Garima's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 30 Apr 2025 10:49:21 -0700 60 Garima's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 395003 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here and here

In this novel - a story of irreconcilable loves and infidelities - Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of twentieth-century 'Being' In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. We feel, says the novelist, 'the unbearable lightness of being' - not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

Juxtaposing Prague, Geneva, Thailand and the United States, this masterly novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, and embraces, it seems, all aspects of human existence. It offers a wide range of brilliant and amusing philosophical speculations and it descants on a variety of styles. In this classic novel Kundera draws together the Czechoslovakia of the Prague Spring and the Russian invasion, the philosophy of Nietzsche, and the love affairs of a number of heartbreakingly familiar characters.]]> 305 Milan Kundera Garima 4 currently-reading I find it extremely beautiful when deep and insightful philosophies are narrated with such an easy undertone, with metaphors so remarkable that they'll live along for a long time.
Love, infidelity, the idea of recurrence, the very existential meaning of life, everything in nothing and the forever chase for the vertigo; the list goes on; but to sum it all up, it is just an 'unbearable lightness of being']]> 4.00 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: Garima
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/03
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:
Poetic and surreal, as the title itself so uniquely chimes in.
I find it extremely beautiful when deep and insightful philosophies are narrated with such an easy undertone, with metaphors so remarkable that they'll live along for a long time.
Love, infidelity, the idea of recurrence, the very existential meaning of life, everything in nothing and the forever chase for the vertigo; the list goes on; but to sum it all up, it is just an 'unbearable lightness of being'
]]> Beware of Pity 59149 Beware of Pity, the only novel he published during his lifetime, uncovers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings.

Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer stationed at the edge of the empire, is invited to a party at the home of a rich local landowner, a world away from the dreary routine of his barracks. The surroundings are glamorous, wine flows freely, and the exhilarated young Hofmiller asks his host's lovely daughter for a dance, only to discover that sickness has left her painfully crippled. It is a minor blunder, yet one that will go on to destroy his life, as pity and guilt gradually implicate him in a well-meaning but tragically wrongheaded plot to restore the unhappy invalid to health.]]> 353 Stefan Zweig Garima 2 4.28 1939 Beware of Pity
author: Stefan Zweig
name: Garima
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1939
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves:
review:
I know I am in the minority here but I just didn't connect with the book as much as I hoped I would.
]]> Shiv Sutra (शि� सूत्र) 139589379 Shiv Sutra (शि� सूत्र) 300 Osho Garima 5 5.00 Shiv Sutra (शिव सूत्र)
author: Osho
name: Garima
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Ignorance 78728 A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned twenty years earlier when they had chosen to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match." We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Then again, what can we expect of our weak memory? It records only "an insignificant, minuscule particle" of the past, "and no one knows why it's this bit and not any other bit." We live our lives sunk in a vast forgetting, a fact we refuse to recognize. Only those who return after twenty years, like Odysseus returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance firsthand.

Milan Kundera is the only author today who can take such dizzying concepts as absence, memory, forgetting, and ignorance, and transform them into material for a novel, masterfully orchestrating them into a polyphonic and moving work.

Author Biography: The Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera was born in Brno and has lived in France, his second homeland, for more than twenty years.

He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life Is Elsewhere, The Farewell Party, The Books of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short story collection Laughable Loves, all originally written in Czech.

Like Slowness, his two earlier nonfiction works, The Art ofthe Novel and Testaments Betrayed, were originally written in French.

]]> 195 Milan Kundera 0060002107 Garima 4 3.85 2000 Ignorance
author: Milan Kundera
name: Garima
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
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review:

]]> The End 36436067 'They didn't seem to take much interest in my private parts which to tell the truth were nothing to write home about, I didn't take much interest in them myself.'

From the master of the absurd, these two stories of an unnamed vagrant contending with decay and death combine bleakness with the blackest of humour.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 55 Samuel Beckett 0241338972 Garima 3 3.19 1946 The End
author: Samuel Beckett
name: Garima
average rating: 3.19
book published: 1946
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Shiva Purana: Volume 2 144021936 Shiva Purana is the fifth book in an eighteen-part series on the sacred Hindu texts known collectively as the Puranas. Translated with great rigor and precision, Bibek Debroy recounts the tales of creation and the many myths that surround Lord Shiva in twenty-four thousand shlokas and an introduction that simplifies the myth and history of the Puranas.

Brimming with insight and clarity, this translation presents readers with an opportunity to truly understand classical Indian texts. Previous translations by Bibek Debroy include the Bhagavata Purana, the Markandeya Purana, the Brahma Purana, and the Vishnu Purana.]]> 703 Bibek Debroy 9357080805 Garima 0 currently-reading 4.57 Shiva Purana: Volume 2
author: Bibek Debroy
name: Garima
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Shiva Purana: Volume 1 144023202 Shiva Purana is the fifth book in an eighteen-part series on the sacred Hindu texts known collectively as the Puranas. Translated with great rigor and precision, Bibek Debroy recounts the tales of creation and the many myths that surround Lord Shiva in twenty-four thousand shlokas and an introduction that simplifies the myth and history of the Puranas.

Brimming with insight and clarity, this translation presents readers with an opportunity to truly understand classical Indian texts. Previous translations by Bibek Debroy include the Bhagavata Purana, the Markandeya Purana, the Brahma Purana, and the Vishnu Purana.]]> 744 Bibek Debroy 9357080724 Garima 5 4.70 Shiva Purana: Volume 1
author: Bibek Debroy
name: Garima
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Oblomov 1382849
Ivan Goncharov’s 1859 masterpiece—a magnificent farce about a gentleman who spends the better part of his life in bed—brilliantly employs humor to explore the absurdities and injustices of an outmoded social order.

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a good-hearted nobleman whose majestic slothfulness renders him incapable of making decisions or taking the simplest of actions. Raised in idyllic comfort on his family’s country estate, he has become so lazy as an adult that he lets his affairs deteriorate and allows unscrupulous people to take advantage of his weakness and good nature. Living in a shabby apartment and tended by his indolent serf, Zahar, he relies on the efforts of his increasingly exasperated friend Stolz to protect him from himself. Falling in love briefly rouses Oblomov to exert himself in courting Olga, a young woman Stoltz introduces him to, but his astonishing lethargy eventually defeats even their romance. Wildly successful upon its publication, Oblomov was taken as a slyly subversive indictment of the uselessness and corruption of the nobility, but the character of Goncharov’s superfluous man is rendered in such vivid detail and epic richness that it transcends satire and achieves iconic status, earning a place among the masterworks of Russian literature.

Translated by Natalie Duddington]]> 586 Ivan Goncharov 067941729X Garima 0 currently-reading 4.34 1859 Oblomov
author: Ivan Goncharov
name: Garima
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Man and His Symbols 123632 Man and His Symbols owes its existence to one of Jung's own dreams. The great psychologist dreamed that his work was understood by a wide public, rather than just by psychiatrists, and therefore he agreed to write and edit this fascinating book. Here, Jung examines the full world of the unconscious, whose language he believed to be the symbols constantly revealed in dreams. Convinced that dreams offer practical advice, sent from the unconscious to the conscious self, Jung felt that self-understanding would lead to a full and productive life. Thus, the reader will gain new insights into himself from this thoughtful volume, which also illustrates symbols throughout history. Completed just before his death by Jung and his associates, it is clearly addressed to the general reader.]]> 415 C.G. Jung 0440351839 Garima 5 4.19 1964 Man and His Symbols
author: C.G. Jung
name: Garima
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark]]> 10520095 192 Mikhail Naimy 1907486402 Garima 5
-Osho ]]> 4.31 1948 The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark
author: Mikhail Naimy
name: Garima
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1948
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
Millions of people have tried to write books so that they can express the inexpressible, but they have utterly failed. I know only one book, THE BOOK OF MIRDAD, which has not failed; and if you cannot get to the very essence of it, it will be your failure, not his.

