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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. ...

A gripping tale of an entire valley that covers the lives and thoughts of 3 generations. In under 700 pages, Steinbeck has managed to capture the imagination with characters so real and flushed out that you see a part of yourself in everyone. He has masterfully woven a story that sucks you in from the very beginning, where the characters seem real to the point where you get emotionally invested in them. For me, this was a masterclass in the study on human character, particularly how we deal with feelings of virtue and guilt. ...

The best book I’ve read this year.