It’s the Gang-way!!

GANGS (2007)

4/5 YES

Ross Kemp 

[3.83/389 ratings Goodreads]

Book Review #165 (2021.06)

15th Feb 2021 – 12th Mar 2021

(2021.06)

Completed one more book in the current year, GANGS as written and shot by Ross Kemp. I got my hand on this book some 2-3 yrs back in a bookchor sale, where I got 10 books for Rs.1000, it’s the second hand book sale, by the cover page and synopsis this one looks intriguing hence picked it.

Its a non fiction read and is based on a tv series of same name hosted by Ross Kemp. He visited some notorious gangsters all across the world and enlightened the readers/viewers about the details of gangs, their livelihood, their mannerisms and how they live, how they functions and their neighborhood. And I found this book a fascinating read.

It took me 26 days to complete this book of 279 pages. This book covers the gangs of Rio, New Zealand, Capetown, San Salvador, Moscow, Kingston and St. Louis. This book was first published in the year 2007. The book contains some colored pictures of various gangsters and their surroundings. The language is simple, so nothing much to think, you don’t need dictionaries. The explanation or the encounters were chronicled nicely, with as possible details as he can give, and after reading it seemed dangerous for a reader to just think how he pulled all that off. The book is not that big and even when it is a non-fiction, it felt like I am reading a fiction since its engrossing. However recommended only for those who are interested in such books or genre, not everyone’s cup of tea. I rate this one a 4/5, do try it once.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

SECRETS. to be continued..

THE THREE SECRET CITIES (2018)

3/5 YES

Matthew Reilly 

[4.32/5364 ratings Goodreads]

Book Review #164 (2021.05)

18th Feb 2021 – 3rd Mar 2021

I am fan of many writers and Matthew Reilly is one of them. I am a big fan of late Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, JRR Tolkien and Indian writers like Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi amongst others. And MR is one of those. I especially loved his Jack West Jr. Series, which I started long back and mind it I got introduced to him through this series only – The Seven Ancient Wonders was the book, later on read his Scarecrow series also and I guess 2 of his independent novels as well. When I came to know that he is back with Jack West after these many years I couldn’t hold myself and hence I read ‘The Four Legendary Kingdoms’, below is the link for that book’s review. And here’s the review of 2nd book after that one and overall 5th book in the series.

Read THE FOUR LEGENDARY KINGDOMS review by clicking on the name of book.

Plot: Jack West and his team always found themselves in hands of their captors every time and this time also its not different. The book continues further from the adventures of Jack’s last adventure in the Underworld at secret location in India, and is now on run since he has affected a mega celestial event, and which will affect many things including the death of one of the 4 secret kings of the world, and now he is the most wanted guy along with his team and they have to find out 3 secret cities to get ahead in preventing that omega event.

 Pretty interesting eh! Yeah plots of this series is out of fantasy adventure genre and one of the best but it is how you present it and write it. This time I felt that this book was a little weak if I compare MRs initial books. His main character Jack ideally solve the riddles with his team and face all these death-inviting adventure challenges by himself, instead of someone else doing it for him, but here since there are lot of other characters who are also behind him and wanted to find 3 secret cities, so they found these secrets instead of Jack finding them, however he got lot of challenge-solving and yeah again he found himself in death-defying situations. But, I would love if it was in the same format as other books. Nonetheless it was not a bad read and if you’re a fan you will anyhow read it. I finished it pretty fast.

The book as usual has some diagrams of some secret places following the template from other books, language is easy and thrill is there. I will still recommend this book and waiting for the next in line – the 2 something!! My rating 3/5 for this 522 pages book.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

A Genius in making!

THE GENIUS OF INDRAPRASTHA (2021)

3.5/5 YES

Harshwardhan 

[4.29/51 ratings Goodreads]

Book Review #163 (2021.04)

25th Jan 2021 – 29th Jan 2021

As I have already updated that 2021 started on a good level for me if I consider reading, I am an avid reader and has a lot of books, kind of owned a mini library at my permanent residence and have so many unread books where I reside. We are just finishing February and I was able to complete 4th read of 2021, this one is a debut novel from a new writer Harshwardhan Padole, and the novel is named, THE GENIUS OF INDRAPRASTHA, apparently the 1st book of Gondwana chronicles (may be a trilogy).

