Thursday, April 9, 2015

The Time Machine

by HG Wells

Front CoverThis book must have been sitting in my Kindle for ages. Anyways, I got around to reading it whilst the wife was shopping. I finished this book in one day, because shopping is soooo boring and I just was hanging around the mall reading this the whole time whole wife was shopping.

Anyways, a classic. Very good read. It is a story about a nameless time traveller, who journeys into the future. A lot of interesting things happen, where humans are not humans and there are a lot of strange beings around. To me, this is a great achievement in the writing because the author still manages to capture my imagination even though this story is so old. What I mean is, with Sci-Fi sometimes as time past, it gets dated. But not this. There is a fine balance of detail on the write aspects, and vagueness in others. There are several points where the author extends the political ideas and extrapolates it into a very strange projection for the distant future though. Though a bit odd, it is still not completely weird even today to have those points of views. Anyways, I am rambling, because I'm sleepy. I enjoyed this book. I actually watched the movie with Guy Pearce in it before I read this. I liked that movie, and I am pleasantly surprised that I liked the book too, since they are not really the same story. Usually I do not like when the book and movie depart from each other. But both these work good stories.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

by Haruki Murakami

Image result for colorless tsukuru tazaki and his years of pilgrimageRead this book because my wife introduced me to it, saying it was quite well known. Well yes, it was quite engaging and I stayed up a bit late for a few nights just to finish it. It was a really interesting read. The story was simply about a man's life from a small town then moving to Tokyo and the occurrences as he grew up, the friends he had and the life he led. It was really a simple story but well-written. I guess the last time I had this sort of feeling was when I read Knut Hamsun's stories. But I think Hamsun's was better. The ending was open-ended though. I would have liked a bit more closure. I know this is not a very good book review, I read it about a month or so ago. I should probably write these when they are fresh in my mind...