Malice

 

I am big fan of Japanese write Keigo Higashino. His two earlier books have lasted impressions0 on me. I always recommend his books to all who want to enjoy good mystery. When I started reading Malice from very first chapter I was hooked. Its story of famous writer Kuniko Hidaka who found dead in his house by his old school friend and his newly wed wife. Some twist and turn into story and detective Kaga found that school friend might be killer. But Is he really a killer and what can be his motive of doing murder of his own best friend. What kind of person Hidaka was. Was he writing his own novel or was using some ghostwriter.

Its not regular who don it kind of book like all other previous books of Keigo. You know who has done if from very beginning but what  is the motive of murder and how he has done it. That’s what keep you intrigued till the end.

IF somebody ask me which is one write whose book you can pick out without reading the backcover, my answer would be any book of Keigo Higashino.

Do read this book and I can guarantee you will not regret.

My rating – 5

 

 

Private India – Book Review

Title – Private India
Author – Ashwin Sanghi and James Patterson
Publications – Random House

From the blurb – In Mumbai, seemingly unconnected people are dying, strangled in a chilling ritual and with strange objects carefully arranged with thr corpses.
For Santosh Wagh, head of Private India. the mumbai branch of World’s finest investigation agency, its a race against time to stop the killer striking again. In a city of over thriteen million, he’d have his work cut out at best of times, but this case has him betting Mumbai’s biggest gang lord and a godman who isn’t all he seems.
And then he discovers there may be an even greater danger facing Private India. Hidden in the shadow is someone who couldn’t destroy the whole organisation-along with thousands of innocent Mumbai citizens

Every day seemingly un-connected women are getting murdered in their own houses by same method. Killer is leaving yellow scarf and items like half coin, lotus in hands of victims.
First murder is of Doctor Kanya Jaiyen from Bangkok who is on personal trip to India and staying in top most hotel of Mumbai, still no security could prevent her murder.
Bhawana Choski, afternoon mirror gossip column talk to Bangkok doctor couple of times on the day of her murder and next day she also found murdered in her own house strangled with yellow scarf in exactly same way.

Who will be next women and why ony women. With such perfect murder with no evidence left, it seems quite tough case to crack for Private India. Is there a man behind all those who hate women or a woman can feel so much hatred toward her own species. Hari PAdhi, Nisha and Mubeen team of Private India is on their toes always to solvethis murder mystery and to save next murderer.Among all this chaos Santosh’s own past keep haunting him and he has to get answer for his own life as well.

My take on book – Having read and liked Ashwin Sanghi’s previous two books – Chankya Chant and Krishna Key, I was geniuly interested in this new book and was really happy to get review copy from blogadda. Reading this huge book in 7 day was days task a big task​keeping in mind my busy schedule and I am glad that I spent my time with this book. It was so interesting with lot of twist and tales that you really want to finish it in on go. Whosoover Whoevernk can be murder get herself murder next day.the next dayever, don’tpect too much of mytha myth mythological influenceis one as his previous work. May be its James Paterson’s influence 🙂
I havent read any of his book but I now want to read him as well.

On the other hand I wonder how these two author start writing the story together with so many different characters all tied together at end with common story. Do they startiting the end first and connect the dots backward or its other way around 🙂

Rating 4/5

This review is part of Blogadda bookreview program.

T is for Toypedia Toylibrary

There has always been an incessant debate on the topic ‘Television viewing by kids’. There are parents who believe kids learn from visual media and it is not good to impose restriction on them and there is another set of parents who are strictly against TV.

Most of the kids these days are hooked to Chota Bheem, Doraemon, Shinchan and Nobita. Kids can spend hours in front of the TV even without blinking their eyes. I however, am from the school of thought who believe that TV does more harm than good to little’s eyes and little minds. Having said that I also don’t want to impose my preferences of limited TV viewing time on her. So my trick to resolve the issue is to give her better options.

It can be a good book or partaking in any interesting craft activity, taking her to the park to play or playing teacher-teacher, mama-baby etc. Now all these things require my active involvement which is not possible always. One other thing which brighten her eyes is a new toy. Like any other kid, her attention is very short-lived. One toy can’t hold her attention for long and at times when we are short of space, storing all those hardly used, long forgotten toys are also a helluva task.

