World of Books and Travel

Recently I travelled to Barcelona with my family. Barcelona, the beautiful capital city of Spain, had been one of my must visit places in the list. We travelled from London to Barcelona by flight and we had already booked an accommodation in advance. Barcelona is packed with historical buildings, parks, museums, beaches and shopping centres. Like many others, we too used a hop on hop off bus for sight seeing. Sagrada Familia is one of the top attractions of Barcelona. It is one of Antonio Gaudi's famous works in Barcelona.  The construction of this giant Basilica was started in 1882 and still it is not completed.  Since there was a long queue for the entry to the church we didn't spend our time to see inside.                                                                         ...

1. “Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.” -                Anais Nin 2. “As a writer you should not judge. You should understand.”      -           Ernest Hemingway 3. “Talented writing makes things happen in the reader’s mind — vividly, forcefully — that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn’t.”     -       -  Samuel Delaney 4. “Short stories demand a certain awareness of one’s own intentions, a certain narrowing of the focus.” -             Joan Didion           5.    All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and sur...

About the Book: Perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes’s, Me Before You, My Last Love Story is a heartbreakingly romantic tale about the complexities of trauma and whether love can right a wrong. I, Simeen Desai, am tired of making lemonade with the lemons life has handed me. Love is meant to heal wounds. Love was meant to make my world sparkle and spin. Love has ripped my life apart and shattered my soul.  I love my husband, and he loves me. But Nirvaan is dying. I love my husband. I want to make him happy. But he is asking for the impossible.  I don’t want a baby. I don’t want to make nice with Zayaan. I don’t want another chance at another love story.  Book Links: Goodreads  *  Amazon US  *  Amazon IN Interview 1. When did you realize that there is a writer in you? In 2010, when my m...

O.Henry, the popular American short story writer, says the following about the secret of Short Story writing. O.Henry was the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910). "I'll give you the sole secret of short-story writing, and here it is: Rule 1. Write stories that please yourself. There is no rule Rule 2. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public." Some of his popular short stories - An Afternoon Miracle A Car Loan The Detective Detector Hearts and Hands The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson The Last Leaf

1. “A novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the matter must rest.” —Thomas Hardy 2.“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” —Oscar Wilde 3.“Begin with an individual, and before you know it you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find you have created—nothing.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald 4.“Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.” —Philip Roth 5.“If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.” —Margaret Atwood 6.“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.” —Gerald Brenan 7. “Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think about what you shall write.” —William Cobbett 8.“Love is the only energy I’ve ever used as a writer. I’ve never written out of anger, although anger has informed love.” —Athol Fugard

Happy Vishu to all my friends. Vishu is an important festival of Kerala State (India) and it is celebrated as the New Year of the State, and even considered as an auspicious day. This regional New Year is celebrated in many other states of India too, but with different names. The year 2016 Vishu is a bit different to me. I am celebrating my Vishu with my daughter and family at London. My little grandson (6 plus) is highly enthralled to see the Vishukkani, early in the morning. He unusually was up from his bed earlier than his usual time and began to call me out. He wanted me to bring him with his eyes closed, to see the Vishukkani. After seeing the Vishukkani, I gave him vishukkaineetam and he was even more thrilled. He was eager to go and talk about it with his friends in the school. Though his mother used to keep Vishukkani every year, this year it was altogether a different experience to him. More about Vishu can be read here and here.

Image courtesy: Wikipedia Swami Vivekananda (12/01/1863 - 04/07/1902) was one of the most influential spiritual leaders of Vedanta Philosophy. He played a major role in spiritual enlightenment of Indian masses and spread Vedanta philosophy in the West. He was the chief discipline of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and established Ramakrishna Mission and Ramakrishna Math. Take a few moments to read some great sayings of Swami Vivekananda. 1. Take up one idea. Make that one idea of your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. 2. Man is like an infinite spring, coiled up in a small box, and that spring is trying to unfold itself; and all the social phenomena that we see are the result of this trying to unfold. 3. Our duty is to encourage everyone in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same...