About an Unbelievable Author

Of all the 3 or 4 or may be 5 friends who read my blog, how many of you know that there was a great author called Erle Stanley Gardner? How many of you know about one of the most famous fictional detective/lawyer Perry Mason? Perry Mason is the first English novel I had read in my life. Because of the ingenious story, I got attracted to reading more novels and so, I am dedicating a post for this author and the character 'Perry Mason'

I wish each and everyone reads at least one of his novels to check why his stories are so special. I have to admit that I don't know many authors and I don't know if there are any similar novels which are better than this. I am not telling that this could be the best ever series of novels in this genre, but what I can promise is, anyone will enjoy this series.

Erle Stanley Gardner has written more than 80 Perry Mason novels and his records were unbeatable and it hold even Guiness Record for most selling books which is greater than other 3 famous authors number of copies sold put together. I heard or read (but I am not sure) that Erle Stanley Gardner used to write multiple stories at the same time and each will be a very complex detective case.

I have read twenty one Perry Mason stories (till date). Even though every one of the book is awesome in its own way, I would like to recommend some of the books I thoroughly enjoyed, which you can start with:

• The Case Of Screaming Woman
• The Case Of Mythical Monkeys
• The Case Of The Drowsy Mosquito
• The Case Of The Footloose Doll
• The Case Of The Caretaker's Cat

My father's most favorite ones:

• The Case Of Duplicate Daughter
• The Case Of Haunted Husband
  

If you are already a Perry Mason fan, feel free to suggest your most favorite book. If this post made you to read any Perry Mason book and if you enjoyed it, feel free to thank me :)

The 3 Mistakes of My Life - One of my mistakes!

[Disclaimer: This blog will be unlike all of my blogs (don't ask, "will this be interesting then?"). If you are not eighteen years old, please don't read. Possibly my first R rated blog because I this is going to be an honest review.]

This is the first book I read from Chetan Bhagat, an author who prefers to be India's most loved author than a most admired author. I accidentally saw this book in Landmark and due to a lot of recommendations about this author, I bought this book. I have to admit that I started with a prejudice that "this book will suck my big time!".

The way the book started was too astonishing. I even had goosebumps when I read the first few pages. After some time, the real story started, it started to suck! I tried it so hard to finish the book. Few reasons why my prejudice became a strong bias (that this book sucks) is, the author wants to sound so casual and realistic.

Every now and then he used to say like, "he took one more kaara", "he had another fanta", "he took another ****", "and he ordered one more samosa"... what the fuck??? It should have been occurring once or twice and not every time when people talk. And very often, when a conversation is going on, commenting about the taste of what they are eating is also irritating after a bit. And he says like, "his sparkling green eyes..", "her steady brown eyes", etc. Hell man! Thinking that his books should be of international standards, saying the color of everyone's eyes! It was irritating. At least in my opinion 99.99% of Indians' eyes are black.

These kind of things may be admired or loved by some people who takes fashion in saying "well... the book is cool". But there are terrible logical mistakes too, which will make you go back a few pages and confirm that the author has sucked and not your memory. In one page he says like, it is someone's birthday and the twin tower attack happens on that day and in few pages after that it is said that her birthday is on November 19th. Changing history, huh?

And also, he says like he got mail from Ahd_businessman@gmail.com. The thing is, gmail does not allow '_' in the user name. If he wanted to mask the mail id, simply put XXX@gmail.com or try to spend some five minutes to check it is legal or not. But an author who thinks he is admired and he prefer to be loved should take care of all minute details, shouldn't he?

Also, just because he describes a sex scene for two to three pages, this junk would not become an international standard book (come on... don't jump and say, 'it is not mere sex you idiot, it is love'... bullshit!). The so-called-so-desperately-wanted-to-be-called romance aspect of this book is stupid. You could predict what will happen between the two.

