love to tell you that this was my first audiobook, and I couldn’t have expected anything better than what I experienced. I had been hearing a lot about audiobooks since many months, but the idea always seemed bit dubious to me. How could listening to a book be…

Rohinton Mistry – A Balanced one

“Distance was a dangerous thing, she knew. Distance changed people.” – Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance) Some novels are long, too long for their content, too much of the story revolves around what doesn’t matter to anybody or anything in the story, but “A Fine Balance“, of 600 plus pages by Rohinton Mistry, is one…

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem!

“None of the men in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry really meant to be taken literally in threatening to ‘drive the Jews into the sea’. But they failed to remember that their foes had just seen six million of their kind driven into Hitler’s oven.” – (O Jerusalem!) Some countries fight for their freedom while some,…