Last week in books and the seven classic plots..

Last week I managed to finish only one book- HP 3, which is such a pity ,because I was raring to get to Half of the yellow sun.I loved HP3,btw.Best of the three parts I've read till now. The books in the series just keep getting better !

This week, I have the 4 books lines up ( Adichie and Murakami) carryover from last week; a book for review called Never mind yaar and Milk and Honey by Faye Kellerman I started last week because I couldn't stomach any grisly or sad reads. The Faye Kellerman book has to be one of the most boring thrillers I've read in a long time. A true Yawn-Yawn affair.Any book that takes 180 pages to show mild signs of some action needs to come with a "Boring" statutory warning.Anyway, I have a new resolution to not leave books half-read and to woman up and finish them no matter how boring they are. So, Faye will be tolerated for a few more hours till I finish the book. And her writing different is so different from her husband's( Jonathan Kellerman happens to be one of my favourite crime/thriller authors).

Next review on this blog : Never mind Yaar by Khoty Mathur



Apparently,there are only 7 basic plots that one can base a story on. The thought that all the gazillion books in the world are permutation and combination of these 7 plots is simply mind boggling. The human race is such a wonderful faffing invention of God ,i must say. Now for the 7 plots..( source Gordon Wells's How to be a successful writer)

1. Cindrella: Where the underdog wins after many trials and tribulations
This must be the most used plot, apart from No. 4(Tristan) and No. 6 (Romeo and Juliet).But then I am getting ahead of myself by mentioning No.4 and No.6. before we've done No.2 and No.3.

2. Achilles : Hero goes down because of some fatal blow
I haven't seen this basic plot in many books.Have you?

3. Faust : In the end debt always have to be paid
Can't think of many books with a faustian theme either.

4. Tristan : The eternal love triangle
A plot done to death !.someone should invent a 8th different plot and take Tristan off this list. The eternal love triangle is such a cliche.

5. Circe : Eventually spider catches the fly
Sounds a bit similar to a Faustian plot ,if you ask me.

6. Romeo and Juliet : Boy meets girl,boy loses girl,boy friends girl again.
The Hollywood rom-com staple !.

7. Orpheus : Gift that is taken away
All sad books where the books end with the protagonist going mad/ dead/ broke/without love and so on. Come to think of it, the number of things that can go wrong with someone's life is infinite!. Literary fiction,maybe ;-)

Any recommendations for Achilles ,Faustian and Cicerian plotlines?.

Mon,Mon.Monday..

First time I am doing the "Its a Monday!What are you reading" post on this blog. This is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey.

So what am I reading this week?.I have three books panned out- already started Harry Potter Part III ( Prisoner of Azkaban). 80 Pages into the book, I am not enjoying it as much as the first or the second book. In fact, I loved Chamber of secrets to bits!. Maybe,this book is going to take longer to warm up. I am so sore that I didn't start reading HP earlier :-(.

Next in line is either Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the shore and Half of a yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie.I am leaning towards the latter.

I haven't read Adichie before, but have been itching to reading Purple Hibiscus and Half of a yellow Sun for ages. Nigeria is a country I know nothing about ,apart from the fact that it has one of the highest crime rates. One of my ex-bosses lived briefly in Nigeria and regaled me with horror stories of crimes that happen there. am super excited to be digging into that book as well.

Synopsis from Goodreads..

Called "the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe" by The Washington Post, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie certainly lives up to the hype in her second novel, Half a Yellow Sun. She wowed us with this transcendent tale about war, loyalty, brutality, and love in modern Africa. While painting a searing portrait of the tragedy that took place in Biafra during the 1960s, h...more

Called "the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe" by The Washington Post, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie certainly lives up to the hype in her second novel, Half a Yellow Sun. She wowed us with this transcendent tale about war, loyalty, brutality, and love in modern Africa. While painting a searing portrait of the tragedy that took place in Biafra during the 1960s, her story finds its true heart in the intimacy of three ordinary lives buffeted by the winds of fate. Her tale is hauntingly evocative and impossible to forget.

I have loved all the Murakami books I've read till now and picking this one up was a no brainer. After reading Blind Willow ,Sleeping woman I am not sure if he can surpass the brilliance of that book,I am hoping I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reas...moreKafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle - yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own

Looks like its an exciting week of book reading for me.. What are you reading?