The moment he says, 'she had coconut oil bottle' we could guess, she is going to ask him to apply it and the touch will make his heart beat faster. The moment he says there is a good book-stall, we could guess she is going to ask him to get her also along with him and some more so-called romantic conversation would happen between them. There was no base for their love and everything. Deliberately and desperately pushed in or missed out something important.

The climax sucked the greatest and the third mistake! It was like a junk Tamil-Movie climax. He had coached a boy in cricket, and so, he uses that skill to escape a mob of blood-thirst-people. Bull shit! Also, the hero men kill people and there are witnesses and nothing happens to them. They kill one of a political small-group-leader and nothing happens to them. WTF???

If you are a hard core fan of Chetan Bhagat and want to say, "I have completed all his books", go ahead and read it. It is not so junk that you cant complete. If you bear with some annoying things, you could finish this book. But other than that, I can find no reason why I would recommend this to anyone.

[P.S. You may ask, why in the hell you investigate so much in finding the mistakes? why don't you simply read and throw it away? The answer is, well, I am finding it difficult to get a topic to blog about. Also, this is not so great a book that everyone has to read it and I don't think if any praise it gets is deserved by it.]

பொன்னியின் செல்வன்

மதி மயக்கம் கொள்ள செய்யும் ஒரு அருமையான காவியத்தை, நான் சில நாட்களுக்கு முன்பு படித்தேன். பொன்னியின் செல்வன். தமிழ் மீது காதல் கொள்ள செய்துவிடும் அந்த காவியம். கவிதை மீது காதல் கொள்ள செய்துவிடும் அந்தக் கதை. மற்ற சாதரண கதைகளை காட்டிலும் இக்கதையின் சிறப்பு என்ன? இது நாம் தமிழ்நாட்டின் வரலாறு. ஒவ் ஒரு சம்பவங்களும் நம் தமிழ்நாட்டில் நடந்தவை. தஞ்சை பெரிய கோவில் கட்டிய ராஜ ராஜ சோழனை (அருள் மொழி வர்மன்) பற்றிய கதை. உலக அளவில் அதிசயமாக கருதப்பட்ட பெரிய கோவில் கட்டிய மன்னாதி மன்னனை பற்றிய கதை. ஒவ் ஒரு தமிழனும், குறிப்பாக தஞ்சை மார்க்கத்தில் உள்ளவர்கள் படிக்க வேண்டிய கதை.[என்னடா ஓவரா பில்ட் அப் குடுக்குராநேனு நேனைகுரீங்கள? அப்படிதான் அந்த கதையும் இருக்கும்... ஏக வர்ணனைகள்.. எக்கச்சக்க பில்ட் அப்புகள் அந்த கதையில் இருக்கும் என்பதை உணர்த்தத்தான் அவ்வாறு கூறினேன் (அனால், அக்கதையில் வரும் பில்ட் அப்புகள் ரசிக்கும் படி இருக்கும், இந்த ப்லாக் மாதிரி மொக்கையாக இருக்காது)]

மன்னர்கள் எப்படி மக்களுக்காக உழைத்தார்கள்? மக்கள் எப்படி மன்னர் மீது அன்பு வைத்திருந்தார்கள்? வீரன் என்பவன் எப்படி இருக்க வேண்டும்? அரசன் என்பவன் எப்படி இருக்க வேண்டும்? நாட்டில் குழப்பம் செய்யும் சதிகாரர்கள் எப்படி இருப்பார்கள்? இது மட்டும் அல்ல... கண்டதும் காதல், கேட்டதும் காதல், பழகியதால் வரும் காதல், காதலுக்காக உயிர் விடும் காதல், என்று special attention காதலுக்கும் குடுக்க பட்டுள்ளது.