-Osho
]]> <![CDATA[What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character]]> 2181552 Among the book's many tales we meet Feynman's first wife, Arlene, who taught him of love's irreducible mystery as she lay dying in a hospital bed while he worked nearby on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. We are also given a fascinating narrative of the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger's explosion in 1986, and we relive the moment when Feynman revealed the disaster's cause by an elegant experiment: dropping a ring of rubber into a glass of cold water and pulling it out, misshapen.]]> 255 Richard P. Feynman 0141030887 Garima 0 to-read 4.18 1988 What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character
author: Richard P. Feynman
name: Garima
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Clockwork Orange 227463 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."]]> 192 Anthony Burgess Garima 4 3.98 1962 A Clockwork Orange
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Garima
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky to his family and friends]]> 6256148
Original online at ]]> 344 Fyodor Dostoevsky Garima 5 4.39 1961 Letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky to his family and friends
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Garima
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships]]> 97008
Love can only happen through freedom and in conjunction with a deep respect for ourselves and the other. Is it possible to be alone and not lonely? Where are the boundaries that define "lust" versus "love"...and can lust ever grow into love? In Love, Freedom, Aloneness you will find unique, radical, and intelligent perspectives on these and other essential questions. In our post-ideological world, where old moralities are out of date, we have a golden opportunity to redefine and revitalize the very foundations of our lives. We have the chance to start afresh with ourselves, our relationships to others, and to find fulfillment and success for the individual and for society as a whole.]]> 244 Osho 0312291620 Garima 5 4.14 2001 Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships
author: Osho
name: Garima
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves:
review:

]]> The Mahabharata: Volume 9 35623585 878 Bibek Debroy 9351186644 Garima 0 4.40 -400 The Mahabharata: Volume 9
author: Bibek Debroy
name: Garima
average rating: 4.40
book published: -400
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: mythology, mahabharat, to-read, reading-hiatus
review:

]]> On the Origin of Time 61258015 A new theory of the universe, twenty years in the making, by Stephen Hawking and his close collaborator Thomas Hertog.

Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life.

Pondering this mystery led Hawking to study the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the maths predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse - countless different universes, most of which were far too bizarre to harbour life.

Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and his friend and collaborator Thomas Hertog worked shoulder to shoulder for twenty years on a new quantum theory of the cosmos. As their discoveries took them deeper into the big bang, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. Once upon a time, perhaps, there was no time. This led them to a revolutionary idea: the laws of physics are not set in stone but are born and co-evolve as the universe they govern takes shape.

On the Origin of Time takes the reader on a quest to understand questions bigger than our universe, peering into the extreme quantum physics of black holes and the big bang and drawing on the latest developments in string theory. As Hawking's final days drew near, the two collaborators published a final theory proposing their radical new Darwinian perspective on the origins of our universe.

Hertog offers a striking new vision that ties together, more deeply than ever, the nature of the universe's birth with our existence. Their theory profoundly transforms the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos and may ultimately prove Hawking's biggest legacy.]]> 320 Thomas Hertog 1911709097 Garima 0 to-read, reading-hiatus 3.91 2023 On the Origin of Time
author: Thomas Hertog
name: Garima
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read, reading-hiatus
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)]]> 863620 Within a Budding Grove describes the first shoots of an astonishing love affair. When Proust's adolescent narrator travels from Paris to the sunny seaside town of Balbec he meets an intriguing set of new acquaintances who provide him with both friendship and entertainment. Most significantly of all he meets a dark-haired girl with sparkling eyes and a tiny beauty spot on her chin: the mysterious Albertine, who will become the great love of his life.]]> 640 Marcel Proust 0099362317 Garima 0 reading-hiatus, to-read 4.38 1919 Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)
author: Marcel Proust
name: Garima
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1919
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: reading-hiatus, to-read
review:

]]> The Sorrows of Young Werther 16640 149 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 0812969901 Garima 0 to-read 3.71 1774 The Sorrows of Young Werther
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Garima
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1774
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Yugandhar 220393311 584 Shivaji Sawant 9360453749 Garima 5 3.75 Yugandhar
author: Shivaji Sawant
name: Garima
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Fathers and Sons 19117
Fathers and Sons enraged the old and the young, reactionaries, romantics, and radicals alike when it was first published. At the same time, Turgenev won the acclaim of Flaubert, Maupassant, and Henry James for his craftsmanship as a writer and his psychological insight. Fathers and Sons is now considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

A timeless depiction of generational conflict during social upheaval, it vividly portrays the clash between the older Russian aristocracy and the youthful radicalism that foreshadowed the revolution to come—and offers modern-day readers much to reflect upon as they look around at their own tumultuous, ever changing world.

Introduction by Jane Costlow]]> 244 Ivan Turgenev 0451529693 Garima 5 3.99 1862 Fathers and Sons
author: Ivan Turgenev
name: Garima
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1862
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: reading-hiatus, russian-literature
review:

]]> The Uses of Literature 18930 341 Italo Calvino 0156932504 Garima 0 to-read 4.10 1980 The Uses of Literature
author: Italo Calvino
name: Garima
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9)]]> 162823 'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

In this, the final collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures, the intrepid detective and his faithful companion Dr Watson examine and solve twelve cases that puzzle clients, baffle the police and provide readers with the thrill of the chase.

These mysteries - involving an illustrious client and a Sussex vampire; the problems of Thor Bridge and of the Lions Mane; a creeping man and the three-gabled house - all test the bravery of Dr Watson and the brilliant mind of Mr Sherlock Homes, the greatest detective we have ever known.

Contains 12 stories published 1921�1927.
* "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" (1921)
* "The Problem of Thor Bridge" (1922)
* "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" (1923)
* "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" (1924)
* "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" (1924)
* "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" (1924)
* "The Adventure of the Three Gables" (1926)
* "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" (1926)
* "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" (1926)
* "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman" (1926)
* "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" (1927)
* "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" (1927)]]> 303 Arthur Conan Doyle 1904633684 Garima 4 4.15 1927 The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Garima
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1927
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Garima 3 austen 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Garima
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 3
read at: 2021/05/29
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: austen
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Anna Karenina (HB) (Select Classics)]]> 220137107 Brand New Leo Tolstoy 9815162888 Garima 5 This small excerpt from Dostoevsky's long review (can it be called a review?) in the Diary of a Writer, summarises the essence of the novel.
Though the novel is named after its female protagonist, this is equally a story of Levin, the other major character whose story runs in parallel with Anna's. I absolutely appreciated this subtle parallelism of two stories, wherein Anna plays a more active and external role while Levin is the inner voice. Perhaps that's why it is named only after Anna and not Levin, for the active essence of one's life is more viable from a society's point of view.
Levin leads a normal life with hardly any extraordinary events that might be interesting and scandalous in contrast with Anna's extra-marital affair. All through the book, we witness an inner battle that goes in, a story within a story, which highlights the essential questions of life and God. An inner transition goes through his soul which loops in the reader in his world. Levin also represents Tolstoy's own fictional representation and channels the very question that bothered the author himself.
"There's less charm in life when one thinks of death but there is more peace."
He is the soul of the book.

