Orbis Terrarum Challenge - Round up

Am finally done with the OT reading challenge hosted by Bethany. This was my first ever reading challenges and I completely enjoyed it!! If not for this challenge, I would have probably never read books from so many different countries :)

Here's the list of my 9 books with the links to the reviews -
1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan)
2. Sister of my Heart - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (India)
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan)
4. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Russia)
5. The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak (Turkey/Armenia)
6. In the Country of Men - Hisham Matar (Libya)
7. Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Adichie (Nigeria)
8. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (England)
9. After Dark - Haruki Murakami (Japan)

[Click here if you are interested to read more ]

Violet Hill...

This song 'Violet Hill' (Alternate Rock genre) is by the band Coldplay from one of their recent albums Viva la Vida or Death and all his friends (released May 2008). It is supposed to be the group's latest & first single..

I heard bits of it on Zee Cafe yesterday and it really caught my attention, so downloaded it immediately and have listened to it like a zillion times by now! I absolutely loved the music and even the lyrics... During its first radio play, this song is supposed to have gotten about 600,000 downloads!!

I have always loved Coldplay's deep and soulful style.... It's nice to see that the band is still making such wonderful music even after the massive success of A Rush of blood to the Head and X&Y.


Was a long and dark December
From the rooftops I remember
There was snow
White snow
Clearly I remember
From the windows they were watching
While we froze
Down below
When the future’s architecture
By a carnival of idiots on show
You’d better lie low
If you love me
Won’t you let me know?

Was a long and dark December
When the banks became cathedrals
And the fog
Became God
Priests clutched onto bibles
Hollowed out to fit their rifles
And the cross was held aloft
Bury me in honor
When I’m dead and hit the ground
A love back home unfolds
If you love me
Won’t you let me know?
I don’t want to be a soldier
Who the captain of some sinking ship
Would stow, far below
So if you love me
Why’d you let me go?
I took my love down to Violet Hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still
So if you love me
Won’t you let me know?
If you love me,
Won’t you let me know?

Welcome to the new look!

I was experimenting with templates for my book blog and found this current template which I really liked, so thought of updating this blog as well since I was getting bored with the coffee cup design.. I kinda liked the way it has turned out! :) There's more space for the posts and the sidebar also has 2 columns, so that lets me add more widgets and customize the look of my blog...
It also has a set of links on the header bar which gives it a 'tabbed' look that helps me categorize... Also liked the new blog-roll widget which sorts the blogs based on the most recent updates....

Will add a few more things soon.....enjoy the new look! :)

Book Review: Purple Hibiscus

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Pages: 307
My Rating: 2.5/5

After reading a couple of excellent reviews about this book I decided to pick it up as part of my Orbis Terrarum Challenge. This one is a debut novel of a Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie, who is also the author of 'Half of a Yellow Sun' , winner of the Orange Broadbank Prize for Fiction-2007. Amazon reviews give a rating of 4.5/5 for Purple Hibiscus, but for some reason I just didnt enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Maybe I had very high expecations from it![...Click here to read the complete review...]

Show me the money..

A great article by Thomas.L.Friedman on Obama........... a must read! He always amazes me with his writings!


[President Bush, because he was so easily demonized, made being a free-rider on American power easy for everyone — and Americans paid the price. Obama will not make it so easy.
So to everyone overseas I say: thanks for your applause for our new president. I’m glad you all feel that America “is back.” If you want Obama to succeed, though, don’t just show us the love, show us the money. Show us the troops. Show us the diplomatic effort. Show us the economic partnership. Show us something more than a fresh smile. Because freedom is not free and your excuse for doing less than you could is leaving town in January.....]