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Date: June 10, 2020Author: Sneha Jaiswal 0 Comments

Published by Sneha Jaiswal

Author of "Bad Town Kids". Journalist. Artist. Recovering Nihilist. Available on Instagram as @writer_jaiswal View all posts by Sneha Jaiswal

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Book number 42 for the year - The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. What a muddle of a mystery novel. Well, that's what you get when you buy a hardback just because it was cheap. It's a chaotic/pompous story about Richard Hannay, who gets mixed up in a murder case of a spy who was aware of a dastardly plot to assassinate a leading figure and trigger a World War. Hannay for most part of the novel is on the run from authorities and his adventures fluctuate between interesting & mind-numbingly boring. Buchan's narration is slightly dry, so despite being a short novel, it takes a while to finish. You would probably be better off with a good old Agatha Christie.

Done reading book number 41 for the year - "Welcome to the New World" by Jake Halpern & Michael Sloan. It's a non-fiction graphic novel that tracks the story of an immigrant Syrian family in America. The family in this novel is one of the luckier ones - they manage to escape unscathed. Somehow it felt like their experiences were sugar-coated, or maybe I was expecting something more than the pretty straightforward story that's served in this book. For those who haven't followed the Syrian crisis closely, "Welcome to the New World" is a good pick to understand the lives of migrants and the hardships they have to deal with when they move to a new nation, be it racism, bigotry or a loss of their sense of self.

"Bad Town Kids" is in the top 50 under 'Literature & Fiction', right after 'The Great Gatsby'. It is a coming of tale tracking the lives of 4 friends over a decade. Go get your copy. Look it up on Amazon.

April book wrap up - I review 10 books I read last month under 10 minutes in the latest episode of AbstractAF - the podcast! Six paperbacks/hardbacks (pictured here), while the rest were ebooks. Listen in for some fun recommendations, including graphic novels, poetry collections & some LGBTQ literature. (Look up Abstract AF on YouTube)

Book number 40 for the year - found out about "Eternal Love" a memoir by a Chinese-American World War II veteran about his 74 year long marriage via Twitter in the morning today. Now I don't usually buy ebooks and read only those that are part of my #kindleunlimited subscription, but promptly paid up for this one. "Eternal Love" is Louis Moore's love letter to his wife Nellie - a beautiful Japanese-American chorus dancer he saw & fell in love with after he was done with the war. Louis & Nellie are what Gen-Z would call #couplegoals - 10 days of courtship & seven decades of a blissful marriage. Moore makes it all sound too easy. Although it's evident that the couple hustled hard before their life became comfortable. Moore's story serves as a sweet distraction from the vagaries of a pandemic-ravaged world. The book has its short-comings, Moore isn't exactly a story-teller, but his memoir might comfort many readers. Full review up on AbstractAF.in (link in bio)

Book number 39 for the year - Estuary by Perumal Murugan. This 250+ pages fictional novel could've been a perfect 50 page short story or novella. But it's too tedious & trite for a tale about an over-indulgent father, who descends into mental chaos, because he doesn't know how to say "no" to his son's demand for an exorbitantly priced phone. I kept losing interest and struggled to finish this relatively small novel. My last read was 600+ pages and I didn't want it to end. As far as "Estuary" is concerned, I kept hoping the climax was around the corner. It might be a good pick for beginner level readers, but it's definitely not a book I enjoyed reading. Longer review on AbstractAF.in 📚

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