On the other hand, we have Anna, the human aspect of the book. Married at a very young age with a man for whom duty is above everything else, she finds herself in a loveless marriage. She is perhaps not consciously aware of it initially, but all changes for her when she meets Count Vronsky. She finds herself trapped in a scandalous affair when her heart overtakes her senses.
It is not a love story, it is a story about life and the various consequences human beings have to face due to their impulsive decisions. It proves how love is not enough and the societal norms that structure the human life plays a pivotal role in every aspect of these choices. Anna Karenina is a woman in the nineteenth century, and that in itself is a prison. She lives in a time when all a woman can be is what her man makes her. From a respectable society woman to an immoral woman, Anna's story is tragically human and challenges the very pillars of society in the most unconventional sense ever.
“But to fall in love does not mean to love. One can fall in love and still hate.� Dostoevsky wrote this in The Brother Karamazov and somehow this goes well with Anna and Vronsky's story in the second half of the book.
As mentioned, this is not a story of love but life, hence even though there was no questioning the love between Vronsky and Anna, the guilt and criminal implications of such a love were too hostile for both of them to ignore, and the result of such a love is only misery and torment.]]> 3.00 Anna Karenina (HB) (Select Classics)
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Garima
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: russian-literature, tolstoy, favorites
review:
"In Anna Karenina is expressed a view of human guilt and criminality. People are portrayed in abnormal circumstances. Evil existed before them. Caught in the whirl of deceit, people commit crime and fatally perish."
This small excerpt from Dostoevsky's long review (can it be called a review?) in the Diary of a Writer, summarises the essence of the novel.
Though the novel is named after its female protagonist, this is equally a story of Levin, the other major character whose story runs in parallel with Anna's. I absolutely appreciated this subtle parallelism of two stories, wherein Anna plays a more active and external role while Levin is the inner voice. Perhaps that's why it is named only after Anna and not Levin, for the active essence of one's life is more viable from a society's point of view.
Levin leads a normal life with hardly any extraordinary events that might be interesting and scandalous in contrast with Anna's extra-marital affair. All through the book, we witness an inner battle that goes in, a story within a story, which highlights the essential questions of life and God. An inner transition goes through his soul which loops in the reader in his world. Levin also represents Tolstoy's own fictional representation and channels the very question that bothered the author himself.
"There's less charm in life when one thinks of death but there is more peace."
He is the soul of the book.

On the other hand, we have Anna, the human aspect of the book. Married at a very young age with a man for whom duty is above everything else, she finds herself in a loveless marriage. She is perhaps not consciously aware of it initially, but all changes for her when she meets Count Vronsky. She finds herself trapped in a scandalous affair when her heart overtakes her senses.
It is not a love story, it is a story about life and the various consequences human beings have to face due to their impulsive decisions. It proves how love is not enough and the societal norms that structure the human life plays a pivotal role in every aspect of these choices. Anna Karenina is a woman in the nineteenth century, and that in itself is a prison. She lives in a time when all a woman can be is what her man makes her. From a respectable society woman to an immoral woman, Anna's story is tragically human and challenges the very pillars of society in the most unconventional sense ever.
“But to fall in love does not mean to love. One can fall in love and still hate.� Dostoevsky wrote this in The Brother Karamazov and somehow this goes well with Anna and Vronsky's story in the second half of the book.
As mentioned, this is not a story of love but life, hence even though there was no questioning the love between Vronsky and Anna, the guilt and criminal implications of such a love were too hostile for both of them to ignore, and the result of such a love is only misery and torment.
]]> Faust 406373 Faust reworks the late medieval myth of a brilliant scholar so disillusioned he resolves to make a contract with Mephistopheles. The devil will do all he asks on Earth and seeks to grant him a moment in life so glorious that he will wish it to last forever. But if Faust does bid the moment stay, he falls to Mephistopheles and must serve him after death. In this first part of Goethe’s great work, the embittered thinker and Mephistopheles enter into their agreement, and soon Faust is living a rejuvenated life and winning the love of the beautiful Gretchen. But in this compelling tragedy of arrogance, unfulfilled desire, and self-delusion, Faust heads inexorably toward an infernal destruction.]]> 503 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 0385031149 Garima 0 to-read 3.90 1808 Faust
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Garima
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1808
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 11996 "As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker."

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered... if indeed there were crimes.

The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.

Then everything changes... and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been... and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.]]> 208 Jacqueline Harpman 0380731819 Garima 0 to-read 4.22 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Garima
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Parva 8439160 950 S.L. Bhyrappa 0948724455 Garima 0 to-read 4.48 1979 Parva
author: S.L. Bhyrappa
name: Garima
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Anna Karenina 9851832 'One of the greatest love stories in world literature' Vladimir NabokovThe heroine of Tolstoy's epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but feels that her life is empty until she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike, and brings jealousy and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself. This award-winning translation has been acclaimed as the definitive English version of Tolstoy's masterpiece.Translated by RICHARD PEVEAR and LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY with a Preface by JOHN BAYLEY]]> 852 Leo Tolstoy Garima 4 russian-literature 4.34 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Garima
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1878
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves: russian-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[His Last Bow (Sherlock Holmes, #8)]]> 754713 242 Arthur Conan Doyle 0755334434 Garima 4 4.26 1917 His Last Bow (Sherlock Holmes, #8)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Garima
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1917
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/21
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Songs of Kabir 700480 117 Kabir 1406931853 Garima 5 4.17 1448 Songs of Kabir
author: Kabir
name: Garima
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1448
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Overcoat 537094 57 Nikolai Gogol 1419176528 Garima 0 russian-literature 4.17 1842 The Overcoat
author: Nikolai Gogol
name: Garima
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1842
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: russian-literature
review:

