Sid

After finishing this masterpiece, I was reminded of a film reviewer on Letterboxd who used to say that the interpretation of a piece of media, once it reaches the stage of public consumption, does not solely lie in the hands of the creator. In terms of that, you could make numerous interpretations of this novel, and all of them would fall short of capturing its essence – that's how open to interpretation The Vegetarian is.
Asides from the obvious metaphors of alienation, and stigmatisation when people don't stick to societal norms, there's a study in contrast to how various characters live their lives. Yeong-hye lives in flights of fancy; near the end she feels detached from her mortal shell to the point that she believes she can survive on sunlight. Mr Cheong lives a mundane existence and does not want to overthink his sense of purpose and seeming mediocrity – he just is.
In-hye lives a mundane existence, but she tries to find peace in being a beacon and always being a receiver than a giver. She assists her sister because it is the right thing to do, even when her parents abandon Yeong-hye. I found In-hye's husband the most fascinating, as well as the most repulsive. There is no sympathy you should feel towards his heinous actions – but because humans are predictably irrational, I did so anyway. He makes astounding leaps in logic because he wants to act out on his desires for the worse, but then again – who doesn't?
There's a lot more to talk about for this particular novel from my end, but since it's not even two hundred pages long – I'd strongly advise anyone who's not already read this to devour this whenever they can. Sure, it can be (understandably) divisive – but where's the fun without minimalist and yet seemingly full writing?

It's a shame I could never get around to reading this - because this is a masterpiece, in the truest sense of the word.
All of us know the gist, as Frankenstein's monster is a huge part of popular culture - Victor Frankenstein, a committed science student, discovers the secret of ‘animation' - the process by which life is injected into a body. He then attempts to create a sentient creature, and does so - but repulsed at his own creation, he deserts the creature. What happens in the novel is simply repercussions for the same.
But what really made the novel work was its maddeningly beautiful prose, and the sheer tragedy of the villain, Frankenstein's monster. Deprived of human affection due to his monstrous appearance, you feel for him, even though your sympathies are strongly tested. But Shelley's command of the language is unparalleled - you can visualize the downfall of both Victor and his creation, and it is just heart-rending to witness.
Another striking thing about the novel is the pacing - it is simultaneously beautiful and wretched to witness. It is an exercise in futility to think of all the ‘what-ifs', alluded so casually by Shelley at numerous parts of the novel. In fact, at some point, you just have to stop to take a deep breath, because it is so pulse-pounding.
I was thinking Frankenstein would be another one of those ‘classics', solely read because it's on all of those ‘best of all time' and ‘trope creator' lists. I will gladly admit though, that I have never been more glad to be proven so wrong.

Right from the first paragraph, you know that you are in for a dark and dreary ride. A few pages in, you'll wonder why you're reading this. But a few chapters in, you'll marvel in sheer awe at Ryu Murakami's morbid writing style and plot devices - and how radically different they are, as compared to another Murakami you might know.
This rollercoaster ride follows the tale of two foster brothers, Kiku and Hashi - both abandoned at birth, and growing up warped as a result. Both find their lives extremely wanting, and as a result, find different ways to cope with the emotional baggage they lug around - one finds solace in singing, and one in DATURA - a mind-bending plot device that you have to read to believe.
This is the polarizing kind of masterpiece that you'll forever be in two minds of - in happiness that it exists, as a fine example of human creativity, and despair that a human mind managed to think up of the plot, the scenery and the characters. If alcohol were a book - this would be it. Always enjoyed in small doses, and difficult to return to once finished - because you don't want the hangover again.

It is extremely difficult to convey the range of emotions evoked in words, once you've finished this masterpiece - Kirino is simply astounding, beyond words.
It looks like a simple enough plot at first glance - in a fit of rage, a staid Japanese housewife working the night-shift at a lunchbox factory murders her husband in a fit of rage at his emotional and physical abuse. She approaches her dependable co-worker for help, who ropes in two of their mutual acquaintances for disposing the body. They are determined, but inexperienced - and the detectives and yakuza (the Japanese mob) is baying for blood.
But what blew my mind away is the sheer twists this story takes, with the narrative taking you along for a roller-coaster ride that you never want to end. As far as characters go, they are so developed, that they almost seem to protrude through the pages. Masako, the aforementioned dependable co-worker who is approached for help, is so brilliantly written that you sometimes feel that she is based on a real woman, somewhere out there in the Japanese suburbs.
The pacing, characters, narrative - all of it is perfectly blended. And the plot elements, uncommon in Japanese fiction (assault, murder, prostitution) enhance the narrative rather than detracting from it. It is exhilarating from start to finish, and should not be missed - every word written in praise for it will be a disservice. Natsuo Kirino's tour de force will haunt me for a long, long time to come.