Our toy library is full of toys which give wings to a child’s imagination and opens a lot of doors to new learning.
In this situation, the toy library seems like a God sent special gift. I am using the services of the toy library for almost a year now. There are a number of toys arranged nicely as per the skills you want to teach your child like ‘Body Kinesthetic’, Musical, Naturalist, Spatial, Interpersonal and intrapersonal. It just takes a few clicks to order a new toy every week. And I am not talking about battery operated toys which does little for physical movement. Our toy library is full of toys which give wings to a child’s imagination and opens a lot of doors to new learning.

I especially like toys from the Early Learning Center (ELC).

There is a ‘Sand Water Table’ in which there is a dual use of a table, sand-pit for sand and water play. It comes with a rake, spade, boat, scoop, funnels, moulds, wheels and more. It’s fun to see Angel building castles from sand and water.

She happily spends hours in pouring, spinning, scooping and digging sand.

And there is an archery set where you can throw the arrow from a distance and see where it sticks on the paper tent. Practice for Olympics .

There are certain toys which we generally never buy on our own like outdoor toys which take too much of space.

Trampoline – so good for jumping and shaking your full body on it,

Slides – My kids love climbing to top of slides via a ladder and sit down on the top of the slide and “slides” down with a lot of hooting.

Sometime I just want to try out a toy before actually buying it. Like I wanted my daughter to start skating but was not sure if she will be interested in it or if it would be another thing lying in the corner of her room unused. So I ordered that from our toy library. She used it and loved it so I tried different models through the library and brought the one she liked most.

All the toys from the library are properly sanitized before sending it to the next kid so we don’t have to worry about the hygiene part.
All the toys from the library are properly sanitized before sending it to the next kid so we don’t have to worry about the hygiene part.

Another major benefit is your child is always using branded toys. The market is flooded with cheap chinese toys with degraded quality of plastic. Reports have shown that these toys are toxic as they contain high levels of heavy metal such as cadmium and lead.

She has also learnt to take care of her toys. When its Lego blocks set, she knows that she has to maintain the count. A single missing block and she will not get her new toy next week. She is now a pro in counting because of the habit of counting all parts of the toys before putting them back on the shelf. She can’t think of breaking toys as she understands very well that they are from the library and they should be used with care.

We also get one book per week with one toy as per our renting plan. As my daughter enjoys reading so getting the book is also an added advantage.

What are your thoughts on the toy library? I would love to hear your views on this.

P is for Parenting

This blog got birth when I become parent –
to capture birth of new parent
to capture birth of my little angel
her milestones
my worries and my happiness as new mom
my experiences as I sailed into this parenting journey
to seek advice to give advice
to share with all moms there that you are not alone
to know all other mommy bloggers who made my journey easy by sharing their experiences
to connect and make life long friends
to share my joy as second time mom
to share siblings fight and siblings love
to share why i need two kids and how life is with two kids
to share working parent dilemmas
to share joy of watching your little one growing each day
to share what all books you read to your kids
to share how your little one got hooked to books
to share any new interesting thing/activity you can do with your kids

In short this blog is all about my journey as parent. I am enjoying my journey as a parent and trying my level best to become that PERFECT PARENT for my kiddos 🙂

I strive for perfection in every thing. IF I am office I want to deliver all my projects in perfect way.
If I am at home I want to be a perfect parent.
At the end of day every parent just want their kids to be happy, to lead successful life, to enjoy every moment.
My parenting journey has become more enriching experience with this blog. I got to know lot of other mommy bloggers through my blog. It helps me in changing my perception about so many things. I feel I am more aware mom now 🙂

N for Nature

N of Nature..IT always give me pleausre..just seeing greenery around 🙂

K is for Kangaroo

Angel loves books from the beginning. She has favourite books and favourite characters and lot of time she create her own story from those characters. During her first year I introduced her to lot of board books with single letter on them like books on playground, my first words, animals, alphabets. In her second year, I started story books and her first story book was “A blessing from above”. It’s not a story which is easy to understand or advisable as first book of child. I just picked it up as that time I was not much aware of children books. But till date this is her favourite book.