இதற்கு மேல் என்னால் continue செய்ய முடிய வில்லை. அதனால், இந்த கதையை படிக்க வாய்ப்பு கிடைத்தால் கண்டிப்பாக படித்து பார்க்கவும். இந்த ப்லோகையே இவ்வளவு தூரம் படித்தீர்களானால், கண்டிப்பாக, அந்த கதையை வுங்களால் படிக்க முடியும் என்று உறுதி கூறுகிறேன். இனிமேல் தமிழில் ப்லாக் எழுதினால் கை கால் முறிக்கப்படும் என்று வுங்களில் யாருக்காவது தோன்றினால், கண்டிப்பாக கூறிவிடவும், இல்லையேல், நான் மீண்டும் தமிழில் ட்ரை பண்ணுவேன் என்று எச்சரிக்கை செய்கிறேன்!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

If you have not read my previous blog about HP, please click here.

Harry is excited to go his school, Hogwards, for the third year, after the adventures he has done in the second year. Harry is now every student's favorite, as what he has done has made the school Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, to give a school treat of canceling all the exams! Before he is going to start he finds out that a prisoner who is heavily armed has escaped a prison and that everyone in the Muggle world is warned about him.

Disgusting things happen that Harry leaves his aunt's house and soon he finds out that the prisoner who had escaped is not a Muggle but is a very powerful wizard and an expert in dark magic, who had killed 12 people in a single curse. And also this prisoner is the only one who had ever escaped from the Prison of Azkaban, a prison for witches and wizards heavily guarded by Dementors: a magical creature which sucks the happiness out of a person and whose kiss will suck the soul out of the body.

How could anyone escape from such a prison? And in the history, the prisoner is the only one who had ever escaped. And to his horror, Harry finds out that, the prisoner has escaped to kill Harry! Harry is not only chased by this killer, but also by a death omen; a gigantic dog. Prophecy says that Harry has to encounter the Grim (the gigantic dog) and that he is going to die soon! The idea of Hogwards being the safest place also becomes false as the prisoner has already entered into the school and Dementors are guarding the school.

Harry becomes Dementors most favorite target as Dementors easily attack those who have a tragic memory. Harry almost dies in many instances due to the attack of the Dementors and narrowly saved. How Harry is going to tackle the Dementors?, how he is gong to face the Grim?, how he is going to escape from the prisoner? is the rest of the story. An excellent novel with an excellent twist. The story goes slowly in the start and at the end it goes in light's speed. If you have not read this book yet, I strongly recommend you to read it (after reading I and II part) and share your comments.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets!

Now Harry is in the second year, of seven years at Hogwards, The school for Wizards and Witches, after the greatest adventure he had done in his first year, encountering Lord Voldemort face to face. Lord Voldemort is the greatest Wizard of Dark Magic, so powerful and dangerous that no one could even address him by his name, addressing him as *You Know Who* or *He Who Must Not Be Named* [and thank God he is not He Who Must Not Be Typed :)]. So, after conquering, or we can say escaping from, Lord Voldemort for the second time, Harry becomes even more famous in Hogwards.

But in the second year there are more dangers and threats awaiting him. Harry faces much more trouble even before going to Hogwards. But soon, a doubt arises to the whole school: "Whether the threat is for Harry or the threat is by Harry". The Chamber of Secret is opened again, which by myth has a dangerous monster locked in it which will kill the enemies of the heir of Slytherin; one of the founder of Hogwards, a very powerful Wizard who dislikes Muggles [non-magic creatures, humans :)]. Strangely those who disturb, or seem to disturb Harry are petrified one by one.

At some point of time, Harry uncovers some truths that make himself to doubt whether he is the heir. All the student fear Harry, talk bad about him, sing bad about him, loathe him. Harry after some efforts find out that, a very trusted staff is the one who has opened the chamber last time! Before he could do any further investigation, his close friend is also petrified. And one more! What happens and what is going to happen then becomes a million dollar question.