I thought I knew the scale of the surveillance that the NSA (the National Security Agency, a premier American intelligence agency) was conducting on its citizens (and through various alliances, any Web traffic that passed through its borders) - but to read about it in its full and chilling detail is astounding.
To give a brief background, Edward Snowden is famous (or depending upon your views on whistleblowers, infamous) for leaking, in explicit detail, how the US had built a massive surveillance program to spy on its own citizens, in the guise of ‘protecting the country from terrorists'. To put it simply, anyone who was deemed even slightly suspicious had a ‘marker' placed upon them (for example, a professor who applied for tenure in a university in Iran). This marker meant that everything - where you eat, where you go, who you meet with - was tracked. This was not even the most chilling fact - the cherry on the cake was the fact that everything that was tracked was permanently stored, and the aforementioned marker could be placed even if the person ‘could be suspected in the future' - hence the title of the memoir, ‘Permanent Record'.
Naturally, these revelations performed a furore. The United States revoked his passport midair, while he was enroute to Ecuador, where he was offered asylum. He has been in forced exile in Russia since he landed in the airport, in June 2013.
In the memoir, though, Snowden details how he became interested in programming, how he became a defense contractor working for various intelligence agencies, and why he actually became a whistelblower. Even putting aside the unsettling nature of the disclosures, this is a riveting read on its own, as Snowden details his own life in vivid detail, and how his experiences shaped him. A must read if you're curious about cybersecurity, privacy, or just in the mood of rich memoirs.

I was blown away upon finishing this work, no doubt - but not in the way I expected. I didn't expect this to be amazing, don't get me wrong, but this novel just managed to cross the ‘decent' bar, and that was solely due to a few memorable scenes encountered in the middle of the book.
There was absolutely no characterization to speak of. The main characters were poorly developed, and this was compounded by the fact the language of the book is absolutely steeped in metaphor - there's a figure of speech every two lines or so. Half of the book contents could easily be trimmed.
If this was not already enough, the narrator has the excessively annoying tendency to spoil the plot many, many pages in advance. Hence, there is no buildup of tension, and the language or the characters don't come across as particularly deep (as already said above), so there's no justification of the plot being sidelined in favor of developing the characters.
The ending was also a big letdown. Not to spoil it, but suffice to say it completely broke any sense of immersion one might be preserving till then.
Keeping in mind this is a children's book, this was still a mediocre read. Would not recommend, if you've not read it already.

This was one of the most clever tales I've had the fortune of reading - but also one of the most contrived.
From the very beginning, the author makes it clear that Grenouille, the antagonist, is nothing to root for - he has no semblance of a conscience, for starters. And while you want to explore such an original character further (a person with a supernatural sense of smell), his character development is diluted in favor of showing the reader how perfumes are made, imitated, and even reverse-engineered - which tends to get on your nerves after a while.
If you can stand a linear narrative, and don't mind reading up on a completely new subject (because let's be honest - who has ever read up on how, exactly, the smell of jasmine flowers is imbibed through oils?), then this book is a must read. The plot idea alone is worthy of praise - the plot is just icing on the cake.

I am lost for words after finishing the final entry of this trilogy - it took every expectation I had of it, destroyed it to smithereens, and came up with something unprecedented.
With this concluding work, Cixin Liu has cemented his place among the greats - this is the best hard sci-fi work written since Asimov's ‘The Last Question'. The works of sci-fi landing in ‘unprecedented scope' was generally mutually exclusive with ‘actually mind-blowing for once', but Cixin Liu has demolished those barriers effortlessly.
It moves so much beyond its initial foundations of first contact that it is barely recognisable - but it is all the more better for it, as it is not chained to a particular niche. Exploring concepts as varied as dimensional flattening and time warping, and making sure that the plot stays on track, is an underappreciated talent that potential sci-fi writers would do good to take note of.
This series is the closest I've seen a sci-fi series come to the platonic ideal of ‘sci-fi' - the literature of ideas. The trilogy is a must read for anyone who has ever read sci-fi and would like a more serious take on it.

