Books I read in September ...

Well ... I had to pick up a Cecelia book this month. Since Jan, I have read at least 1 book by Matthew Reilly, Cecelia Ahern or PC Cast every month. I did not have another Matthew with me and it looks like I am going to run out of them soon. (Writer's can't really write as fast as we read stuff) … I think there are only 2/3 Matthew that I haven't read. The Partholon series by PC Cast is consumed and I don't read of it anymore. Of Course, I have read little of Cecelia but she will also not last long enough so then I have Sophie Kinsella. These 4 have been the most read authors for me this year(till now). And I have kinda liked and loved all of them. By the end of the year, another author or two might enter this list of most read this year list.

 

This month; besides Cecelia, I read 3 new authors. Picked up a Ruskin Bond, a Dean Koontz novel and finally picked up Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (this one had long been a pending item on my list waiting in my cabinet to be picked up)

 

1. A Place called Here by Cecelia Ahern

 

A Place called Here is about a place called Here. Interesting! Isn't it J Well, the interesting thing is that 'Here' is a place where all those thing go, which get lost in the real world. The story is about a girl who takes up the job/career of finding missing people … until one day she herself goes Missing and finds herself in the place called here. A very interesting perspective and premise for a book. It is not the usual Cecelia book I am used to (Yes, I am referring to the tears in my eyes while reading her books) but it is an interesting read nevertheless.

 

I did not like this on much but that does not deter me from reading more of Cecelia. I have already 3 out of her 7 novels and will pick up another one next month.

 

2. A Handful of Nuts by Ruskin Bond

 

A short book with an autobiographical kind of quality about Ruskin when he was 21. My friend likes/loves Ruskin Bon books, but I am not inclined towards it. She loves to go to the mountains. She is drawn to them and somewhere Ruskin's writings have an element of the mountains and their weather in them. I am not really a person who would be interested in nature being described I a book and hence I feel I might never like Ruskin writings. I will read another 1 or 2 books before discarding this author all together.

 

3. The Good Guy by Dean Koontz  

 

I read a Dean Koontz novel way back in 2005 (don't even remember the name now)... but at that time I was biased and gripped by Ludlum and was reading whatever Ludlum I could get my hands on ... so maybe ignored Koontz. 'The Good Guy' is an interesting read. Nothing much in terms of plot or story. It's a simple premise of a hitman trying to kill a girl and a good guy who gets in the way and then takes it on himself to save the girl from the hitman. The whole novel is about running, chasing, escaping and all. The book itself is not very gripping or outstanding or action packed … but one thing was really good.

 

What I really found interesting about this novel is the character development of the 'villain', the hitman  ... his character and personality has been gradually revealed all through the book ... unlike the other characters. Koontz has indeed defined a very complex but interesting character. A hitman who thinks he is superior to the rest of the human ways and loves cleanliness and is extremely particular about his brands and preferences. He has a very clean and calm composed way about him. He almost sounded like the calm and cool Pierce Brosnan kind of James Bond. I would say this singular aspect of the novel made it readable and made me read page on page to discover more of the hitman character and what he would do next and how would he react to the different situations. It was good reading this one and I am encouraged to read more of koontz along with Ludlum.

 

4. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

 

This one was a very interesting novel. Now I can see the movie. I did not want to see the movie before reading the book. Movies are pretty disappointing in adapting novels (most of the times) and I might have lost the appetite to read this novel if I saw the movie first. 

 

Right in the beginning of the novel, the house is described to be full of books. It was a delight to read about this house and actually dream of having one like it. Have a house full of books and more important, have the time to read it all.

 

Moving further in the story, yet another house (a huge mansion actually, which belongs to Elinor) is presented which is literally FULL of books. A house where the floor–to-ceiling book shelves form majority of the furniture and the owner has no guest rooms to offer since all of them are FULL of books, stacked around in all possible places. No … I wasn't thinking or dreaming about anything here. My dear best friend Shraddha is the one likely to compete with Elinor. They both share a similar 'passion' for books !!

 

Inkheart has been a very enjoyable read and I look forward to reading the other books in the trilogy; InkSpell and Inkdeath.

 

BTW … I have got my hands on yet another Matthew Reilly novel (Scarerow) so that's what I gonna begin my next month with. I have also found his novella (Hell Island) but I would rather keep it for November reading J I allow myself Only one book per month by an author UNLESS the second book is a sequel (with the story leading from one to another) or it is a collection of stories by the author (which would be short stories anyway)