Auguries Review: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

This book is an expert research work of non-fiction and makes a very interesting and captivating read. Investigating into the investigations of murders in Osage county where most of the Osage tribe members were decimated, David Grann has gone into minor and deep detail of the events and characters of the killers.

In a scale of 20 we give this book a 19.25. Definitely a must read! 

Auguries Review: Idaho by Emily Ruskavich

A word of caution- Idaho is not a psycho murder mystery thriller. Keep that in mind before you start reading this book.

Idaho begins with Anna, the wife of Wade, who tries to make sense of a tragedy that befell Wade's life which changed everything as a result of which Wade's ex-wife ends up in jail, his elder daughter disappears and younger daughter murdered.

The book is a tragic prose told from different shifting perspectives and many voices. The narration keeps on switching between present past and future, not in chronological order. The book spans across 1973 to 2025; the tragedy, which is central to the plot happened in 1997. The story progresses at a slow pace with information trickling even more slowly, a bit here another there. At times one is tempted to stop reading the book altogether but the creative writing and rich language keeps one compelled to read further. There are a lot of things which the reader will find hard to comprehend but by the time one will have reached the end one will be satiated.

This is a very brilliant debut novel and in a scale of 20 we give it a 19.25. 

Auguries Review: This Is Your Brain on Parasites by Kathleen McAuliffe

If you have ever wondered why we humans do what we do even if what we do seems irrational, then this book is for you in that it will help you frame your own new hypothesis and make you feel quenched and satiated.

Kathleen McAuliffe, a brilliant science writer has packed this book with loads of knowledge regarding a hitherto lesser known relatively new science of Neuroparasytology.  It tells us of the role played by parasites, bacteria, virus and all sorts of pathogens and the reader will be surprised at how they are manipulating the hosts. Inn fact at a point one comes to wonder whether we are real hosts or we, who  are merely a 10% in our body and they the bulk of 90% are parasites in a body of them.

A remarkably wonderful work, in a scale of 20 we give it a 19.25. Don't miss this one.

Auguries Review: Into The Water by Paula Hawkins

Close in the heels of The Girl On The Train which was made into a movie, Paula Hawkins has yet again presented an equally succulent novel, if not more, which grips you and makes you keep on guessing till the end.

A brilliant plot which begins when a single mother's dead body surfaces from the river as her sister, Jules comes to attend to her funeral and thus follows an unsettling relationship between Jules  and the Lena, the 15 year old daughter of the deceased as Jules probes into the death and also into her past relationship with her sister.

The novel is in no way an echo of The Girl On The Train and has a wide cast of diverse characters in perfect interplay all pegging into a past from where the long arm casts its pall of gloom.

In a scale of 20 we give it 18.75. Don't miss this suspense thriller.

Auguries Review: Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

America is into civil war when Abraham Lincoln's son Willie dies. George Saunders takes it from here and takes us from real circumstances and conditions prevailing at that time with real people and excerpts from newspapers to unreal and imaginary people with distinct and diverse stories all wound up together ultimately leading into emancipation.

This long awaited first novel from well known writer George Saunders is a brilliant work unlike anything ever published. In a scale of 20 we give it a 19.25. 

Auguries review: The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak

A very funny and engrossing debut novel, the book is the story of a 14 year old boy who is not good in studies and thus has to go through all the vagaries of school life - a life comprising failure in academics and a mother who sees the world in the child. The story begins with the boy plotting to obtain an adult magazine with his two close friends. In the process he gets connected to the daughter of the store owner who turns out to match his own interest in computer. As the story progresses ahead, one feels compelled to read on and on as events unfold into a climax in a fast paced book involving a bit of romance and robbery.

In a scale of 20 we give it 18.75. Definitely a must read.

Auguries review: Everything you want me to be by Mindy Mejia

This brilliant novel is a story of a young girl who was found dead and revolves around one year interwoven with her English teacher, her friends and the sheriff who investigates the crime.
The novel is powerful and keeps you guessing till the end. Told in three different voices, this book is a must read.
In a scale of 20 we give it 18.75.

Auguries review: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

A young Saeed meets a young Nadia in a city about to explode into civil war and starting from a relationship inside a classroom without even as much as speaking to each other. As the violence increases and an independent minded Nadia living away from her own disowned parents, yet wearing her head to foot gowns, to be secure against sexual advances, moves over to live with Saeed and his father.  Eventually they are forced to flee from one place to another through a magic door. In the process Mohsin Hamid, the writer, has brought about very minute details of relationship building and deteriorating and again building after their separation as the plot shifts between future, past and present. In the end we have an old Nadia meeting an old Saeed.

This is a very powerful work on relationships amidst changing circumstances and a must read.

