Summer Reading

One of my goals for the year is to read 52 books , that's one a week if you are counting. With 3 kids it not so easy and so I am always looking for interesting books to read. So far I am making good progress on my list. Here are a couple that I just finished reading.

Serving Crazy with Curry by Amulaya Malladi

Description from Amazon -
In Malladi's third novel, following A Breath of Fresh Air (2002) and The Mango Season [BKL Ap 15 03], the characters keep referencing "bad Hindi movies." Indeed, the plot of this very readable novel does resemble something out of Bollywood, but the characters are drawn so clearly and strongly that readers will immediately be taken by the triumphs and tribulations of the Veturi family. Devastated after being fired from her job at a Silicon Valley start up and suffering a miscarriage, Devi feels she has strayed far outside the expectations of her traditional Indian family and attempts to commit suicide. However, her intrusive mother, a continual source of aggravation for Devi, saves her life. Devi then moves in with her parents, but she refuses to speak, taking up cooking instead. Channeling all her emotions into the elaborate meals she prepares, Devi prompts her family to engage in a series of completely honest conversations that draw all of them closer to each other. A reading-group guide is bound into this heartfelt novel, which also provides a candid snapshot of fractious mother-daughter relationships.

I’d say this is an easy read, gets you invested in the characters. It has a “Bollywood” type plot and gives you a humorous insight into the Indian culture and the relationships between mothers, daughters and fathers. Warning: reading about the cooking parts makes you hungry for Indian food. I’d give it 2.5 stars out of 5.


I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel by Pervival Everett

Description from Amazon -
Everett's latest tells the story of a young man named Not Sidney Poitier who bears an uncanny resemblance to the famed actor and is adept at deploying a hypnotic technique called Fesmerism. When Not Sidney is young, his mother dies, but not before becoming an early investor in Ted Turner's enterprises. The boy then moves to Atlanta, into the home of Ted Turner. Despite his vast wealth and celebrity looks, when Not Sidney ventures out into the world as a young adult, he faces bizarre, stinging and potentially deadly forms of racism. While Not Sidney comes across as a likable and thoughtful soul, he's the perfect foil for the fictionalized Turner's stream-of-consciousness non sequiturs (I've never been struck by lightning. You?) as well as the logical absurdities that pepper the speech of his university professor who happens to be named Percival Everett. Not only is the novel smart and without a trace of pretentiousness, it shows Everett as a novelist at the height of his narrative and satirical powers.

Again another easy summer read kinda bizarre and kinda funny. I’d give it 3 stars out of 5.

I just started reading The Queen's Bastard: A Novel by Robin Maxwell

I will add a review when I am done. So far so good, if you like the Tudors, or Anne Boylen you might like this book.

Description from Amazon –
Maxwell's second novel (after The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn) breathes extraordinary life into the scandals, political intrigue and gut-wrenching battles that typified Queen Elizabeth's reign as seen through the eyes of Arthur Dudley, the man who may have been the illegitimate progeny of the Virgin Queen and her beloved Master of the Horse, Robin Dudley. Arthur's first-person narration is cleverly juxtaposed with third-person dramatization of significant events in the queen's life, bringing an intricate authenticity to the possibility that Elizabeth gave birth to a bastard son. Maxwell's research examines the biographical gaps in, and documented facts about, the queen's life, making this incredible tale plausible, and the author aptly embellishes her story with rich period details and the epic dramas of the late 16th century. Switched at birth with a baby's corpse by a lady-in-waiting who foresaw the disastrous political consequences of a royal bastard, the infant is raised in the English countryside, where he is abused by his adoptive mother. Only his adoptive father, Robert Southern, knows his true background, and it is only when Southern lies dying that he reveals the secret to Arthur. The circumstances leading to Arthur's reunion with his father and finally his mother range from the young man's military training in Wales and encampment in the Netherlands to his post as a spy in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, all played out against the backdrop of England's defeat of the Spanish Armada. The novel falters only with an abundance of references to Anne Boleyn's diary (coy allusions to the author's first novel), but this minor affectation defuses none of the powerfully lascivious intersections of sexual and international politics that, combined with Maxwell's electrifying prose, here make for enthralling historical fiction.

If you have any book recomendations for me leave me a comment I'd love to try them out.

Flower car lady - Have a happy and colorful day