When the loss is so great that you can’t help but feel depressed
Here’s an island where things start disappearing one after the other. After every disappearance, it’s inhabitants sharply feel sense the loss but it lasts for all of a day and then they don’t even remember what they have lost. All that is left is a hole in their soul. Pretty much like what we feel now. Never has the feeling of a blowing breeze felt so pleasant, never has the sound of your loved ones far away felt so reassuring, never has having food on your table felt so gratifying or the fact that you still remember what it feels like to drive or take a long walk or for that matter have roof over your head. What happens if you begin to forget how those things feel, what happens when you can’t remember any of those things ever existed. Here’s a story of the ultimate loss – forgetting that it ever existed. But what happens to those who remember? Read The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa to know.
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Almost all first Love Stories are tragic, but this one is beautiful, too.
A befitting tale of three persons with intertwined emotions of love, friendship, desolation, all in equal proportions. Van Gogh’s omnipresence across the landscape makes this more of a time transcending painting, rather than just a literary masterpiece. In pursuit of myriad unrequited shades of spring colours, it’s an amorous story that takes you on a journey of redemption and love, devoid of any conventional boundaries. As the curtains come down on this epic human drama, all that you would be left with is how relationships can be equally complicated and liberating, how art can transpire defiance and finally, how grief has the power to make love stories timeless!
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When you’ve finished watching the final season of GOT and are looking for something wildly adventurous and mysterious
Set in post war Barcelona, in 1911, Daniel’s father, a book dealer initiates him into a members only secret club where a treasure trove of rare books are preserved, and he gets to chose and keep one book. Daniel picks The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. As Daniel learns more about Julian Carax, secrets begin to unravel and he is hunted by someone who has been carefully destroying copies of Julian Carax’s books. What is the mystery behind Julian Carax and why did he disappear from Barcelona? Who is Nuria Manfort and what does she have to do with The Shadow of the Wind? What does Penelope have to do with Carax’s disappearance? Why is mysterious man threatening Daniel to get rid of the book? And why is the loathed Inspector Fumero hot on his tail? Who is the eccentric Fermin Romero de Torres and how is he entangled in this riveting tale of doomed love, tyranny and murder? Read this incredible, spell binding journey into ruins, labyrinth, pebbled streets and haunted mansions of Barcelona which are vividly brought to life.
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When you feel helpless at the state of the society
The harrowing tale of the Gwangju student uprising and its violent suppression by the military. As our world is in upheaval with crimes against humanity going unaccounted for, this book compels you to ask – what does it mean to be human? It’s a tribute to human spirit in the worst moments of history; it’s also inhuman acts laid bare – the brutal apathy of it. It asks, “why must we fight oppression when nothing changes?”, but it also asks, “why exist at all if not for others?” Unimaginable cruelty and unimaginable kindness – for these are all human acts.
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When the relationships you have carefully nurtured fall apart
Olga’s marriage, nurtured at the sacrifice of her own identity, falls apart as her husband abandons his family for a younger woman. Ferrante has no penchant for subtlety or the cliché of delicate femininity. She throws all the anger of abandonment at your face – the rage at having given everything and having got back nothing. The ugliness of absolute deterioration as she fails at every minor duty. The infallibility and confidence of being a man; the vulnerability of being a woman. A society that expects her to forgive, forget and recover. The anger is not just Olga’s, but every woman’s.
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A Suitable Friend
You have heard this one before. You have probably even lived through it. The Suitable Boy is about the Indian mother’s greatest predicament: finding the perfect groom for her daughter. It’s set against the backdrop of a newborn nation in its formative years. A nation with a quivering voice and a pencil moustache. While a young woman searches for her suitable boy, a young nation finds its footing. Somewhere, it becomes the story of all our beginnings. Therefore a must-read. The Suitable Boy is an old friend of mine, and I hope even you find some solace in this friendship.
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If you are going through a rough patch
A paying guest becomes a part of the Joshi family and overturns the life of two siblings after he vanishes. The book takes you on the journey of how one copes with grief. What are the defence mechanisms one uses? How does one recuperate or not? What pain is? What shock is? What does it feel to be deserted? If you are going through a rough patch. Do pick up the book and give it a read. If nothing else, it helps you reason with yourself and gives you the support that you are not alone.
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When you are unsure where you belong
Commonwealth foll
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When your past haunts every interaction in the present
An estranged family comes together to care for a dying family member. All the bitter memories, so carefully kept at bay, come crashing back in. Past becoming the third person in every interaction – permeating into every present feeling; becoming a comfortable anchor that one holds onto, not letting ourselves heal or re-evaluate history from the lens of empathy rather than anger. Seeing the past in tones of grey and black, as if any interlude of light was unreal. The bad decisions; insecurities; the unforgiving oppressiveness of families. A look at how the only way forward is to let go.
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When you feel stifled by social structures
Stories that portray the quiet desperation of women in the post-war, middle-class England. Bending under the weight of duty. Waking up one morning and realising you have not lived at all. The contradiction of having everything you ever wanted but feeling as if you are still waiting. Yearning to express, yet hiding because you are scared. All the respectable, organised, confident exteriors that make up lives; all the fragile, frustrated, messy interiors. And despite all the daily disappointments, the comfort of good people and knowing that you are loved. You will find yourself in each of these stories.
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When you have become a stranger to your own life
Nora, a repressed school teacher, is transformed when she meets Sirena, an artist. We have all been the “woman upstairs” – nice, selfless, forgotten. She is the controlled façade who you look to for stability and look away when she seems human. Outside she is marble; inside, feeling the weight of an uneventful life. Dreams of a transcending life stabbed through by reality. She is the bastion of duty. While she smiles benevolently at everyone, she is raging inside, overwhelming despair threatening to come to the surface. Nora is not one woman – she is every woman you have known or been yourself.
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When the world as you know it unravels
The lyrical exploration of grief through the eyes of 6-year-old Rufus in the aftermath of his father’s death. Along with Rufus, we understand what death means – how it can seem so incomprehensibly absolute. What do you do when the life you have so carefully nurtured collapses? When the unthinkable happens and life comes to a standstill? The endless waiting to make sense of an unknowable world, the hoping, and the fading optimism. What and who can hold you together then? This book says that while one cannot escape unscathed, it is still possible for life to move again.
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When you need to heal
In the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack, Mrs Delahunty, a middle-aged woman, invites her fellow survivors to recuperate in her villa. A tragedy shared between people who would have never crossed paths. We have been here. Halted lives when faced with indescribable grief. Feeling as if you are disappearing into yourself. Then there is a kind voice, a helping hand to lift one from a seemingly endless pit. Compassion received from whom you had never even considered before. Suddenly, life moves again. Trevor celebrates the power of humanity to heal one another.
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