This book was released on 14th of Jan 2021, and you may think that how am I aware of this fact, so the reason is, the author contacted me along with many others to review the book firsthand. I got my copy on 25th Jan and I read and reviewed it, below is its summary.

This becomes my one of the fastest read in recent times. The book was written in such a way that I was able to complete the 358 pgs in just 5 days. It tells the story of a war between the native tribes of Gondwana (aka Indian mainland) and the outsiders, trying to conquer the Indian mainland. So it is a kind of historical fiction on which now a days many books are coming and we all know one of the famous Indian writer of this genre – Amish Tripathi. So you can guess what to expect.

And I must say it is a nice attempt. At beginning it gave me a feel that the story is not progressing much, just some discussions going on but towards later half, the story escalated. Ideally that always happened if it is a first book of a chronicle, you have to explain the scenario before going into full-fledged movement. Just like the 1st book of Amish’s famous Shiva Trilogy. I Liked the whole war scene descriptions towards the end which is kind of climax for the book, it kept me on hook, just like I am actually watching a war movie.

The readability is good, the printing of book is nice, with larger font and a 2-line gaps between each paragraph, plus the english used is easy, just like Amish used. I generally don’t like book with harder english. Although there are 2 minor printing mistakes in the book (already communicated to the author and he acknowledged to correct them in next reprints), but overall this book is a nice try by a debutante and certainly been given a look. Story/setup wise, this one is kind of a fictional/mythological followup/matching up with another series ‘The Aryavarta Chronicles by Krishna Udayasankar. I recommend this book with rating 3.5/5.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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Killed the Reader!!

THE BRAHMIN (2018) 1/5 NO Ravi Shankar Etteth [3.19/579 ratings Goodreads]

Book Review #162 (2021.03)

19th July 2020 – 16th Jan 2021

So what will happen if an art director write a story or a costume designer write a story or maybe a makeup artist write a story, same thing happened with this novel, this novel seems written by a DOP, because he just concentrated on depiction of scenes forgetting to tell us the story.

THE BRAHMIN by Ravi Shankar is a historical fiction, the latest famous genre with the Indian writers after the success of Amish, many are trying their mettle at this genre, although still the love story genre is topping the charts as usual, because that’s what everyone else can write, their mind cannot go beyond that thought. It is story of kings times and tells story of a spymaster Brahmin who serve King Ashoka, and there is a killer on loose, the spymaster has to find the killer, before he could harm his queen or king.

Out of 246 odd pages, till 200 pages, nothing, literally nothing, the story was progressing at a snail’s pace, only thing the writer achieved is an all-out vivid descriptions of this scene and that scene and this character and that character, I guess he took this learning quite seriously from other novels to depict their characters and scenes, but he forgot that he has to write a moving story as well, it looked like instead of having story studded with character descriptions this book is character/scene descriptions studded with little story. I literally pulled my hair and thought to myself “I want to read the story, do you have any story, any mystery to offer me or is this just a sketch of characters/scenes I am reading”, really felt anger for the day I picked this novel by reading its synopsis.

There are so many loopholes, sometimes the characters felt danger, sometimes they are just relaxing, even our main character, THE BRAHMIN everytime saying that he will find the culprit but on other hands just doing nothing. And in the end the climax was rushed, looks like publisher has given the writer a deadline of pages, no more pages now. English used is good, but of no use. And then he used a TROY reference in the climax, he could’ve thought something original.

This is one of the worst novel I have ever read, and my first read from this writer. Ravi can become a good character sketch or scene sketch writer but I don’t think I will try any other book of him, disappointed, please avoid, My rating is 1/5, only saving grace is last 5-10 pages where he wrote the climax and explanations, just these pages are enough for this much build up of story.

Not everyone can become Amish.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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Killer on Loose!

