[Book Review] 3 A.M. - Nick Pirog

We have seen it all, watched it all - the man who loses his memory after every 5 minutes. The man who faints when he hears a loud noise/sudden actions. This one, in 3 A.M., is way beyond our imagination. I was hooked from the good read blurbs, and got interested in the book within 6 pages. Here's what the goodreads says:

Henry Bins has Henry Bins.
A sleeping disorder, named after him.
He is awake for one hour a day.
He wakes up at 3 a.m. then falls asleep at 4 a.m.
Life is simple.
Until he hears the woman scream.
And sees the man leave the house across the street.
But not just any man.
The President of the United States.

The condition in itself is very tricky - for instance, he'd never see the sunlight in his lifetime. For him to do a normal thing like watching an episode of Game of Thrones (yes, that comes in the novel) is a Himalayan task. What happens if he decides to involve himself in one of the biggest case in the history of United States of America? How would he pull that off when he can't do anything between 4 AM to 3 AM? I know you have a lot of questions formed inside your mind as soon as you read that he's awake for only one hour in a day. This book takes us into that very one hour of his life in a day and doesn't bore you at all.

A thriller is at it's best when you cannot expect a twist and this sure is one. I tried to pause in-between to guess the killer and couldn't find out at all. The suspense is high and the whole thing happens only between 3AM and 4AM. You get to know how precious a minute of this man's life is when we waste it just like that. The author has made several attempts to let us know about that for sure.

Since this is a short novella there's no room for character development, so to speak. We are provided with enough information on how Henry lives and a little bit about his history and some of the questions that we have as soon as we read that blurb. The conversations between Lassie and Henry are hilarious.

What did I miss? Well, this story certainly was fast paced for I finished this in two sittings, mostly at the wee hours. I even pinged in a WhatsApp group that "Me back to 3 A.M. until 3AM" and that raised several questions about my "steady state" :D I felt like that this story started and ended very quickly. There are some questions left unanswered, probably left for our own imagination. This kind of things happens when the novel is very short. There's a sequel to it - 3.10 A.M. and I believe it should have some more details that were missing in this short novella although it wouldn't impact your reading experience of 3 A.M. BTW, 3.10 A.M. starts where 3 A.M ends!


PS: This book is free in Kindle, Google Books (and you can even find a lot of ePub and PDF in the world wide web if you like that piracy thrill) etc. There's a teaser for his sequel 3.10 A.M. also present in that free copy. The paperback version of this book costs an unbelievable Rs. 464 in Amazon :shock:. 3.10 A.M as well as all his other eBooks are not free (Except Unforseen) :) And yes, I posted this blog at 3 A.M. :)

Beautiful Munnar Falls

[Book Review] The Old Man and the Sea

It took me ten days to complete this book although it's a short novel of about less than 100 pages only. To let you know that I read the last 40 ish pages on a single day (I read the book everyday) sums up the pace of the book :D For some of you who are unaware of the reason for me to pick this book - this book has won the Nobel Prize in the Literature work category. I must tell you I was really scared when I picked this book from my friend who borrowed it at the Cognizant Siruseri SEZ library!

Before you read the review, I'd like to confirm that I did enjoy reading this novel. But, I missed a lot because a lot of terms were unfamiliar to me - that is related to the fishing. If someone told me that I should have taken a Fishing 101 before reading this novel, I sure would have loved this! But, I just can't keep on googling for a lot of fishing terms were used in this novel. At one point, I stopped looking and with the flow, I could still enjoy the novel. So, if you'd like to really enjoy this, please lookup for the fishing terms like:

Harpoons
Skiff
Mast
Sardines etc. I don't remember most of the other technical terms.

As you have guess it correctly this book is about an old man and the sea. Protagonist is an old and experienced fisherman, Santiago his name. With age, his luck has also ran out as from the beginning of the novel, he'd been to the sea for 84 days and hadn't caught a single fish. Manolin, "the boy" is a good friend of him and used to go with the old man a few times for fishing until his parents decided to send him with different people considering the luck of Santiago. The novel takes us with him to his 85th day into the sea, alone, with him feeling luck on his side.

When my friend and I went to the Siruseri SEZ library, I picked "Carry on, Jeeves" and he "The Old man and the Sea" (He later told me that the reason from him to chose this was because the book was small and had less pages). He couldn't even read more than ten pages in the book as he felt unbelievably sleepy and was ready to return it then and there. I told him to give the book to me so that I could give it a try. I'm telling this to you because, this book is not for everyone. This is for those who have that patience.