Its story of little KANGAROO fondly known as Mumma Roo in the book who doesn’t have baby. She went for walk in a jungle saw beautiful butterflies with their babies fluttering in field of flower.Next she met squirrel gathering acorns for their family. Mamma Kangaroo wish she also have baby with who she can play and share the joy of life. She felt tired after lot of walk and sat under tree. There was a bluebird nest on that tree and lil bluebirds were coming out of eggs. When last bluebird came from nest there was no space left and bluebird fell from tree into mumma kangaroo’s lap. Mumma Roo hugged the baby and took permission from mother bluebird to keep their new baby with her.

Its beautiful story to teach children about adoption and its reasons.

D is for …Disney

I am taking part in A to z Challenge and today’s letter is D

D is for Disney – I have recently brought cute lilttle Disney princess school bag for Angel as she is too much in princess mode these days.
Everything has to be pink or purple for her. Red is kind of ok but not her favorite.

I tried hard that she doesn’t get too much liking toward pinks but guess girls are wired in that way that pink bug bites them definitely at some stage of childhood.
Everywhere in mall, girls dress, toys, school bags are mostly pink. If you try to look for gender neutral colors in bags it mostly superhero in fighting pose and she doesn’t like it at all.

BTW have any of you watched Frozen. First Disney princess movie where heroine is not fantasying about love and looked brave.
I recommend this movie for all kids.

A must watch movie for all kids and even parents will like it too.

Today school has started for new session and my big girl is in K.G now. She was super excited to go to school and meet her friends.
Thankfully no shuffling and all her old classmates are in same section

Chankaya Chant’s – A Book Review

                                                                                    

Title:           Chankaya’s Chant

Author:       Ashwin Sanghi

Price:          INR 190/-

Publication: Hachette India

 

Story is set between 2 era, one is present world and other in 340 BC around 2300 years back in the times of Chandragupta and his guru Chankaya.Chapter 1 talk about Chankaya and chapter 2 talk about his modern version of chankaya “Gangasagar” and same trend continues throughout the book. Its like similar situation or their similar way of handling situation is describen in alternating chapters. Much like we saw in movie ” Rang de Basanti” where the story revolves between freedom fighters and modern version of youngster fighting for present problems of India.

 

Gangasagar Misra’s father died when he was quite young and for the sake of his family he started working with wily businessman – Agarwalji. He learnt rule of business, politics from his employer. To serve the country and to save our nation form politicians gangasagar jumps first into state politics and then into center politics.

 

Later he met with oxford graduated girl Chandini gupta who become her protege and like a kingmaker gangasagar helped her in becoming primeminister of India. Story revolved around tacts and techniques through which he manipulate situation and people around him to achieve bigger goal of Unified India

 

 

Ancient story deals with Chankaya who also lost his father early in life and partly to take revenge from his enemies and partly for unified Bharat …..helped Chandragupta in becoming ruler of Bharat.

 

End is revealed in prologue itself but its the path taken which keep you hookd to book.

 

My Verdict  : I neverpreferred reading historic genre…this is my first ever book politics/history based book and I m happy to say that i m not disappointed. The best thing i like abt books is author has done lot of ground work. Its extremely well reserached book.Twisting the facts, gossip, blackmail and removing of obstacles are all part and parcel of dirty politics and are very well depicted here.  Book shows the politics is not only about pulling each other’s hair  but involve much more  and requires understanding of  a lot of varied fields.  Present date story gives hintes about present day  happenings  around us  and gets the reader wear thie r thinking caps. Overall interesting  book. Story moves very fast and at no point you feel bored. Author has proven the point that basic of politics remain same though era has changed . Lot of information is still basis of ruling the country/state .  Stage is changed , characters are different ……tactics and stratergies nevertheles remain same in every era..

 

Author has interweeved past and present in perfect way and never let you feel confused between two different stories.

 

 

My rating 4/5

 

This review is part of <a href=”Book Reviews Program at  BlogAdda.com“>Blogadda book review programme. To get review copy of book you just need to show your interst by mentioning your user id in book promotion post. Do let me know your views in case get your hands on this amazing book.

 

 

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