The Mills and Boons Story of the Unexpected Kind!

NOTE: I know you all must be confused as to why I am posting old posts now? Well, these are posts from my erstwhile blog (sounds so royal) and I have had people read them last year. But to my new readers, these are fresh posts and I don’t want them to miss out on any book related posts 🙂 So I will be re-posting random blogs, which some of you might have already read.

---

Not very long ago, my friend visited a quaint little bookstore in Allahabad, UP. She mentioned that she was really surprised at the sight of the store selling all sorts of new and pre-owned books and that too at hefty discounts. Being a booklover bookhogger, she dashed straight towards it like a Zombie in search of brains or Vampire in search of fresh blood 😛 😉

She bought all those books that I promptly forgot the names…and talked to me animatedly over the phone like a little child clutching treasures in her hands. What she also added was this incident at the store, where a group of local chaps were circling around the store and obviously, they were not there for the books! Guess what, they ended up cornered in the “Mills and Boons section” in the store. 😛

X: Arey…yeh dekho…yeh badhiyaa books hain. Tumne padhi hai? (See the books? These are excellent. Have you read them? )

Y: Bilkul padhi hai. Badi achchi hoti hai. Main aksar khareedta rehta hu yehi se.(Of course I have! These are awesome. I keep on buying them from this store)

X: Haan…yeh wali “insert any M&B book name”. Yeh badhiya hai. (yes..this one..this is great!)

Y: Bilkul. Aur yeh bhi. (yes..and this one as well) picks up another one from the counter 

My friend and another girl were by this time making payments to the shopkeeper. Both of them glanced at one another and could barely suppress the fits of laughter. Because they knew that obviously, the guys had no clue about M&B and it was doubtful that whether they had read any other book as well!

Suddenly,  the other girl spoke up – loudly, so that the “booklovers” could hear her.

“Nice books na…? Girls read them a lot but the numbers are dwindling day by day!!”

To which, my friend replied (with a fictional answer made on the spot) “Yeah…my fifteen year old niece is a die-hard fan. I recently bought some for her.” (her niece is a toddler of barely two years 😛 )

The store keeper couldn’t resist laughing out loudly and the chaps…they quietly moved away from the M&B section and eventually fled the store. 😀

Things that people do for making an impression on strangers !! 😉

P.S. I do not want to state that M&B reading is a girly thing or that guys can’t read it, through the post. It is just to highlight what happens a lot around us in the name of “being cool” or to “impress” chicks 😛

Advertisement

Utterly Nonsensical Reasons Why I Refuse To Read Some Books After Page 1

NOTE: I know you all must be confused as to why I am posting old posts now? Well, these are posts from my erstwhile blog (sounds so royal) and I have had people read them last year. But to my new readers, these are fresh posts and I don’t want them to miss out on any book related posts 🙂 So I will be re-posting random blogs, which some of you might have already read.

---

Dear Writers Of Books I Wanted To Read But Couldn’t,

I am a reader. I want to be an voracious reader once more and I do have the potential in my bones you know. But I can’t. I can’t just go beyond page #1 even though I try hard to !!!! I will not blame you because I do understand. This is why, it is I who is on the wrong side of things. The reasons are nonsensical.

The names seem fake: Some authors (I won’t reveal) love naming their characters as if they are going to name their future brood of kids. Exotic names. Really really exotic names. Now it can be understood that some names do suit the character and the setting. But puhleeeseee….sometimes they just stick out like a purple tongue. Okay, if the name is short and fairly simple, I can still proceed a bit. But lengthy names with cropped idiotic shortened nicknames…I am sorry. I can’t relate to your story at all.

Beating round the bush: Of late, I tend to close a book the moment I find that the author is doing nothing but beating round the bush. Unnecessarily. I read this book in train while going to Chennai and because I had no other backup option to entertain me, I had to struggle through it. The author was just going on and on about things that kicked me into a different universe every now and then. Bumpy ride. Ouch!! Brain-hurt alert!!

Bad endings: I am kind by nature. I happen to finish some books if I really go beyond page 1 through 30. Only to find that the author has stabbed me at the back with his/her pen ruthlessly. How? By penning a bad ending. Not cliffhanger kind of endings you see. But confusing, meaningless endings. Sometimes the endings seem to be torn out of a totally different book! What hurts more is that I lose hope of reading another book of the same type in the future.

Desperate Indian writers: Taking a cue from one of the so called bestselling authors, some Indian writers have totally gone berserk in churning out “Bestsellers” or you can say, cheap novels that cost about a hundred INR or so. I occasionally pick one or two up out of curiosity and to check how similar they are in terms of plot line and language. They never disappoint me. These are the books, I gladly give away to Fans of such Literature. Here is an article that will speak more than I can in ten such write-ups.

Not doing justice to the genre: A crime novella that looks more like an Indian daily soap’s sob story. A horror story that tickles the funny bone on a dark and stormy night. A story about bromance without any signs of the same. A supernatural creature novel that gives you goosebumps and cold sweats by thinking how could this trash get published. Brr….

Parting note –  I have taught school kids of grade 3 and 4. They are better writers.

Haiku On Knowledge

Knowledge can be art
Learning the ways of the world
Also unlearning some

Haiku On Silence

Those who speak the most
Sometimes they too do desire
Silence at its peak

Haiku On New Age Chivalry

No, there are no knights
Just dummies in the armour
The armour has chinks

10 Books You Must Dedicate To Your BFFs On This Friendship Day

This is dedicated to you my besties…in no particular order 🙂

The Tin Fish – Sudeep Chakravarti

The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants – Anne Brashares

A Gathering Light – Jennifer Donnelly (also available as A Northern Light)

Malory Towers series  and The St. Clare’s Series – Enid Blyton

A Golden Age – Tahmima Anam

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

Bridge To Terabithia – Katherine Paterson

The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

Harry Potter – J K Rowling

Swami and friends – R K Narayan

P.S. Most of you already know a lot about these books. But someday, I intend to do a post entirely on ‘A Gathering Light’, which I don’t think is that widely read. It is one of my most favorite reads (along with  ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’). If you can grab a copy, do read it. You won’t be disappointed.