The saga continues in ‘World Without End’ by Ken Follett

I had read Ken Follett’s most popular novel ‘Pillars of the Earth’, the prequel to the World Without End, in 2011. I had thoroughly enjoyed the first book and had been delaying the reading of the sequel because I have had this troubling fear and hence a bias that sequels are often notoriously disappointing. But given that it has been a decade since my reading of Pillar of the Earth I decided recently to read the book finally.

(To be updated soon)

Aliens among us in ‘The Humans’ by Matt Haig

The Humans by Matt Haig reminds one of the currently running TV show Resident Alien with Alan Tudyk, Star Wars and Firefly fame, as the alien in residence. In The Humans, an alien comes to the planet earth with a goal to destroy a mathematician who has, coincidentally, solved the Reimann Hypothesis which remains, in real life also, the biggest unsolved mathematical equation on prime numbers. Our alien is supposed to find the proof and destroy it and along with all the individuals who have received even a slightest idea of the equation being proved by the Cambridge University professor Andrew Martin who also happens to be a well known mathematician at Fitzwilliam College.

Longing in the “Lonesome Dove”

Lonesome Dove is technically, if you can discount Steinbeck, my first venture into the Wild West setting in a book. Though the book starts slow and takes a couple of hundred of pages to take up the pace, the wait was certainly rewarding.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Our protagonist in the novel, Adelene, is born in the countryside of 18th century France and is kind of a rebel for her times. We find her experiencing cold feet at her wedding ceremony and later she runs away only to meet the devil himself. Now, the author gives us the age old Dorian Grey kind of scenario in which our dame Addie exchanges her soul for eternal life. This part does not get old. So by 2014 she is already 300 years old girl but there is flip side to it. I mean we are talking about the devil himself. The devil does not play fair. Right! So he gives her immortality but makes sure that nobody remembers her the moment they take their eyes of her. Its Dorian Grey and Memento mixed together but in this case its the other person who loses memory of ever having met the protagonist even though they have just talked to our poor protagonist. I think this is the most novel aspect of the story.