The namesake / Jhumpa Lahiri.

I finished The Namesake a couple of nights ago and apart from the fact that the suthor is a very pretty woman, the book is quite a good read too. Jhumpa won the Pulitzer price for her earlier book Interpreter of Maladies and you can see why.
She has a talent to speak in such a way about each of the characters in her novel, that you immediately feel like you are them or you sympathize with them.
I felt like Ashoke, Ashima, Gogol, Sonia, Moushumi, etc had become a prat of my life for a few days.

There were lots of incidents and references we can all relate to ( especially if yu have studied and lived in the US) and I think it was tale of human nature more than anything. Each character has their own peculiar charcteristics and it really was a very good read.

I hope to keep this reading habit going, though my next one is a mammoth 700 page beast called The Agony and The Ecstacy - A novel of Michelangelo.

Lets keep our fingers crossed.

Life of Pi : a novel / Yann Martel.

Finished the book "Life of Pi" last week.
It was very different from what I thought it would be like. From my friend's introduction to the book I knew it was a lost at sea kinda adventure but the treatment was refreshingly different.

To keep a whole novel centered on one person ( okay .. 2) with no other characters other than a few pages here n there is quite a feat and then to do it in such a way that you are thoroughly engrossed is pretty remarkable.

Pi is a unique character and the novel is a great testament to the character that Pi is. Its quite stunning what a person will do to survive if there are no other options. Like Pi says "you can get used to anything"

I really loved this book and highly recommend it. The last few pages are indeed thought provoking.

Cheers.