How Harry is going to overcome this and how he is going to face the deadly monster that is in the Chamber Of Secret is the rest of the story. A very unpredictable and extremely interesting adventurous story is this. Success of Harry Potter books is that it has many aspects like, sentiment, thrill, horror, who-done-it puzzle, friendship, fight of good and evil, school time adventure, etc. A must read novel! If you find many terms not understandable, it is time you start to read the HP novels. So, read this novel if not already read and comment about this book after you reading it.

Not a Penny {More/Less} - Jeffrey Archer's First Novel

"Not a Penny More Not a Penny Less" is the first novel from Jeffrey Archer, one of the greatest story tellers of this modern time. This story is about a criminal who uses share market to cheat people and earn millions of dollars. In one of such occasions he messes up with a great mathematician, Stephan who invest about $250, 000 and becomes penniless. Not like other people who regret for losing, he wants to take revenge on the criminal, Harvey. Stephan later finds that there are three more people, who do not know each other mutually, who have invested a great amount of money.

With little investigation he finds the other three people to be an art dealer Jean-Pierre, a doctor Robin and a land lord, James who wishes to become an actor. Some how he manages to co-ordinate a meeting with all the three and they four decides to cheat Harvey and get all their money back, not a penny more; not a penny less. Though this is some what dramatic, to have mutually unknown persons meet up and agree to take revenge on an expert in swindling, it is acceptable; after all, anyone could be brain washed.

Everyone except James comes with a plan that could get some money from Harvey; when James meets a stunningly gorgeous a-typical-most-beautiful-girl-in-novels and falls in love with her at the first sight. When everyone dies to device a plan to get their money back, James devices plans to attract her and date with her, and like everyone else, he succeeds in his mission.

All the four of this team take part in others' plan and they somehow manage to get 3/4 of their total money loss; only missing the James part of contributing his 1/4 of the money. And James becomes the hero of the novel by an extra-ordinary twist in the end and he manages to get his team his contribution. There are more good news in the ends and the novel ends with a happy ending.

A good novel which is worth of the time spent in reading that. Though all the three plans are somewhat guessable, the twists and turns that happens when the plans are executed and how they fail because of lack of contingency plans and how they recover quickly from that are interesting. So, if possible read this novel and share your comments.

Mokka Muthusamy: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

I am just a new born baby in the Harry Potter world, new friend to Harry, yet-another-guy who longs to enter 9 3/4 platform, who longs to have a broomstick (that could fly, of course), who longs to watch the Quidditch match, who longs to play wizard chess, etc. I hope most of you (again, as though 100s of people are reading this), would have read Harry Potter many times and there would be 1000s of bloggers blogging about this and 100s of Orkut communities etc. But that is not going to stop me from saying what I want to say. First of all, I would like to confess something. I am a conservative sometimes and I do not want to adopt new things; for example, listening to new movie songs, etc. Like this, I had refrained myself from reading HP (Harry Potter) for a long time thinking that everyone is just creating scenes by reading\talking\blogging\etc.ing about HP.

But for a very very close friend of mine who presented me all the six volumes of HP as my birthday gift, I had to start to read HP. The moment I started reading that book, the moment I started liking it. First I thought that having seen the movie, it wouldn't be nice to read that; but that is not true. Reading that book is much more fun and thrill than seeing the movie (but thank God, I have not seen the 2nd and 3rd part of the movies). If you are like me, thinking that reading the book would not be fun after watching the movie, just stop thinking like that and go ahead and read that book. Now that I have finished the first part, in a very less time, in the period I felt ill, in the period I had the most horrible personal problems. Being engrossed in Hogwards School has kept me reading and that relieved me from my personal worries.

After reading that book, I felt very thankful to my friend who had introduced his friend HP to me, and hope that you will also be to me, if this blog made you to read that book. I want to write a lot about this (and I will), how to read HP (similar to the blog Why To Watch Movies) and what will make you like HP (in case you have not read that already). So, what I want to convey from this blog is that, do not be a conservative and refrain yourself from reading it, and do not think that previous knowledge through the movie will lessen the fun of reading and more importantly do not think that HP is for kids (not in the sense that it also has some adult contents ;) but) in the sense that everyone will like it. Read that book (I would prefer to say 'study the book' instead) and share your comments whether, this blog is right or wrong.

