Author / Publisher Requested Book Review

★★

★★1/2

★★★

★★★

★★★★★

★★★

★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★

★★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★

★★★★★

★★★★

★★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★

★★★

Book Review : The Girl In The Spider’s Web

★ Avoid ★★ No Great Loss ★★★ Worth Reading ★★★★ Close to Masterpiece ★★★★★ Masterpiece

---

Name: The Girl In The Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz
Genre: Fiction Language: English Pages: 432
Published: 2015
My Rating: ★★★
Started(Read): 9th November, 2018 Completed: 17th November, 2018
Total Reading Hour: 42 Hrs

---

Excerpt from Book:

She (Lisbeth Salander) is the girl with the dragon tattoo—a genius hacker and uncompromising misfit. He (Mikael Bomkvist) is a crusading journalist whose championing of the truth often brings him to the brink of prosecution.

Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female superhacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cyber criminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it.

---

Some quotes from the book:

• …that it’s always the wrong people who have the guilty conscience. Those who are really responsible for suffering in the world couldn’t care less. It’s the ones fighting for good who are consumed by remorse.
• Money talks, bullshit walks.
• Sometimes the best ideas occur to you while your mind is occupied with something completely different. Pieces of the puzzle can suddenly fall into place.
• Sometimes things go wrong, no matter how careful you are.
• These days you can’t do a goddamn thing online without leaving footprints.
• I now realize that I should blame myself when men indulge in such wildly wishful thinking that they see a sexual invitation in a simple smile.
• Gut feeling is often a better tool than all the psychological theories in the world.
• ..Your uncompromising attitude makes people feel pathetic. Your very existence reminds them just how much they’ve sold out..
• Everything has its time..
• perhaps it is the will to please that leads people to crime just as often as evil or greed.

---

This book is part of Millennium series which was written by Stieg Larsson. David continued his work and published 4th book into the series. I loved all 3 books – “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” or “The Girl who played with Fire” or “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest“ written by Stieg Larsson. I gave 5 out of 5 too all 3 books.

I loved this book as well. Definitely, It was page turner at some points but many places, it was not up to the mark.

• [I like] – Story having lots of characters, jumping on/off between incidents and yet Author maintained integrity. I loved the way author covered all the characters.
• [I like]: Camilla Salander. Author portrayed her character beautifully.
• [I like]: Author maintained Mikael Bomkvist’s attitude and took his character to next level.
• [I don’t like]: Lisbeth Salander is heart of all previous 3 books and I loved her character. She was missing in half of this book. Good part, She was everywhere in later part.
• [I don’t like]: There are many things which dragged a lot while missed important piece like Author depicted about AI technologies a lot and detailed on stolen part, but ended story with 1 page like it was never important park of book.
• [I don’t like]: Lisbeth Salander’s sister Camilla Salander took off without fighting which was against her characteristics because Author wants her to be part of next book.

---

About Author [Source – GoodReads]:

David Lagercrantz, born in 1962, is a journalist and author, living in Stockholm. His first book was published in 1997, a biography of the Swedish adventurer and mountaineer Göran Kropp. In 2000 his biography on the inventor Håkan Lans, A Swedish genius , was published. His breakthrough as a novelist was of the Fall in Wilmslow (Fall of Man in Wilmslow) , a fictionalized novel about the British mathematician Alan Turing. In David Lagercrantz ‘writing you can thwart see a pattern: the major talents who refuse to follow the convention. He has been interested not only in what it takes to stand out from the crowd, but also in the resistance That Such creativity inevitably faces.

---

Enjoy Reading !!!

Book Review : Aisle Be Damned

★ Avoid ★★ No Great Loss ★★★ Worth Reading ★★★★ Close to Masterpiece ★★★★★ Masterpiece

---

Name: Aisle Be Damned by Rishi Piparaiya
Genre: Humour Language: English Pages: 198
Published: 2013
My Rating: ★★★
Started(Read): 1st October, 2018 Completed: 7th October, 2018
Total Reading Hour: 35 Hrs

---

Excerpt from Book:

A hilarious take on just about everything associated with Air Travel.

– Getting seamlessly upgraded to Business Class.
– The hows and whys of micromanaging the pilots.
– Action plans to counter the airlines Technical Snag routine.
– Sure shot strategies for winning the affections of flight attendants.
– Awesome icebreakers to start conversations with attractive co-passengers.
– How smart executives deal with the Walk of Shame to the economy section.
– How a water bottle dramatically improves flight safety.
– Breezing through immigration and customs, always making your flight connections and a whole lot more

Rest assured, your flying experience will never be the same again!

---

I loved the tag line of book, “Swaying hips, praying lips and flying tips”. I am not frequent traveler but still did more than 30 domestic travel and 1 international travel. From very first page, it was reminding my all travel experiences. Everything just came to my eyesight from “very first airport experience” to “interesting co traveler” to the way traveler ignores announcement and many more. While reading the book, I was laughing at many places. Book doesn’t try to impose humor but it gives different perspective at all.

At some places, I really felt that book has been dragged a little and it could have been 150 pages. But it was really an amazing experience to read complete different perspective on humorous way.

Note: I received a copy of book from JAICO publication and I am very much thankful to them to share such an amazing book.

