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This book was my first foray into non-fiction this year. I believe that human beings, with our incessant need for order and meaning, are obsessed with stories and the deeper meaning that lie behind them. This is exactly why I prefer learning about abstract concepts narrated through a well fleshed out story where the ensconced idea gets communicated in a much better manner as opposed to works of non-fictions where they’re presented, cooked and cleaned, with minimal seasoning to make it palatable for the masses. ...

As a reader, I have always been predisposed to seek out “happy books” - the ones with stories where things eventually work out, where the hero accomplishes his quest, where peace is restored in the realm, and where people “lived happily every after”. In these stories death, despair, and sadness caused by heinous crimes were nothing but decoy targets that were used to accentuate and make the eventual triumph of all that is good even more satisfying. They were analyzed and enjoyed merely as instruments of comparison, a convenient plot point, which would eventually be swept under the rug and forgotten in the face of the grand conclusion. This book threw all of those expectations out the window. It spat in the face of my conventional expectations and brought me face to face with some unsavory subjects which I had tried hard to avoid all my life. ...

Book 1 / 15 Being the first part in a long fantasy series, a fair bit of time is spent establishing the world, the characters, and the lore. Despite this overhead, the author has managed to weave a story of adventure and suspense that swoops you in from the start. If you’ve read Lord Of The Rings or any of the other fantasy novels, you’ll find a fair bit of similarities and a sprinkling of the most common tropes. Refreshingly, Robert Jordan has kept his focus on the plot without delving into meaningless drivel about trees and outbursts of songs like Tolkien. ...

This is one of those books which I abandoned midway on my first try. Seeing the growing collection of unread titles on my kindle shelf forced me to come back to it, instead of finding solace in a new shiny title. Carl Sagan, being the exemplary scientist that he is, has not taken the medium of science fiction lightly. This is a book that is strongly rooted in “real” science. Wherever possible, Sagan has referenced and pointed to actual rules, laws, and discoveries. Much like most science fiction, Contact tries to use the tapestry and freedom afforded by this unencumbered genre of story telling to discuss and draw light on a message much deeper and more complicated than what the story holds. ...

There’s famous talk by Kurt Vonnegut where he details the shapes of stories. Most ‘boy meets girl’ tales have a predictable shape - there’s a high in the beginning, when the titular characters meet; a brief period of joy. It is followed by a dip, a change in the story arc where there are bad / unfavourable events. The characters are put into adverse conditions and they are moulded by it. In the final leg, they come out better on the other side, their relationship stronger than before, revitalised even, with a couple of steamy scenes thrown in for good measure. We, as readers, are aware of the story arc and we almost expect it. We choose these books for the familiar comfort that it provides through its crests and troughs. It’s a story arc that’s close to our heart. ...