]]> Yuganta: The End of an Epoch 961520
Irawati Karve, thus, presents a delightful collection of essays, scientific in spirit, yet appreciative of the literary tradition of the Mahabharata. She challenges the familiar and formulates refreshingly new interpretations, all the while refusing to judge harshly or venerate blindly.]]> 217 Irawati Karve 8125014241 Garima 3 mahabharat For instance, there is an intriguing thought wherein the author says how Karn could have been Rishi Durvasa's son instead of the Sun God, and similarly how Yudhistir could have been Vidur's. The points mentioned supporting this fact are also thought provoking but when illegitimacy was openly mentioned and described throughout Mahabharat, what was the need to hide it? There are many other such points made which could result in a book of counter arguments.
Mahabharat for me is absurd and unique in a very poetic way. Obviously there are contradictions, obviously all characters are human making them both good and bad. The later interpretations and adaptations of the text tend to diverge this epic into a simple story of good vs bad, which was definitely not the case. This book, on the contrary, provided a very good analysis on this human aspect which is normally missing (perhaps with the only brilliant exception of The Difficulty if Being Good by Gurcharan Das) and this was what made it a good read.
The debate on the arguments presented is a different story and why I could not give it more than three stars.]]> 4.14 1967 Yuganta: The End of an Epoch
author: Irawati Karve
name: Garima
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1967
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/16
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: mahabharat
review:
A critical analysis on Mahabharat, this short collection of essays is an intriguing read. I personally liked how the characters were analysed from a human angle and not through false idealism which forces one to transform every morally wrong act committed by the characters into something else entirely. However, the criticality of the text, though appreciated, sometimes goes beyond the expected nuances. I felt that in some places, subtexts from Mahabharat which would not support the author's line of thoughts, were cited as a later interpolation. I can very much be wrong and I don't mean to undermine the research and intellect of the author, only that it could have been a good debate rather than a single string of thoughts
For instance, there is an intriguing thought wherein the author says how Karn could have been Rishi Durvasa's son instead of the Sun God, and similarly how Yudhistir could have been Vidur's. The points mentioned supporting this fact are also thought provoking but when illegitimacy was openly mentioned and described throughout Mahabharat, what was the need to hide it? There are many other such points made which could result in a book of counter arguments.
Mahabharat for me is absurd and unique in a very poetic way. Obviously there are contradictions, obviously all characters are human making them both good and bad. The later interpretations and adaptations of the text tend to diverge this epic into a simple story of good vs bad, which was definitely not the case. This book, on the contrary, provided a very good analysis on this human aspect which is normally missing (perhaps with the only brilliant exception of The Difficulty if Being Good by Gurcharan Das) and this was what made it a good read.
The debate on the arguments presented is a different story and why I could not give it more than three stars.
]]> Psychology of the Unconscious 565633 In Psychology of the Unconscious , Jung seeks a symbolic meaning and purpose behind a given set of symptoms, placing them within the larger context of the psyche. The 1912 text examines the fantasies of a patient whose poetic and vivid mental images helped Jung redefine libido as psychic energy, arising from the unconscious and manifesting itself consciously in symbolic form. Jung's commentary on his patient's fantasies offers a complex study of symbolic psychiatry and foreshadows his development of the theory of collective unconscious and its constituents, the archetypes.
The author's role in the development of analytical psychology, a therapeutic process that promotes creativity and psychological development, makes this landmark in psychoanalytic methodology required reading for students and others interested in the practice and process of psychology.]]> 624 C.G. Jung 0486424995 Garima 0 reading-hiatus, to-read 4.18 1912 Psychology of the Unconscious
author: C.G. Jung
name: Garima
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1912
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: reading-hiatus, to-read
review:

]]> The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas� epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]> 1276 Alexandre Dumas 0140449264 Garima 5 There cannot be said enough when commending the impactful and magical storytelling of Dumas; no less than the work of a conjurer, this book proudly maintains its position as a timeless classic.
As thrilling and captivating the story was, unfortunately some parts of it did fall short to the expectations that had built up in my mind as I tirelessly read through day and night. I blame myself for this shortcoming, for perhaps the arduous effort caused by this binge reading made me submerge so much in the story that the fact that it has finally ended and the need to now reconcile with reality, worked against its favour. Well, all I can do is wait and hope to further find sonority with this story, as it ages and grows in a steadily manner post it has found its conclusion in the imagination of my brains.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and the delirium that it brought forth would stay with me forever.]]> 4.29 1846 The Count of Monte Cristo
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Garima
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1846
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves:
review:
A daring escape that kept me engrossed so much so that it became the fastest book I’ve ever read (when also accounting the enormous pages that fill this epic story of Edmond Dantes).
There cannot be said enough when commending the impactful and magical storytelling of Dumas; no less than the work of a conjurer, this book proudly maintains its position as a timeless classic.
As thrilling and captivating the story was, unfortunately some parts of it did fall short to the expectations that had built up in my mind as I tirelessly read through day and night. I blame myself for this shortcoming, for perhaps the arduous effort caused by this binge reading made me submerge so much in the story that the fact that it has finally ended and the need to now reconcile with reality, worked against its favour. Well, all I can do is wait and hope to further find sonority with this story, as it ages and grows in a steadily manner post it has found its conclusion in the imagination of my brains.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and the delirium that it brought forth would stay with me forever.
]]> Monday Starts on Saturday 1255119 The main characters are young adults rather than school kids, but that doesn't make it any less funny!]]> 264 Arkady Strugatsky 0954336828 Garima 0 to-read 3.84 1965 Monday Starts on Saturday
author: Arkady Strugatsky
name: Garima
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (European Classics)]]> 74397 316 Vladimir Voinovich 0810112434 Garima 0 to-read 4.00 1969 The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (European Classics)
author: Vladimir Voinovich
name: Garima
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> Forever Flowing 88459 'Everything Flows is as important a novel as anything written by Solzhenitsyn, and Robert Chandler's superb translation makes it a joy to read'
Antony Beevor

Ivan Grigoryevich has been in the Gulag for thirty years. Released after Stalin's death, he finds that the years of terror have imposed a collective moral slavery. He must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. Grossman tells the stories of those people entwined with Ivan's fate: his cousin Nikolay, a scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career, Pinegin, the informer who had Ivan sent to the camps and Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan's lover, who tells of her involvement as an activist in the Terror famine of 1932-3.

Everything Flows is Vasily Grossman's final testament, written after the Soviet authorities suppressed Life and Fate.

'Vasily Grossman is the Tolstoy of the USSR' Martin Amis]]> 247 Vasily Grossman 0810115034 Garima 0 to-read 4.15 1972 Forever Flowing
author: Vasily Grossman
name: Garima
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> Morphine 4531917 80 Mikhail Bulgakov Garima 0 to-read 4.22 1926 Morphine
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Garima
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How the Steel Was Tempered 860566 376 Nikolai Ostrovsky 0714705853 Garima 0 to-read 3.84 1932 How the Steel Was Tempered
author: Nikolai Ostrovsky
name: Garima
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1932
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[August 1914 (The Red Wheel, #1)]]> 216512
August 1914 is the first volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic, The Red Wheel; the second is November 1916. Each of the subsequent volumes will concentrate on another critical moment or "knot," in the history of the Revolution. Translated by H.T. Willetts.]]> 896 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0374519994 Garima 0 to-read 3.93 1971 August 1914 (The Red Wheel, #1)
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Garima
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Tale of Tsar Saltan 111750 32 Alexander Pushkin 0803720017 Garima 0 to-read 4.23 1831 The Tale of Tsar Saltan
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Garima
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1831
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> Childhood, Boyhood, Youth 226377 320 Leo Tolstoy 0140441395 Garima 0 to-read 3.89 1886 Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Garima
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1886
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The First Circle 98969
Set in Moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, 'The First Circle' is the story of the prisoner Gleb Nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician.

At the age of thirty-one, Nerzhin has survived the war years on the German front and the postwar years in a succession of Russian prisons and labor camps.

His story is interwoven with the stories of a dozen fellow prisoners - each an unforgettable human being - from the prison janitor to the tormented Marxist intellectual who designed the Dnieper dam; of the reigning elite and their conflicted subordinates; and of the women, wretched or privileged, bound to these men.