THE ASSASSIN (2015) 3.5/5 YES Clive Cussler, Justin Scott [4.04/4737 ratings Goodreads]

Book Review #161 (2021.02)

11th Sept 2020 – 13th Jan 2021

Well it seems that 2021 started all right for me, this is my 2nd book completion in 13 days of 2021, although these books were started in 2020. Completed another one of ISAAC BELL’s adventures, this one named THE ASSASSIN. This is the 8th book of the series and first published in 2015.

This is my favorite series from Clive Cussler’s pen, and this series is co-authored by Justin Scott, I guess this is my 5th read of this series, and I guess I have 2 more books of this series already available in my collection waiting to be read.

Isaac Bell (I guess my 2nd best hero after Jack West Jr from Matthew Reilly) is a detective and he has a style, he work for Van Dorn detective agwncy and is a kind of senior and used the pool of his detectives all around US in various or same case, using them in decoding cases. This time its OIL, he got involved in detecting some case against one of US biggest and rising OIL company Standard Oil, and then got entangled in a separate issue, there is an assassin on loose and he is targeting some independent oilmens during the oil-boom, is it someone from Standard or who is this assassin?, that is the story.

This series’ stories are based around the 1900s in America and somehow the stories does have railroads mentioned or used somewhere in the plot, and basically my love of train brought me closer to this series. I like the writing style of this series, it has charm of old time, along with its printing style, it also has some drawings of various scenes before starting a main part of the story, and which is common across the series.

My rating is 3.5/5, the story has its old charm and is a good read, well built, 438 pages in all. Recommended!!

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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Murdered badly!!

ONE ARRANGED MURDER(2020) 2/5 NO Rs.141 (Amazon.in) Chetan Bhagat [3.59/2626 ratings Goodreads]

Book Review #160 (2021.01)

8th Sept 2020 – 8th Jan 2021

So finally I finished another book, after so many days, I mean all these OTT platforms have spoiled me a lot, and at present I have a subscription of 4 OTT apps. This is my 1st completed book of 2021 ONE ARRANGED MURDER by CHETAN BHAGAT.

Chetan Bhagat is a renowned writer from India who left his banking job and started writing, he was one of the first pioneers of today’s world for India who wrote love stories in English, and has a huge fan following, including me. Till now he has written 12 books – 9 fiction, 3 non-fiction starring from 2004, and follwing his path many new-born writers picked love story writing.

For me his best book was 2 STATES, followed by 5 POINT SOMEONE and 3 MISTAKES OF MY LIFE, but I would say that he is losing his touch now, maybe concentrating on writing screenplays for films has affected his story-telling capabilities. This book is also a downer.

It is a story of 2 friends Saurabh and Keshav, Saurabh is getting married to Prerna in a posh family, but a murder happened. Who did that, and will they be able to solve it. If you look at plot angle it seemed interesting but still I will say that this mystery was not that I was looking to, obviously I read Agatha Christies and Surendra Mohan Pathaks, who wrote murder-mysteries. CB is not mystery writer, he just add these content in otherwise life stories including love and other things, here the writing was too casual. The book didn’t contains emotions because he tried to subdue the emotions by putting food, maybe to make it comic, however the book even didn’t have comedy, so no laughs no cries.

As you can see I took 62 days to finish just 300 odd pages, this is not because of boringness out of the book, but as I mentioned above due to my extra interest in watching web series and movies. But all-in-all I can say that you can avoid this book if you’re not a fan of CB or thinking to try it. His earlier books were better. Readability wise its common language so yes you’ll get no difficulty there but storywise its not that good. My rating will be 2/5.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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In search of myself..

THE SNOW LEOPARD (1978) 4/5 YES Travelogue Rs.174 (Amazon.in) Peter Matthiessen [4.1/13001 ratings Goodreads]

Review#459 (Book Review #159)

Finally after so much time I finished a novel. THE SNOW LEOPARD written by Peter Matthiessen and it was first published in 1978, so it could be count as a classic.