SPHINX

I read another Robin Cook book: Sphinx, and I want to share about that. It is not a MedicalThriller as supposed be like other Robin Cook books. This book tells us a lot about Egypt's culture. A lot of repeated descriptions about the River Nile and the surroundings make it boring. Till 250 pages, I could see at the most 4 to 5 interesting events, that too will last for about 2 to 3 pages. You will get the feeling of seeing discovery channel program about Egypt. If you expect fast, thrilling medical thriller, this is not the book for you. If you plan to read the first RobinCook book, I would strongly recommend you not to read this book, instead you could go for Mutation or Coma [the only other two books I have read]. But the last 50 pages are quite fast.

Imagine that you are sealed in a room of pitch-black-darkness, leaving no room to escape, with some people accompanying you, who had come to Egypt for the same purpose of yours, who were dead a two years ago. Imagine that you have found a way-out, by using some matchsticks you luckily had, to another chamber of extreme darkness. You have only a limited number of matchsticks left now and you have found a stick like object. Having the idea of burning it, to illuminate the room, with only a few matchsticks left, you lit a matchstick, and you find a mummified forehand in your hand! -my blood was chilled to read this elaborately for about 5 pages. Read this book and let me know your comments.

I was in Coma!

There is another novel by RobinCook which I had read. I want to share about that also: Coma. The story starts like, a teenager goes to hospital for a simple treatment and while getting anaesthesia, she goes to sleep... for the last time in her life! Something is wrong... very wrong... [the exact words in the book] She falls in coma; a coma which is irreversible. After about a month, a new college student, comes to the hospital for the first time, sees that patient and feels for her: to see a girl of her age to have fallen in coma. The first patient she encouters is an athlete who has come for simple treatement, talks well to her. After the operation, he does not wake up... Something is wrong... very wrong... [the exact words in the book]. He also falls in coma. A similar incident within a month. This disturbs the new student and she wants to find out the reason. She faces a lot of problems in getting the records of the patients but could not find any clue. When she returns to her house, she is surprised by a assassinator inside a house. He warns her not to do any further investigation and he leaves. This increases her curiosity to uncover the most threatening truths going on. After much twists and turns, in the climax, she undergoes (or she is made to undergo) an immediate-operation. And the last line of the story is Something is wrong... very wrong...

The last 100 pages of the story made me to tremble. All the chapters of the books will have the time of happenings. The whole story takes place within 3-4 days (apart from the first chapter). Read the book and give me your comments.

Mutated a long back.

I thought of telling you about a wonderful novel which I read a long back: Mutation by RobinCook. Robin Cook is a doctor who has written many medical thrillers. Mutation is about a great doctor in neural domain. He changes the structure of the brain cell of his son even before he is born, through some technology he invented [How he does that and all involves some complicated medical terminologies which are out of the scope of this blog :)]. Because of this, his son gets super power brain. He (the child) learns neural network at his childhood itself and becomes very noticable student in the school. Suddenly, one day, he loses all his power and becomes a normal student. In the mean while, his elder brother dies of a very rare cancer. Within a short time, the worker, who is in fond of the elder brother also dies of a very rare cancer. Four children of his same age who were also very intelligent like him, die on a same day due to swelling of brain. All of them are children of doctor's colleagues. This makes her mother worry much about her only-son-left. Her worry turns into fear about his son when she recalls that the worker who died screamed "he (the child) has killed his brother... and he will surely kill me...". She starts to investigate and find that, the only teacher who liked her son died of a... died of a... very rare cancer some monts ago.... There the story turns upside down.

This is a very beautiful story which will not let you put the book down. So, if you ever get a chance to read this book, read it and give me your comments.