A landmark of Soviet literature, 'The First Circle' is as powerful today as it was when it was first published, nearly thirty years ago.]]> 580 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0810115905 Garima 0 to-read 4.22 1968 The First Circle
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Garima
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Selected Poems 626685
The poems in this selection are drawn from eleven volumes published over thirty years.]]> 160 Marina Tsvetaeva 0140187596 Garima 0 to-read 4.34 1971 Selected Poems
author: Marina Tsvetaeva
name: Garima
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Roadside Picnic 331256
First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years.]]> 145 Arkady Strugatsky 0575070536 Garima 0 to-read 4.16 1972 Roadside Picnic
author: Arkady Strugatsky
name: Garima
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Three Sisters 143513 The Three Sisters probes the lives and dreams of Olga, Masha, and Irina, former Muscovites now living in a provincial town from which they long to escape. Their hopes for a life more suited to their cultivated tastes and sensibilities provide a touching counterpoint to the relentless flow of compromising events in the real world.
In this powerful play, a landmark of modern drama, Chekhov masterfully interweaves character and theme in subtle ways that make the work's finale seem as inevitable as it is deeply moving. It is reprinted here from a standard text with updated transliteration of character names and additional explanatory footnotes.]]> 81 Anton Chekhov Garima 0 to-read 3.78 1900 The Three Sisters
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Garima
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1900
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Kreutzer Sonata 141077
In her Introduction, Doris Lessing shows how relevant The Kreutzer Sonata is to our understanding of Tolstoy the artist, as well as to feminism and literature. This Modern Library Paperback Classic also contains Tolstoy’s Sequel to the Kruetzer Sonata .]]> 128 Leo Tolstoy 0812968239 Garima 0 to-read 3.90 1889 The Kreutzer Sonata
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Garima
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1889
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> And Quiet Flows the Don 78024 1408 Mikhail Sholokhov 0460878905 Garima 0 to-read 4.07 1928 And Quiet Flows the Don
author: Mikhail Sholokhov
name: Garima
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Seagull 79649
When it first opened in St Petersburg in 1896, The Seagull survived only five performances after a disastrous first opening night. Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".
Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.]]> 65 Anton Chekhov 0413771008 Garima 0 to-read 3.93 1895 The Seagull
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Garima
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1895
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gulag Archipelago 1918�1956 (Abridged)]]> 70561 The Gulag Archipelago 1918�1956—a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle—has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.]]> 512 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0060007761 Garima 0 to-read 4.31 1973 The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 (Abridged)
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Garima
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Cherry Orchard 87346
In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces, forces rooted deep in history, and in the society around them. Their estate is hopelessly in debt: urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they struggle to act decisively. Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness.]]> 96 Anton Chekhov 0413774031 Garima 0 to-read 3.72 1903 The Cherry Orchard
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Garima
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Twelve Chairs 158516 395 Ilya Ilf 0810114844 Garima 0 to-read 4.43 1928 The Twelve Chairs
author: Ilya Ilf
name: Garima
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> We 76171 The exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia

Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.]]> 256 Yevgeny Zamyatin 0140185852 Garima 0 to-read 3.91 1924 We
author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
name: Garima
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov]]> 5693
Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman� and the tour de force “A Boring Story,� to his best-known stories such as “The Lady with the Little Dog� and his own personal favorite, “The Student,� Chekhov’s short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness.]]> 467 Anton Chekhov 0553381008 Garima 0 to-read 4.37 1903 Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Garima
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1903
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Garima 0 to-read 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Garima
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Doctor Zhivago 130440
Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poems he writes constitute some of the most beautiful writing featured in the novel.]]> 592 Boris Pasternak 0679774386 Garima 0 to-read 4.03 1957 Doctor Zhivago
author: Boris Pasternak
name: Garima
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Life and Fate 88432 Life and Fate is an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs. As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies in a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war.

Completed in 1960 and then confiscated by the KGB, this sweeping panorama of Soviet society remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980, where it was hailed as a masterpiece.

Librarian's Note: This is an alternative cover edition of ISBN13: 9780099506164]]> 864 Vasily Grossman Garima 0 to-read 4.42 1960 Life and Fate
author: Vasily Grossman
name: Garima
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Doctor Faustus 34440
Leverkühn's life story is a brilliant allegory of the rise of the Third Reich, of Germany's renunciation of its own humanity and its embrace of ambition and its nihilism. It is also Mann's most profound meditation on the German genius - both national and individual - and the terrible responsibilities of the truly great artist.]]> 535 Thomas Mann 0375701168 Garima 0 to-read 4.07 1947 Doctor Faustus
author: Thomas Mann
name: Garima
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Magic Mountain 88077
The Magic Mountain is a monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, a book that pulses with life in the midst of death.]]> 706 Thomas Mann Garima 0 to-read 4.12 1924 The Magic Mountain
author: Thomas Mann
name: Garima
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Passage to India 45195 A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.

In his introduction, Pankaj Mishra outlines Forster's complex engagement with Indian society and culture. This edition reproduces the Abinger text and notes, and also includes four of Forster's essays on India, a chronology and further reading.]]> 376 E.M. Forster 014144116X Garima 0 to-read 3.69 1924 A Passage to India
author: E.M. Forster
name: Garima
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio 8518805 352 Dante Alighieri 110112735X Garima 0 to-read 4.36 1321 The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio
author: Dante Alighieri
name: Garima
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1321
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> As a Man Thinketh 81959
Purity of mind leads inevitably to purity of life, to the precious love and understanding that should control our everyday acts and attitudes towards friends and foes.

But where must one look for guidance? How does one achieve purity of mind that alone brings happiness and confidence?

The author offers his clear answers in this book As A Man Thinketh. His words have helped millions for more than a century--and they continue to point the true way to a better life for a troubled humanity.

"Out of a clean heart comes a clean life and a clean body," James Allen writes. "Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and a corrupt body."

Too many mortals strive to improve only their wordly position--and too few seek spiritual betterment. Such is the problem James Allen faced in his own time. The ideas he found in his inner-most heart after great searching guided him as they will guide you.]]> 80 James Allen 1585425648 Garima 0 to-read 4.23 1902 As a Man Thinketh
author: James Allen
name: Garima
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1902
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition]]> 394695 A deluxe edition of Whitman's crowning achievement, with an introductory essay by Harold Bloom

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but as Harold Bloom reminds us, the book that matters most is the 1855 original. In celebration of the poem’s 150th anniversary, Penguin Classics proudly presents the 1855 text in its original and complete form, with a specially commissioned introductory essay by Harold Bloom.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.