Book cover

THE SNOW LEOPARD is a non fiction travelogue which talks about your inner self and the different teaching and aspects of Buddhism, as for the writer it was not only a journey to a place but also a journey to his spiritual self. The author went to an exploration expedition along with another person and hiked across Himalayas in Nepal and Tibet regions. His co-hiker was a naturalist George Schaller who was interested in the region’s animals and wanted to check out snow leopard himself, so the author also tagged along.

This is not a normal kind of travelogue, which just explain the journey and the destination but it also has huge reference texts used throughout the book from various other old scriptures and from some religious texts of old tibetan, Indian religions including Buddhism and Hinduism. In between the author talks about spirituality and comparing his incidents with other things. So in a way somewhere the language is a bit hard. But if you read slowly and respect the book, you will certainly like it.

This tracking expedition took 2 months which started as a search of a snow leopard and in turn become an experience of many outwardly happenings. What places they visited and what people or friends they meet is what he covered here. All the references has been mentioned at the end of the book which is divided over 4 parts.

My copy is 291 pgs and I started it on 22sept2019, completed just few days back, so you can see I read it very slowly. This is because of 2 facts – 1. I read multiple books simultaneously as per my mood at that time so 1 book take time to complete and 2. So many streaming apps are there which is affecting my reading habits along with heavy workloads.

Didn’t captured when I finished

Recommended to a serious reader who is interested in reading a travelogue and which is not a normal travelogue. I loved the book since I read it during the lockdown period when I was stuck in a foreign country away from my family, and this book actually took me away on a journey I could never go otherwise. My rating 4/5.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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Nick and Norah’s one night stand

NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST (2006) 3/5 YES Romance Rs.100 (Bookchor.com sale) Rachel Cohn, David Levithan [3.71/76631 ratings Goodreads]

Review #458 (Book Review #158)

I am back with another review of a book I read recently. I use to write book reviews frequently as books are my first love but from quite some time got busy in money-making process so didn’t get time to write another review. So in this 158th book review, I am reviewing a small book named NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST.

It is a small book, my copy is 183 pages and for which I took 17 days, please don’t underestimate my reading speed, ideally I use to read multiple books at a time plus work also affect my reading speed. This book is written by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan. I am sure you all may be aware of a film by the same name also. The movie was released in 2008 which stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings as Nick and Norah respectively.As you all can guess by the book title, that this is a story of 2 persons named Nick and Norah, so in the similar pattern book was written. It is written in first person narrative with alternate chapter belongs to the 2 main cast of the book. Chapter names depicts who is speaking, that is who is now writing as well. We have 2 writers here, Rachel wrote the chapters belonging to Nora while David written chapters belonging to Nick.

Its a love story kind of stuff where 2 different persons meet at a club and become an unusual pair and somehow spent the night together. I liked the book, its a kind of young love story, though we may read and saw many love stories but here the writing style was different. Plus 2 different writers have wrote this book which give the story a fresh perspective. It’s just like 2 different people are expressing what new they’re experiencing while interacting with each other the whole night, how they met and how their relationship progresses. Its easy english so anyone can read, plus its a small book as I have already mentioned no of pages above so yeah anyone can give it a try.

But yeah its just a night’s love story.If you’re not into love stories (like me), you may skip. Now you all may be wondering why I read it. I have a habit of collecting and reading books which inspired film adaptations so I got this one too as I have already seen the movie. I completed this book in sept 2019, finally completed the review. Go for it, my rating is 3/5.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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Hocus-Pocus Mystery!!

THE SITTAFORD MYSTERY (2011) 3.5/5 YES Crime Detective Rs.106 (Amazon.in) Agatha Christie [3.7/12212 ratings Goodreads]

Review #457 (Book Review #157)

Finally after so many days I completed a Agatha Christie novel. Previous to this I’ve read few other novels of her but they basically belongs to a central detective character created by her named, the famous Hercule Poirot. This time I’ve completed THE SITTAFORD MYSTERY and its not belonging to any central detective character, this is a book of solving mystery collectively by various characters used in the book.