In a scale of 20 we give it a clean 19.25.

Auguries Review: The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston

The study begins with the existence of the city as a legend of the ancient Honduras, a city of opulence in the central Honduras, which most people dismiss as a myth and culminates into an exploration of the intractable deadly lands of the rain forests where survival is at stake in spite of all the modern world technological and medical access.

The author starts with the chronology of earlier known expeditions and goes on narrating his first hand account of the Lost City of the Monkey God and then explores the reasons behind the vanishing of the entire culture and natives into oblivion leaving no traces except the artifacts that had been lying untouched.

A brilliant work of extensive research this book is highly recommended. It is a must read.

In a scale of 20 I give it 18.75.

Auguries Review: The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

Her parents went in search of gold up north in a post war kind of world leaving her behind to live with her maternal grandmother she calls Nana and wishes to unite and live with her parents always fighting with Nana. Things change when she is swept by a storm at the age of seven and finds herself deep inside a jungle. All alone and starving wandering around she reaches the hut of a man she calls trapper who lets her eat his meals. He teaches her how to hunt and survive on her own and how to use knife and gun.  She grows up to the age of seventeen when she discovers the true identity of Trapper and gets shattered. Then ensues an adventure as she decides to find her parents and walks all the way up north hiding her tracks.

Beautifully written in a narrative way this is Beth Lewis debut novel. It is a hard to put down book and keeps one hooked to it till the end. 

In a scale of 20 we give it a 19.25. Excellent work.

Auguries Review: Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

Mary Roach has done extensive research on the various theories on digestive system and shared some very brilliant findings about the alimentary canal. It will leave the reader astounded while flipping pages and keep one glued to the book till the end. It is a non-fiction masterpiece published in April 2013. If you haven't read it yet, we recommend that you'd better read it now and enjoy the adventures along the long tube.

In a scale of 20 we give it a 19.25. 

Auguries Review: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

In the form of a memoir written to a son, this is a very brilliant work with deep and in depth research on American history being full of the concept of race. The book delves into how America was built up at the cost of blacks and racism and how black was pitted against black with no security. How generations lived through, mired in fear.

In a scale of 20 we give it an 18.5. It is a must read.

Auguries list of Best Books of 2016

Non-Fiction

REVIEW

Memoirs

Review

                                               

                                                                      

Review

Review

Review

Fiction

Review



Review



Review



Review

Dark Fiction

Review

Suspense Thriller

Finance & markets

Comedy, Fun, entertainer

Swing Time by Zadie Smith : Book review

Swing Time is the story of two brown teenage girls living in houses on opposite sides in the same neighborhood in London. It starts with the two of them going to attend dance classes. The girls have different personalities owing to slight differences in their cultures- and conditions. The novel progresses with one of the two brown girls being the narrator, as they grow up in a complicated world. The narrator gets a secretarial job with a pop singer and traverses across US and Europe and eventually to Africa, Senegal where the pop start wants to run a school as charity. But Zadie Smith has her unique style of coming back to her childhood memories of her friend's as well as her own though less troubled family.

The novel is slow at times but Zadie Smith has brilliantly managed to highlight some very minute and sensitive feelings of female friendship.

In a scale of 20 we give it a 17.25. It's a must read.

The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar : Book Review

This book is a memoir based primarily on the horrific events in the tenure of Qaddafi in Libya and how they effected the lives of the victims. It is about Hisham Matar's family and their times in Libya and Egypt in general and Hisham's own life focusing mostly around Hisham's father, a businessman of Libya, who was abducted from Egypt and confined to the Abu Salem prison in Tripoli. After a general massacre in the prison, his father was neither heard of nor was documented among the prisoners who were killed. This lead to Hisham's quest to establish his father's death to himself so that he can come to terms with it.

Splendidly written this memoir is a must read both as a document and as Hisham's style using catch phrases, flowing across time and places with perfect ease.

In a scale of 20 we give it a 19.

You are there always by Ramakant Pande

You are there always

Do I hear you singing, 
as I think I see you,
behind the rolling fog.

did I feel your touch
in the blowing breeze
in the fragrance of marigold
did I 
smell your presence
do I seek your warmth
in the dying amber
of a dimming Sun
in the growing Autumn
Oh! And did I hear you
in the fallen leaves.

Dawn break, like you,
dispels the dark and like you
the thousand birds in unison
in perfect pitch
singing orchestrating
and I know,
in the opening Sunflower
in the droplets of dew
sliding across the green
leaves of Geranium,
you are there
you will always be.