]]> 160 Walt Whitman 014303927X Garima 0 to-read 4.25 1855 Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition
author: Walt Whitman
name: Garima
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1855
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/17
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]]> A Hero of Our Time 226378 A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820s and '30s. In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin, the archetypal Russian antihero, Lermontov's novel looks forward to the subsequent glories and passion of Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.]]> 185 Mikhail Lermontov 014044176X Garima 5 favorites, russian-literature 4.12 1839 A Hero of Our Time
author: Mikhail Lermontov
name: Garima
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1839
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: favorites, russian-literature
review:
It has been one of the most enjoyable journeys.
]]> Four Russian Short Stories 38728084 56 Gaito Gazdanov 0241339766 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.38 2018 Four Russian Short Stories
author: Gaito Gazdanov
name: Garima
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Diaboliad 7970550 Diaboliad caused an uproar upon the book's first publication in 1925. Full of invention, they display Bulgakov's breathtaking stylistic range, moving at dizzying speed from grotesque satire to science fiction, from the plainest realism to the most madcap of fantasies. Diaboliad is a wonderful introduction to literature's most uncategorisable and subversive genius.]]> 174 Mikhail Bulgakov 0099529556 Garima 5 3.68 1925 Diaboliad
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Garima
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1925
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Monday or Tuesday 97864 Readers can discover these and other aspects of her influential style in the eight stories collected here, among them a delightful, feminist put-down of the male intellect in "A Society" and a brilliant and sensitive portrayal of nature in "Kew Gardens." Also included are "An Unwritten Novel," "The String Quartet," "A Haunted House," "Blue & Green," "The Mark on the Wall," and the title story.
In recent years, Woolf's fiction, feminism, and high-minded sensibilities have earned her an ever-growing audience of readers. This splendid collection offers those readers not only the inestimable pleasures of the stories themselves, but an excellent entrée into the larger body of Woolf's work.]]> 155 Virginia Woolf 0486294536 Garima 5 3.64 1921 Monday or Tuesday
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Garima
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1921
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
Virginia Woolf has a way with words that no other writer does. The last story was my favourite.
]]> The Missing Girl 36436081 Of course, no one would want to say anything about a girl like this that's missing..." '

Malice, paranoia and creeping dread lie beneath the surface of ordinary American life in these chilling miniature masterworks of unease.

Contains:
- The Missing Girl
- Journey with a Lady
- Nightmare]]> 55 Shirley Jackson 0241339286 Garima 4 penguin-modern-classics 3.57 2018 The Missing Girl
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Garima
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> The Vigilante 36436066 'Everything was dead, everything unreal; the dark mob was made up of stiff lay-figures'

One of America's greatest writers explores mob violence, voyeurism and betrayal in these unforgettable tales of Californian life.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 55 John Steinbeck 0241338956 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.53 1938 The Vigilante
author: John Steinbeck
name: Garima
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1938
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/11
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Mother 88043 285 Maxim Gorky 1406833266 Garima 0 to-read 3.96 1906 Mother
author: Maxim Gorky
name: Garima
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1906
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Solaris 18747125




Solaris raises a question that has been at the heart of human experience and literature for centuries: can we truly understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?]]> 214 Stanisław Lem 0571311571 Garima 4 3.73 1961 Solaris
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Garima
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/10
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Breakthrough 36436077 Dispatch the maimed, the old, the weak, destroy the very world itself, for what is the point of life if the promise of fulfilment lies elsewhere?

On the windswept coast of rural Suffolk, a deranged scientist attempts to extract the essence of life itself.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spiritof the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem andGeorge Orwell to Stevie Smith; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outerspace.

]]> 64 Daphne du Maurier 0241339200 Garima 2 penguin-modern-classics 3.60 1966 The Breakthrough
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Garima
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1966
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/28
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Death Chamber]]> 36436061 55 Allen Ginsberg 0241337623 Garima 1 penguin-modern-classics 2.80 2018 Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Death Chamber
author: Allen Ginsberg
name: Garima
average rating: 2.80
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2024/01/28
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Food 38727914
From apples to artichokes, these glittering, fragmented, painterly portraits of food by the avant-garde pioneer Gertrude Stein are redolent of sex, laughter and the joy of everyday life.]]> 55 Gertrude Stein 0241339685 Garima 1 penguin-modern-classics 1.93 Food
author: Gertrude Stein
name: Garima
average rating: 1.93
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2024/07/19
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Till September Petronella 36436063 'I knew he was imagining a really lovely girl—all curves, curls, heart and hidden claws'

In stories that span the course of a lifetime—from childhood in the Caribbean to adolescent modelling in Paris; and from lonely adulthood to old age and beyond—here are women adrift, at sea, down but not quite out.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 53 Jean Rhys 0241337585 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.40 2018 Till September Petronella
author: Jean Rhys
name: Garima
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Investigations of a Dog 36436082 'If I think about it, and I have the time and inclination and capacity to do so, we dogs are an odd lot.'

How does a dog see the world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a canine philosopher, Kafka explores the limits of knowledge.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 57 Franz Kafka 0241339308 Garima 5 penguin-modern-classics 2.95 1922 Investigations of a Dog
author: Franz Kafka
name: Garima
average rating: 2.95
book published: 1922
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Lady]]> 36436062 "The morning became a long, drawn-out afternoon that became depthless night dawning innocently through the house."

Tales of desire and madness from this giant of Brazilian literature.]]> 64 Clarice Lispector 0241337607 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.55 2018 Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Lady
author: Clarice Lispector
name: Garima
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Letter from Birmingham Jail 36436088 There is an alternate edition published under ISBN13: 9780062509550.

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'

This landmark missive from one of the greatest activists in history calls for direct, non-violent resistance in the fight against racism, and reflects on the healing power of love.

This edition also contains the sermon 'The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life'.]]> 54 Martin Luther King Jr. 0241339464 Garima 4 penguin-modern-classics 4.54 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail
author: Martin Luther King Jr.
name: Garima
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> The Custard Heart 36436094 'She felt a cozy solidarity with the big company of the voluntary dead.'

Wise-cracking and heartbreaking, these tales of women on the edge by the legendary wit Dorothy Parker show the darkness beneath the surface of the Jazz Age.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 50 Dorothy Parker 0241339588 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.68 2018 The Custard Heart
author: Dorothy Parker
name: Garima
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Three Japanese Short Stories 38727862
Beguiling, strange and hair-raising tales from early 20th century Japan: Nagai's Behind the Prison, Uno's Closet LLB and Akutagawa's deeply macabre General Kim.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 50 Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 024133974X Garima 4 penguin-modern-classics 3.28 2018 Three Japanese Short Stories
author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
name: Garima
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> I Have More Souls Than One 36436095 'But no, she's abstract, is a bird
Of sound in the air of air soaring,
And her soul sings unencumbered
Because the song's what makes her sing.'

Dramatic, lyrical and ranging over four distinct personae, these poems by one of Portugal's greatest poets trace a mind shaken by intense suffering and a tireless search for meaning.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 64 Fernando Pessoa 024133960X Garima 5 3.96 1918 I Have More Souls Than One
author: Fernando Pessoa
name: Garima
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1918
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/09
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: poetry, pessoa, favorites, penguin-modern-classics
review:
"Give me some more wine, because life is nothing!"
]]> The Veiled Woman 36436092 'What did she expect of him? What was her quest? Did she have an unfulfilled desire?'

Transgressive desires and sexual encounters are recounted in these four pieces from one of the greatest writers of erotic fiction.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 56 Anaïs Nin 0241339545 Garima 1 penguin-modern-classics 3.50 2018 The Veiled Woman
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Garima
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2024/04/09
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Notes on Nationalism 39339934 52 George Orwell 0241339561 Garima 4 penguin-modern-classics 4.00 2012 Notes on Nationalism
author: George Orwell
name: Garima
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> The Three Electroknights 36436086 'What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?'

From a giant of twentieth-century science fiction, these four miniature space epics feature crazy inventors, surreal worlds, robot kings and madcap machines.

The four stories are "The Three Electroknights", "The White Death", "King Globares and the Sages", and "The Tale of King Gnuff". All have previously been published in the collection Mortal Engines.]]> 54 Stanisław Lem 0241339391 Garima 4 penguin-modern-classics 3.31 2018 The Three Electroknights
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Garima
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/19
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Hunger (Penguin Modern)]]> 36436084 'I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided . . .'