---

About Author [Source – GoodReads]:
Rishi Piparaiya is a bestselling humor author with close to two decades of work experience as a flunky, mid-manager, and C-suite executive with multinational corporations. Renouncing the corporate life while at the helm of his career, Rishi has been pursuing his interest in writing and actively promotes his satires through his mouthpiece domain Damned.com. Rishi also mentors students and start-up entrepreneurs, is an angel investor and an influencer in the corporate realm.

---

Enjoy Reading !!

Book Review : The Travelling Cat Chronicles

★ Avoid ★★ No Great Loss ★★★ Worth Reading ★★★★ Close to Masterpiece ★★★★★ Masterpiece

---

Name: The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
Genre: Fiction Language: English Pages: 247
Published: 2015
My Rating: ★★★★
Started(Read): 12th August, 2018 Completed: 19th August, 2018
Total Reading Hour: 25 Hrs

---

Excerpt From Book:

It’s not the journey the counts, but who is at your side.

Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where to. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved Satoru in the front of his silver van. Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why and Satoru won’t say.

Set Against the backdrop of Japan’s changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and striking humor, Nana’s story explores the wonder and thrill of life’s unexpected detours. It is about friendship, solitude, and knowing when to give and when to take. Above all, it shows how acts of love, both great and small, can transform our lives.

---

Page Turner and Fascinating

This is a story from the perspective of Protagonist, Nana – A Stray Cat. He is taken in by a cat lover young man Satoru after being hit by a car. He got “Nana” name from “Na” – Seven number in Japanese – the shape of his tail.

Story starts with “The Cat with No Name”. It showcase how Satoru and Nana met and How Nana got this name. Their love grows as time flies and became roommates who understands each other. After five years, Satoru decides to visit his friends with Nana as he can’t stay with Nana any more and their road trip starts.

“The Husband without a Wife” – This is a beautiful tale of Satoru and his childhood friend Kasoku when he was in elementary school. Satoru and Kasoku found a cat and named him “hachi” – number eight in Japanese. Both loved hachi immensely and something bad happened in Satoru’s life which parted them away from each other as well as from hachi.

“The Unsentimental Farmer” – Here is a tale of Satoru and Yoshimine friendship. Satoru spent so much time with Yoshimine and his grand mother. They both had something common – something bad happened at-least in Yoshimine’s eye. When they were in school trip, then Yoshimine found about hachi and Satoru’s devotion towards hachi.

Young Yoshimine is not a cat person but he brought stray cat to house and named him “Chatran”. Nana teaches Chatran to become real cat. I loved the way Nana looked into different situations when 2 humans talk to each other and shares his view on their behavior.

“Sugi and Chikako’s hotel for Pets” – Each chapter is a new journey for Nana. From Nana’s perspective, he is lucky to see all these new places because a cat hardly see all these new places  and meet so many people in single lifetime. Sugi and Chikako having their bed and breakfast hotel near Mount Fuji. They started this hotel 3 years back out of their love for dog and cat. Sugi is more of dog person and Chikako is more of cat person, so it was obvious Chikako and Satoru went well together in first year of high school. This tale having wonderful story of 3 friends and their pets, Momo (cat), Toramaru (dog) and Nana.

“Between Friends” – This is ship journey of Nana and Satoru. Best part of story is Nana’s conversation with other cats and dogs in Pet room. This is a long journey through Ship and their road journey from Mount Fuji to Satoru’s aunt place. At end of this tale, I grew my fondness towards Nana. It’s not only Satoru’s love towards to Nana, but it’s now Nana’s love towards Satoru. Author succeed to showcase animal love towards human and their behavior pattern.

“How Noriko loved to learn” – Noriko, Satoru’s aunt never been cat person. She doesn’t know how to handle cats. As time flies, Noriko becomes part of Nana and at some point, Noriko also bring stray cat at home.

Some beautiful quotes from the book:

• If you have to consider what’s going to happen after you die, life becomes doubly troublesome.
• If you don’t mourn a dead cat properly, you’ll never get over it.
• Among cats, when a female chooses a mate, it’s a very clear-cut thing. Not just among cats, but with all animals, the female’s judgement about love is absolute.
• A stray cat’s skill lies in building up a complex web of connections in order to survive on the streets.
• Most animals are multilingual when it comes to listening, but reading is beyond us. Reading and writing seem to belong to a special linguistic system that only humans possess.
• Humans who think we don’t understand them are the stupid ones.
• Humans always underestimate our language skills. Just ’cause they can read and write, there’s no need to act all high and mighty.
• Cats the world over prefer to discover things they like on their own and rarely go for anything that’s been provided for them.

I loved this book a lot. It’s page turner. This novel having different perspective. From very first chapter, I was connected with Nana and Satoru. At one moment I realised, Author showcase Satoru as full of optimism even in worst case scenario. He always gave love to all his friends and aunt without any expectation and yet he was happy. As they say, you may have thousand reasons to be unhappy but you need one reason to be happy. Satoru always found reason to be happy. In last chapter, the way author depicted Nana’s love towards Satoru, despite of every possible bad situation, melt my heart. I recommend this to every one. If you are not an animal lover, you may end-up adopting cat.

---

About Author:

[Source: Wiki] Hiro Arikawa (有川 浩 Arikawa Hiro, born June 9, 1972) is a female Japanese light novelist from Kōchi, Japan. Hiro Arikawa won the tenth annual Dengeki Novel Prize for new writers for Shio no Machi: Wish on My Precious in 2003, and the book was published the following year. More on wiki.

 

 

 

 

---

Extra Shot:

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul. – Swami Vivekanand

---

Enjoy Reading…