Sure, I felt sleepy too on the first few pages, but once Santiago leaves for fishing on the 85th day, I felt as if I was travelling along with that old man. Before this "literature" book, the one other book that I read that fall under the same category is a Tamil book named "Thanneer". Now, I don't know the genre "Literature" nor I was interested in one before "Thanneer". I liked that book very much because, it was, as if, happening somewhere in Tamil Nadu for sure. I still haven't looked up at the Literature genre in google as to what it is, but from my understanding after reading these two books - to write something to be as classified as a literature, one should have a deep, deep knowledge of it. In the case of this book, it's the old man Santiago and the sea itself whereas in that Tamil book it's the water and humanity.

I'd like to think that the same thing that happens to this old man in this novel should be a thing with the fishermen. Because, when I read "Thanneer" (translates to "Water") I know the background - the scarcity of water in Chennai during the time of the novel. Just how I felt the "Water", and characters "Jamuna and Chaya" in the "Thanner" novel, I feel the "Sea", and characters "Santiago and Manolin" in this novel. The novel's ending left a definite impact on me and I sure hope it'll leave the same to you too. Highly recommended, if you are ofcourse, a patient reader :)

PS: There's even a movie with the same name released on 1958. I'm gonna watch it soon :)

[Book Review] The Invisible Man

Thanks to Amazon for giving this book for free – that’s the main reason for me to pick this book up :D Second reason is the author – H. G. Wells. I was told that he’s the father of the Sci-Fi genre, and for me to read the likes of “Contact” in the future, I definitely needed a start. GBK, a friend of mine, said that this book would be childish since it was written in 1897 – that’s exactly what I wanted since I’m zero in Science and would love to read a fiction.

The books that I’m reading from Kindle almost always have a little over 100 pages only, the reason I can wrap ‘em up quickly :D The Invisible Man from H. G. Wells is also just a little over 100 pages only and doesn’t deal mostly with the “Science” stuff of the invisible-ness. Probably one of the reason why I like this book very much. To summarize this book, it’s the life of an Invisible man. You might think that it’ll be very cool and you may kinda think of all the naughtiness that you can expect, courtesy of that “Hollow Man” movie, but you’re in for a big surprise here!

The first question I asked when I was about to pick this book was “Is this the book that inspired Hollow Man movie?” as most of H. G. Wells’ books have been made into a movie. Thankfully, people said no. So if you are also the hater of Hollow Man, please go ahead and order this copy in Amazon for free. What made me like this book is the fact that, there are a lot of downsides to the invisibility. And, this book captures everyone of them.

The book starts with a “stranger” who’s actually invisible, but disguises himself so that he can blend with people, arrives into a town. Since this was written way before our time, I guess the author might have wanted the readers to give a proper “visual” so-to-speak, before we confirm our suspicion – so the initial chapters were a little drag. But once the Invisible Man and Dr. Kemp meet, it shifts into a higher gear!

The book captures the mindset of a normal man when he becomes invisible. How the invisibility changes his character, attitude, even his temper is very well portrayed. More importantly, what I learnt from this book is that when you tamper with what the nature has given you, you always tend to go in the destructive path. I guess the ending of such stories are always predictable, so I wasn’t disappointed to have expected it.

I would recommend this book to any Sci-Fi lovers who won’t expect too much of technicality. Also, for any Sci-Fi beginners like me :)  :D

Image Courtesy: Wiki

[55F] Why Sangre?

Blood was dripping from his fists. He knew it wasn’t his own. The sound proof room made his task easier. “RANGANATHAN” the shout of his name brought him back to reality.

“You’re up next man” said Rajesh, all smiles. He let out a sigh, got up from the chair and headed for the appraisal discussion.

PS: As you have guessed it right, Sangre is blood in Spanish (DaVinci Code anyone? :P ) :D This is the season, you know :D

[55F] Just Missed it!

He saw that. His eyes widened as soon as he saw that. He immediately rushed towards it. Just when his hand was about to touch it, another hand came in and snatched it. With a defeated and disappointed look, he saw her walk with the last piece of “Kurkure Solid Masti” to the billing counter.

PS: Has anyone of you noticed that the “Solid Masti” flavor in Kurkure is hard to get (for a very long time)? It’s my favorite and it’s been evading me for a long time now!

[55F] RIPoste

She was tired after the funeral.

‘Ugh, it’s hard to act sad! But, I finally got rid of him’ she thought, ‘How am I going to explain this to my son?’

She entered home, saw her 5 year old son playing alone.

He shouted, “Come on Mom, Dad and I have been playing like crazy!”