By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece 'The Great Hunger', some of the key poems by the writer who transformed Anglo-Irish verse.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 64 Patrick Kavanagh 0241339340 Garima 2 penguin-modern-classics 3.42 1942 The Great Hunger (Penguin Modern)
author: Patrick Kavanagh
name: Garima
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1942
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Legend of the Sleepers (Penguin Modern)]]> 36436085 'For once there had been false idols and asses' heads drawn on the walls...'

Sleepers awake in a remote cave and the ancient mystic Simon Magus attempts a miracle, in these two magical, otherworldly tales from one of the greatest voices of twentieth-century Europe.]]> 64 Danilo Kiš 0241339375 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 2.92 1983 The Legend of the Sleepers (Penguin Modern)
author: Danilo Kiš
name: Garima
average rating: 2.92
book published: 1983
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> The Black Ball 36436078 'If he only knew what it was, he would fix it; he would kill this mean thing that made Mama feel so bad.'

Belonging and estrangement intertwine in these four lyrical short stories from the the author of Invisible Man.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 53 Ellison Ralph 0241339227 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.79 2018 The Black Ball
author: Ellison Ralph
name: Garima
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Advertisement for Toothpaste (Penguin Modern)]]> 36436083 'Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing'

The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War Poland

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 53 Ryszard Kapuściński 0241339324 Garima 3 penguin-modern-classics 3.63 1963 An Advertisement for Toothpaste (Penguin Modern)
author: Ryszard Kapuściński
name: Garima
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1963
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> Create Dangerously 36436073 'To create today is to create dangerously'

Camus argues passionately that the artist has a responsibility to challenge, provoke and speak up for those who cannot in this powerful speech, accompanied here by two others.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 58 Albert Camus 024133912X Garima 5 penguin-modern-classics 3.84 1957 Create Dangerously
author: Albert Camus
name: Garima
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1957
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: penguin-modern-classics
review:

]]> No Longer Human 200171556 No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world � suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, � but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.

Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston]]> 177 Osamu Dazai 0811204812 Garima 5 However, I did end up reading this and might I say I find myself quite perplexed to rate this one. I think there is something very unique in Japanese art. Be it Studio Ghibli's The Grave or the Fireflies or even Murakami's magic realism, there is something that stems differently after you finish consuming their art (though I must admit I am over my Murakami phase but I still remember how Sputnik Sweetheart made me feel some seven years back and hence that element of uniqueness pertains still).
Back to Dazai's No Longer Human, I read it in a very jolly mood, enjoying Mumbai rains and sipping my cup of coffee. I was looking forward to witness the hype that had been set in, after all, having read Russian Literature and French Philosophers and the Kafkaesque maze of The Castle and The Trial, I was intrigued to know what can be more depressing (a very wrong word to use for these masterpieces, however, using it to express the general sense that has already been created, for no other word can truly express the emotions of such novels to a wider range) than the literature I have already consumed. Hence, I took it as a challenge for myself.
The results were contradictory.
I absolutely adored the human expression of 'humanlessness' that is so tragically narrated. This novel is depressing, no doubt about that. Depressing in the real sense of the word. It doesn't philosophise any hidden pattern nor does it metamorphose itself into an analogy (pun intended). It is dark and depressing that takes you through a ride of a human devoid of human yet more human. There is sometimes an element of dark comedy that makes this journey oddly cheerful while overall maintaining the despair of human existence.
I did enjoy reading the book. Now, my idea of enjoyment might differ from the normal context of the word. For me, any book which is able to hold off my soul (no matter for how small a moment) is enjoyable and makes it worth my time. In that sense, I did enjoy it.
As far as my challenge went, I do believe the book did not challenge me as much as I thought it would. As can be easily pertained, when the expectations were set to perhaps bury my very soul, the book managed to scratch off some parts.
Overall, I considered this work as a unique piece of literature which does deserve a spot in 'books that are worth your efforts' list.
However, read it only if you like reading depressing works.]]> 3.78 1948 No Longer Human
author: Osamu Dazai
name: Garima
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1948
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
shelves:
review:
One of those books that has always floated around my feed and made me aware of the tragic truth that one can never read all the books.
However, I did end up reading this and might I say I find myself quite perplexed to rate this one. I think there is something very unique in Japanese art. Be it Studio Ghibli's The Grave or the Fireflies or even Murakami's magic realism, there is something that stems differently after you finish consuming their art (though I must admit I am over my Murakami phase but I still remember how Sputnik Sweetheart made me feel some seven years back and hence that element of uniqueness pertains still).
Back to Dazai's No Longer Human, I read it in a very jolly mood, enjoying Mumbai rains and sipping my cup of coffee. I was looking forward to witness the hype that had been set in, after all, having read Russian Literature and French Philosophers and the Kafkaesque maze of The Castle and The Trial, I was intrigued to know what can be more depressing (a very wrong word to use for these masterpieces, however, using it to express the general sense that has already been created, for no other word can truly express the emotions of such novels to a wider range) than the literature I have already consumed. Hence, I took it as a challenge for myself.
The results were contradictory.
I absolutely adored the human expression of 'humanlessness' that is so tragically narrated. This novel is depressing, no doubt about that. Depressing in the real sense of the word. It doesn't philosophise any hidden pattern nor does it metamorphose itself into an analogy (pun intended). It is dark and depressing that takes you through a ride of a human devoid of human yet more human. There is sometimes an element of dark comedy that makes this journey oddly cheerful while overall maintaining the despair of human existence.
I did enjoy reading the book. Now, my idea of enjoyment might differ from the normal context of the word. For me, any book which is able to hold off my soul (no matter for how small a moment) is enjoyable and makes it worth my time. In that sense, I did enjoy it.
As far as my challenge went, I do believe the book did not challenge me as much as I thought it would. As can be easily pertained, when the expectations were set to perhaps bury my very soul, the book managed to scratch off some parts.
Overall, I considered this work as a unique piece of literature which does deserve a spot in 'books that are worth your efforts' list.
However, read it only if you like reading depressing works.
]]> The Age of Reason 19371560 The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafés and bars of Montparnasse. Mathieu has so far managed to contain sex and personal freedom in conveniently separate compartments. But now he is in trouble, urgently trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress, Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the distant threat of the coming of the Second World War.

The Age of Reason is the first volume in Sartre’s Roads to Freedom trilogy]]> 300 Jean-Paul Sartre 0141185287 Garima 5 sartre 3.96 1945 The Age of Reason
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: Garima
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/19
date added: 2024/07/19
shelves: sartre
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)]]> 863598 519 Marcel Proust 009936221X Garima 5 favorites 4.15 1913 Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)
author: Marcel Proust
name: Garima
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1913
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> Life is Elsewhere 1242411 The author initially intended to call this novel, The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made hima poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud. Rimbaud entrapped by the communist revolution, entrapped in a somber farce.

