Travel With Books!

  *No-spoiler Alert* A gothic novella which doesn't scare but teaches to love and spread smiles! A timeless Christmas classic with a spirit of love and giving. A stern, dry, skinflint Mr. Scrooge is paid visitations from his long-lost friend Marley and the spirits of Past, Present, Future during Christmas eve. These encounters mellow down his hardened spirit and renders a change of heart. He becomes happy as an angel, merry as a schoolboy and as giddy as a drunken man.  In short, he is altered from a hardened monster into a human which we all are supposed to be.  A totally splendid light-hearted one-sitting read. "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future." 5 stars for this. Shall read it every Christmas from this year onwards.

  "No-spoiler Alert" For me Northanger Abbey wasn't a casual pick, but a much-awaited pick for the first-written novel of Jane Austen from my most-admired Regency Era.  Naivety, lies, ignorance, innocence, parental tyranny, filial disobedience, all intricately and cleanly knitted into and around "Northanger Abbey".  For me the ignorance and innocence of our naïve and pretty heroine Catherine, speaks aloud about our then young Jane Austen. Usually, the first-ever novels of writers speaks volumes about their own persona.  Be it Isabelle's vivacity and proclivity towards lies , or the self-conceit of Mr. Tilney to the delicate-woven love between Catherine and Henry, it is a perfect gothic yet-not-so gothic but sheer-love mystery. Henry and Catherine are inextricable towards the end. I patiently waited to know more about Henry and his pursuits, but Jane Austen dabbled more into introducing Catherine into the gothic setup of our favorite Northanger Abbey. NB- I w...