There’s an imaginary English town named Sittaford which is high on the hill and near Dartmoor in UK and it get the snow year round. During winter months it was always covered in thick snow and even the roads to the nearest town Exhampton get blocked. It’s a small town having only 6 cottages, wherein lived 6 families. One cottage “Sittaford House” is owned by Capt.Travelyan who has now lend it to Mrs. Willett, and he himself is now living in a rented house in Exhampton. One day he was found murdered by his friend Major Burnaby. Who killed him? And what were the suspicious yet queer environment in which someone guessed that he was murdered? Read it to know more.

So lets come on to some statistics. First my personal stats: I completed this 348 pg. book in 18 days which is fine speed I guess. This book is first published in 1931 and it seems #13 (as per wikipedia) from AC. Well now lets jump to the pros and cons related to the book.

Well AC sure does imagine wonderfully and all her readers went to beautiful locales in their imaginations, as a reader I too went to dfferent locations and scenarios without actually being there, that is the beauty of her writing and descriptions of places, she also able to provide a figurative description of all her characters of the book so that you will know who’s who and what’s what. Yes the English used is old English, and sometimes you may thought it gramatically wrong but that doesn’t hamper the feel of novel for atleast an avid reader.

Now for the plot: Its a murder mystery and yes AC was able to hold on the reader till the end with the grasping mystery which involves a queer business of psychic interpretations and You would actually like the buildup of the plot however the end was not able to satisfy the means i.e. I didn’t liked the end of the book because the buildup actually build up your expectation of a good end, somehow didn’t found the motive of killing that lucrative as one can expect. So yeah, I will say that book is good and on the lines of some other of her novel (which I read), even better in start and till end so I will say “you can try this one”. However this book does not belong to the famous central detective character “Hercule Poirot” created by her. In this story every character is involved in crime mystery solving so its a kind of combined detection.

All-in-all I will recommend this book with a 3.5/5 rating from me, and except end the book is good.

GRuchirG. (“G” Ruchir “Ji”)

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

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the frontiers..

GAZING AT NEIGHBOURS (2011) 3.5/5 YES Non-fiction Travel Rs.49 (Amazon Kindle) Bishwanath Ghosh [4.12/151 ratings Goodreads]

Review #456 (Book Review #156)

I always likee reading about different places, I guess there is a roaming spirit in my body but the reality is hard – the money is required for roaming, so I started reading travel books, atleast imagination and dreams don’t cost you. So presenting you review on one more travelogue – this one named GAZING AT NEIGHBOURS and is written by Bishwanath Ghosh.

I have read 2 other travel books written by him – ‘Chai Chai’ and ‘Tamarind City’. He is an Indian journalist and a writer too and has written some travel books about various aspects/areas/cities of India. He was born in December 1970 in Kanpur in the Uttar Pradesh state of India.

In this book of his, he covered some border areas which lies on Indian side, the villages and the fields and interacted with many people about their daily lives alongwith how they felt about living near to an International border. He visited Punjab border areas which share the boundary with Pakistan, then he went to Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya region which borders with Bangladesh. What he found in bordering areas of Punjab state is that the people are same, it’s just the imaginary line which separate the two person from each other. And it’s bit more hostile.

While the same case is not there in Bangladesh bordering areas, there the norms are relaxed and friendly, one can go and do shopping from one country to another and can come back the same day if one has visa. He also shared the plight of some comnunities living in enclaves. The author shared the story behind these enclaves. The friendliness is there but this also increase the smuggling effects which need to be put in check.

The book is fine and very easy to read, it’s not long, however I’ve read its kindle version but length can be determined, again a lazy afternoon read kind of book is what it is. And its a huge relief for me to detox myself from a stream-feast on Netflix, Prime and Hotstar. Recommended with a 3.5/5 rating. Do check it out.

GRuchirG (Ji Ruchir Ji)

Jai Raam ji ki 🙂

check out my other blogs:

My stories & blogs: gruchirg.wordpress.com

My travel experiences: itravelilive.wordpress.com

My movie reviews:pocketmoviereviews.wordpress.com