]]> 311 Milan Kundera 0571149030 Garima 4 3.78 1973 Life is Elsewhere
author: Milan Kundera
name: Garima
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Meditations 30659 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.]]> 254 Marcus Aurelius 0140449337 Garima 5 4.29 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Garima
average rating: 4.29
book published: 180
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder]]> 199344846
On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.]]> 209 Salman Rushdie 0593730240 Garima 4 3.99 2024 Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Garima
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/11
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Origin (Robert Langdon, #5) 32307358 This an alternate cover for B01LY7FD0D

Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the ultramodern Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend a major announcement--the unveiling of a discovery that "will change the face of science forever." The evening's host is Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire and futurist whose dazzling high-tech inventions and audacious predictions have made him a renowned global figure. Kirsch, who was one of Langdon's first students at Harvard two decades earlier, is about to reveal an astonishing breakthrough . . . one that will answer two of the fundamental questions of human existence.

As the event begins, Langdon and several hundred guests find themselves captivated by an utterly original presentation, which Langdon realizes will be far more controversial than he ever imagined. But the meticulously orchestrated evening suddenly erupts into chaos, and Kirsch's precious discovery teeters on the brink of being lost forever. Reeling and facing an imminent threat, Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to escape Bilbao. With him is Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director who worked with Kirsch to stage the provocative event. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch's secret.

Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme religion, Langdon and Vidal must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain's Royal Palace itself . . . and who will stop at nothing to silence Edmond Kirsch. On a trail marked by modern art and enigmatic symbols, Langdon and Vidal uncover clues that ultimately bring them face-to-face with Kirsch's shocking discovery . . . and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us. Origin is stunningly inventive--Dan Brown's most brilliant and entertaining novel to date]]> 482 Dan Brown Garima 3 3.87 2017 Origin (Robert Langdon, #5)
author: Dan Brown
name: Garima
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis]]> 55767239
Back in Lisbon after sixteen years practising medicine in Brazil, Ricardo Reis wanders the rain-sodden streets. He longs for the unattainably aristocratic Marcenda, but it is Lydia, the hotel chamber maid who makes and shares his bed. His old friend, the poet Fernando Pessoa, returns to see him, still wearing the suit he was buried in six weeks earlier. It is 1936, the clouds of Fascism are gathering ominously above them, so they talk; a wonderful, rambling discourse on art, truth, poetry, philosophy, destiny and love.]]> 384 José Saramago Garima 4 3.96 1984 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
author: José Saramago
name: Garima
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/16
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Caligula and Other Plays 2495710
Caligula reveals some aspects of the existential notion of 'the absurd' by portraying an emperor so mighty and so desperate in his search for freedom that he inevitably destroys gods, men and himself.

The dramatic impetus of Cross Purpose, however, comes from the tension between consent to and refusal of man's absurdity; it is the tragedy of a man who returns home to his mother and sister without revealing his identity to them. By the time of The Just and The Possessed, refusal and rebellion have taken over, and in these overtly political plays (the latter based on Dostoyevsky's The Devils) Camus dramatizes action and revolt in the name of liberty.]]> 384 Albert Camus 0141188707 Garima 5 camus, favorites The gist of his works can also be summarised with his famous quote-
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."
But unless you are aware of this winter, you can never appreciate the beauty of this undeniable existence of your soul.

Caligula deals with a tyrannical ruler who, through the absurd, justifies his tyranny. Well, he doesn't really justify it since the absurd draws away all the meaning.
Cross Purpose goes further into the very nihilistic approach of the existential self. It approaches the normal life and how murders and suicides parallel and haunt these philosophical notions.
The Just follows a terrorist group and their revolutionary ideas battling with the moral fabric of their souls. Is the murder of children justified even if it means the liberation of millions of children dying every day with hunger? Or tyranny revolting against tyranny is just another way of an unavoidable meaningless rubble, where the only certainty is the fall to abyss?
Lastly, we have The Possessed, which undoubtedly was the play I was most looking forward to. Camus' favourite Dostoevsky work found an adaptation where he voices the very essence of his own essay, The Rebel. Personally, when I read The Rebel, I could see it as a philosophical interpretation of this very prophetic Dostoevsky novel; where the former deals with the idea of murder in a revolution, the latter was created because of a similar murder that happened in Russia in 1869. Dostoevsky, challenged by this idea of murder and the nihilistic drowning of youth, wrote an absolutely phenomenal novel, which definitely is his most prophetic work. Camus, himself, another absolutely brilliant philosophical writer, justified the essence of the novel in this theatrical masterpiece. I loved the adaptation, more so because it helped me meet two of the most intriguing (and my absolute favourite) men in a single work, condensed and integrated with sublime thoughts and an undenying warmth of the human essence, even in the most tragic and destructive circumstances.
All in all, it is an amazing book to explore the playwright aspect of Camus.]]> 4.02 1949 Caligula and Other Plays
author: Albert Camus
name: Garima
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/07
date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: camus, favorites
review:
Camus belongs to one of the very few writers who can bring forth the very destructive and immoral aspects of the human soul yet lead to an end which eventually adds up to the beauty of that very soul. In short, through negation, he affirms the human soul.
The gist of his works can also be summarised with his famous quote-
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."
But unless you are aware of this winter, you can never appreciate the beauty of this undeniable existence of your soul.

Caligula deals with a tyrannical ruler who, through the absurd, justifies his tyranny. Well, he doesn't really justify it since the absurd draws away all the meaning.
Cross Purpose goes further into the very nihilistic approach of the existential self. It approaches the normal life and how murders and suicides parallel and haunt these philosophical notions.
The Just follows a terrorist group and their revolutionary ideas battling with the moral fabric of their souls. Is the murder of children justified even if it means the liberation of millions of children dying every day with hunger? Or tyranny revolting against tyranny is just another way of an unavoidable meaningless rubble, where the only certainty is the fall to abyss?
Lastly, we have The Possessed, which undoubtedly was the play I was most looking forward to. Camus' favourite Dostoevsky work found an adaptation where he voices the very essence of his own essay, The Rebel. Personally, when I read The Rebel, I could see it as a philosophical interpretation of this very prophetic Dostoevsky novel; where the former deals with the idea of murder in a revolution, the latter was created because of a similar murder that happened in Russia in 1869. Dostoevsky, challenged by this idea of murder and the nihilistic drowning of youth, wrote an absolutely phenomenal novel, which definitely is his most prophetic work. Camus, himself, another absolutely brilliant philosophical writer, justified the essence of the novel in this theatrical masterpiece. I loved the adaptation, more so because it helped me meet two of the most intriguing (and my absolute favourite) men in a single work, condensed and integrated with sublime thoughts and an undenying warmth of the human essence, even in the most tragic and destructive circumstances.
All in all, it is an amazing book to explore the playwright aspect of Camus.
]]> Don Quixote 601299 Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

The complete text of "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Parts I and II," is here offered in a substantially revised version of the translation by John Ormsby, first published in 1885. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized, and recent textual scholarship has been taken into account in preparing the revisions; a detailed discussion of the procedures and principles followed by all the original prefatory material, including dedications, copyright notices, statements by the censor, and other items omitted by Ormsby.

An alternate cover edition can be found here.]]> 765 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Garima 0 to-read, reading-hiatus 3.70 1615 Don Quixote
author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
name: Garima
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1615
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: to-read, reading-hiatus
review:

]]> The Collected Poems 17307602 607 Robert Frost 0099583097 Garima 0 to-read, reading-hiatus 4.17 1963 The Collected Poems
author: Robert Frost
name: Garima
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: to-read, reading-hiatus
review:

]]>