No.1 Ladies Detective Agency

 

Title – The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Author –  Alexander McCall Smith

Price –  Rs 389 – Flipkart

Precious Ramotswe lost her mother at young age of 3 and her father’s cousin took care of her in initial year.  During early years Mma Ramotswe is brilliant student and extremely honest. She also won state prize for drawing. After having failed marriage , she returned to her hometown to stay with her father. Her father runs a cattle farm with more than 200 cattle and expect Mma ramatswo to take over business after he is gone. Though Ramotswe is not at all interested in cattle business and sell everything after her father’s demise.

With lot of money in her hand , she started her dream business : Ladies detective agency at Gaborone, capital of Botswana.. ..agency which is run by women but work for both men and women and then started her journey as a detective working on some hilarious, some extermely honest and some really intriguing cases.

I loved the case in which one Indian father want to get information about her 16yr old daughter boyfriend. Mma Ramotswe followed daughter for couple of days and also inspected her and concluded that she doesn’t have boyfriend and she is just creating illusion for her father to get him worried as she is fed up with her constant questioning nature….Mma feel pity for young lady and convinced her father to give some freedom to daughter ….at the end we found that tis was not case 🙂

Then there is another story of doctor , sometime he is best and other time it seems he is too naive to work on patients, another story revolves around husband who got missing in holy water. There is another beautiful story of duplicate dad and story with subtle humour

My take on book :->

If I have to review the book in one word , I would have said “innocent”. There is impalpable innocent in all the residents of Botswana. I like the way author has described the people and surrounding of Botswana. It gives  you insight into lives and times of Africans. It gives  you real literary pleasure unlike typical page turner murder mystery. This book shows there is still honesty alive in some part of world and there are true pleasure hidden in most simple things

Rating 5/5

There are several other books in this series and I m brought all of them now 🙂  . this book also turned into TV series – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No._1_Ladies%27_Detective_Agency_(TV_series)

3’s A Crowd – Book Review 2

                                                                                           

 

 

 

 Title : 3’s A Crowd

Author:    Vijay Nagaswami

Price:        INR. 250/-

Publisher: Westland

   This book is 3 rd in series by Chennai based relationship counsellor Vijay Nagaswami. His earlier two books “24* 7 Marriage : Smart Strategies for good beginning” and ” The fifty – 50 Marriage : Return to intimacy” dealt with some tips and tricks abt surviving in marriage in era where divorce are ever increasing.

3’s A crowd deals about understanding and surviving infidelity. Quoting from back page

ITs a myth that only men have affairs.

Who do you think they are having affair with ? It’s not only the aggrieved partner that needs to  understand and survive infidelity. The perpetrator too is sometimes a victim of affair.

Book is divided into two parts 1) Understanding Infidelity 2) Surviving Infidelity

 First few chapter explains how affairs are so common these days specially in middle and higher socio economic class and its like everybody has a token in their hand and waiting for their turn. Author has included several stories about couple who think they are just fren and sharing some 50 sms and 20  mails and few hours on call everyday  is perfectly normal frenship 🙂 Every line is followed by a story of affair..most of the time ppl think they are casual frens and soon they start feeling emotionally attached.

There are several examples of couple who found their spouse in relationship with colleague and it was so easy to track them down coz of sms/phone bills/email etc.  He also covered e-affair in which couples havent met but are actively involved each other through internet.  And there is something called “peer pressure affair” ( I actually laughed out loud after reading this 🙂 ) How ppl look for affair just to get out of image of ” party pooper “

Second part which cover surviving infidelity deals with trauma of aggrieved and transgressor patrner and later how to survive the bandwagon.

My take on book – I got this review copy from Blogadda. When I showed my interest in book, i didn’t realise that this in nont fiction book. I hardly read any non-fiction so at first moment i repented when I got review copy but it was not disappointed at all. I liked the fact that author has not looked those in affairs as villian and made book interesting with lot of short stories probably from his clients 🙂

My Rating – 3/5

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at  “http://www.blogadda.com

“>BlogAdda.com</a>. Participate now to get free books!

 

 

Sister of my Heart – Book Review 1

Title:           Sister of My Heart

Author:     Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Price:           INR. 812/-

 

Anju and Sudha are cousin not by blood relation but due to different kind of love which evolves from the day they were born on same day. They are lucky enough to get love of three mother but their father’s died before they were born due to an accident on adventurous trip. Anju belongs to upper class , typical, orthodox Chatterjee family and Sudha is distant cousin who stay at Anju’s house with her widow mother.

 

Anju is rebellious, book lover, practical and Sudha is day dreamer, one who think her life is fairytale and one day prince charming will come and rescue her from this traditional house. Anju want to study till college and Sudha want to open her own business.  Anju always protect Sudha from her ill mouthed mother and Sudha always want Anju to be happy. Anju’s mother  is bread earner of family and Sudha’s mother Nalini and her aunt Pishi take care of house.

 

One day Sudha got to know abt secret of their father’s death and her feeling toward Anju changed. She was no longer equal to Anju and she feel indebite to Anju’s family.

 

As always things didn’t turn out as planned and family decided to get girls married after their  12th exam. Sudha could go against her mother’s will and said yes instantly. Anju tried to rebel but found herself  saying yes after a heated argument with her mother.  Bond between sister shake when Anju saw her bridegroom falling over Sudha. She felt a pang of jealousy toware her sister of heart.

 

Sudha got married in traditional home of Bardhaman and easily fit into role of good bahu who do everything at her mom in law’s will .  Anju went to America with her husband and start college and was leading comfortable life when tragedy strikes her and she look toward sudha for help

 

Will Sudha sacrifice again her happiness for Anju ?

Whats the secret of their father’s death ?

 

Books is full of secret and every chapter reveal one secret. Go and read to know the answers 🙂

 

My take on book :-> Mesmerizing, one book which remains with you for longer time. Its written in poetic tone and you feel enthrall with each page. I felt as if I am in Chatterjee’s house, and I am going through same emotion as the sister. I totally loved the book and feel sad when it end.  Loved following lines most

 

“You must make your own happiness. You must be wise enough to recognize it when it comes. And if it doesn’t come in spite of all your efforts, you must do something about that as well.”

“Isn’t it funny, that sometimes the things we’ve feared the most, year after year, turns out to be the best thing that could have happened to us?”

There is sequel “Vines of Desire” and I have already ordered it 🙂

 

Rating – 5/5