© Ramakant Pande     

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Hillbilly Elegy is a very bold memoir of a family in particular and perhaps every family in general. It is a gripping description of the culture of Appalachian  whites in USA and what essentials the families lack and give into drug addiction and divorce and give up on anything even before beginning it. The memoir of J D Vance highlights the ills of irresponsible families and although it focuses around the working class in and around his hometown yet the story holds true across countries and continents as the family culture of yore is degrading all over the globe. It carries a very important message which people in the modernized and modernizing world must wake up to.

We give the passionate book an 19 in a scale of 20. A must read.

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis: Book Review

Michael Lewis has come up with yet another brilliant work,something that one may count on as being a biography of the marriage of two minds,that laid the foundations of behavioral economics.
The book is a very interesting account of the lives Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who were so unlike each other, opposite in all conceivable ways yet turned out to be 'fertile couple' and advanced theories that completely changed the human perception of Economics in general and our own study of ourselves in particular. The book is not as much about the results they came up with as much as it is about how they ended up in each others company.It also portrays the ups and downs in their relationship as they work their way through one brilliant concept after another,bringing out the best in each other while acting as the perfect foil to the other.By the end of the book one wonders even about the order  their name should be taken in.
Amos, with his quick wit, and his surgical  mind that could annihilate a potential foe, a people puller who was on the secret shortlist for the Nobel economic prize, died in 1996, estranged from Danny.
Kahneman, who won the Nobel in 2002 for economics, had a hard beginning and was the softer part of this alliance who chose to question his own convictions mercilessly, came into his own slowly after moving out of the penultimate umbra of this relationship.
Still, it was the marriage of these two ends which generated the heuristics and theories of smart thinking, well detailed in this amazing book.
Lewis shows us brilliantly how and why this couple demonstrated how human beings were  not really the ones to think smartly, and how by asking the right questions, one can aim at better decision making in all areas of life.
  Another of the best books of 2016 in the non-fiction category, this book is an essential read. Don't miss this one.

We give it a 19.25 in a scale of 20. 
P.S. Be prepared to feel a sense of loss at the end of the book, as you will never want it to end.Try analyze that, with Kahneman and Tversky as your guides.

Consonance: A poem by Ramakant Pande

Consonance

On waking up

I drift staggering

my way

to the dawn break.

I silence the questions

they have no bearing

as I totter about

in complete surrender

ignoring questions or answers

on what and why.

I look and see and

what I have I mix and fix.

The day beckons me

for reasons

I don't wish to know

have never known

why

I no longer think

and just wander

and do whatever 

it wants me to.

And I work and work

till it 

lays me off,

lets me go

and I 

from the falling dark

hide away to curl

into a cozy warmth

and want it to last

for ever and ever.

Yet when it ends

it all is

all over again

and again and again.

I have no questions, 

I seek no answers

I am and intend to be

in consonance

in resonance 

with it 

to be

just as it needs me to

in its own terms..

.......... Ramakant Pande

© -Consonance-by-Ramakant-Pande

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman : Book Review

Based in Australia of early 20th century, the plot begins with Tom fighting his dark and cold memories of war and unpleasant past he had with his father for having deprived him of his mother as Tom gets posted as a keeper of a lighthouse. On the way he meets Isabel, the love of his life. They get married and Isabel happily moves with him to live a shared life in the square mile island and things change for Tom. But having given birth to 3 still borns, Isabel is shattered till one day when a three month child is washed ashore on a boat with a dead man. Isabel forces Tom to keep the baby and tell the world that finally Isabel gave birth to a healthy daughter Lucy. The story from here on is a fight between conscience and wish, between promises and one will find it hard to pause reading.

The book is a very touching and will at times make you feel as if you are there with the characters.

On a scale of 20 we give it a 19.5. It's one of the best novels of 2016. Read it if you haven't already!

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren: Book Review

Lab Girl is an excellent memoir and one of the best books in non-fiction category. Hope Jahren has been very bold and brilliant with careful and impressive choice of the events of her life that she has narrated finding a parallel in her field of interest namely soil, seeds, roots, stems, branches and the bio chemicals of the plant growth and its struggle against all odds.

A must read in a scale of twenty we give it a 19.5.

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney: Book Review

The Nest is a novel woven around a family and the description of all the people related to the two brothers and two sisters including the family itself is captured in deep detail and is engrossing till the end. The father of the family had set up a trust and had willed that a certain amount should be handed over to the four siblings when the youngest of them attains the age of 40. However, the eldest son gets engaged in a sexual scam and the mother had to salvage her own reputation as well as that of the son by blowing away the trust money in hushing up the incident. The younger siblings were, however, waiting for the trust money to mend their own lives and debts.

The remarkable point of the well knit plot is that very fine points of human psychology have been brought up all through the book with a plethora of characters, each of who is examined in detail.

In a scale of twenty we give it a 16.5. It is a must read.