This is one of the greatest hard sci-fi series I've ever read, and I've not even read the final part of the trilogy.
The main problem of the previous part of the book was the characterization - this part solved it, and how! The characters are not paper cutouts, for once, and Cixin just loves to string along the reader on tangents that are absolutely relevant to the plot - you just realize it later.
And the way seemingly disparate elements like eleven-dimensional particles and cosmic sociology are harmonically merged is nothing short of mind-blowing. The sci-fi part of the book is not at all difficult to grasp, but it still manages to hold your attention all the same, since it takes every trope about sci-fi and first contact there is - and throws it out of the window.
To summarize, I would recommend this series to everyone who has the slightest bit of interest in how futuristic science will look like - this book is sheer, unadulterated delight.

Take the Cultural Revolution - one of the most unprecedented phases in Chinese history, the actions of which could be easily labelled as an Orwellian.

Now add micro-dimensions (postulated dimensions existing beyond the normal four dimensions of space and time), first contact (debating on how humans will establish contact with aliens, and its consequences), and the three body problem (a famous classical mechanics problem which states that in a system of three bodies, it is impossible to predict any future configuration) to the already volatile mix.

Add in dry character development, and what looks like a clichéd plot at first glance. The result should have been an implosion - but thankfully, it is not. It is, instead, one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever produced. It is fine, distilled art in a hitherto unforeseen form.

There is no point in putting my words in this review - because it is impossible to write down the emotions evoked. Tranquility and anger to sheer, unbridled awe - this novel makes you feel them all, and more.

TL;DR - if you're a fan of hard sci-fi (tinged with a significant dose of reality, so not recommended for the casual reader) novels, or are thinking of getting into them, give this a chance. You'll never be the same again.

(4.5, rounded down to 4)
‘Kane and Abel' is a very clear cut novel - follows the life journeys of two people, Abel Rosnovski and William Kane, born on the same date - whose circumstances cause them to grow up drastically different, but later they clash with each other heavily - causing them to disregard everything around them for revenge.
This is a marvellous piece of fiction, but as much as I want to sing this novel's praises, it lets you down at several points - for example, the character motivations of Kane and Abel, the titular characters.
Even though the book describes the odysseys of Kane and Abel in excruciating detail, I still got the feeling that both could be further developed. This complaint was repeated with several characters, all of whom are described (and developed) in zero detail. The plot also slows down heavily in the last quarter of the book - the part where ideally, I should have been the most excited.
Barring that, the first two parts of the novel, and the ending - are one of the best in modern dramatized fiction I've encountered so far. Will definitely be returning to Jeffrey Archer in the future.

Vonnegut's masterpiece, ‘Slaughterhouse-Five', is often said to be the ‘amongst the 100 best novels written in the 20th century' - which is high praise, but after reading, turns out to be a little less than it deserved -if anything, this work of art deserves even more.
It is extremely hard to write my thoughts about this book in the form of a coherent review. Whatever the reason (ranging from the multitude of subjects the book handles with aplomb, or the harrowing descriptions of the sheer futility of war, or just the banal bromide ‘So it goes' being turned into a haunting phrase that sticks with you long after you've finished reading the book), this book was impossible to put down, and you somehow get the feeling that you've missed quite a lot of stuff, that will be visible by the second or third read.
TL;DR - one of the best books I've ever read. Essential reading, if you're even slightly interested in works about war, writing about writing, and of course, time travel.

In Orwell's 1984, it is sadness and hate that are the themes of the book - what with never-ending wars, children ratting out their parents for perceived treason, and nothing being sacred. Sprinkled with a plot which is amazing on its own merit, the result is a spectacular novel which is spellbinding.
In extreme contrast comes Huxley with his magnum opus ‘Brave New World' - where happiness and satisfaction form the lingering themes of the book - the result is surprisingly still a dystopia.
The goal of pursuing happiness and satisfaction with Huxley's work, to the neglect of everything else, leads to a dystopia that functions on hypnopaedia (sleep conditioning so that no ‘impure thoughts' develop), meaningless entertainment (responding to conditioned stimuli rather than your own subjective tastes), meaningless promiscuity (in fact, people trying to practice monogamy are outcasts), and a meaningless existence (supply and demand are both manufactured, and solitude is actively discouraged). The addition of a good plot would have made it a deserving classic - right now, it looks like I just read a postgraduate dissertation of an aspiring anthropologist.
TL;DR - no less horrifying than Orwell's masterpiece, this is an extremely important read. For all the media screaming that our world is 1984, our world is much closer to Huxley's vision than we dare to think of.

One of the best investigative pieces I've ever read - and also, by the nature of the case, horrifying.
This book deals with Theranos, the famous Silicon Valley unicorn (a term coined for a tech startup which is valued at more than $1 billion) and its neurotic founder, Elizabeth Holmes and her equally neurotic boyfriend, Sunny Balwani.
Many people have heard that Theranos has had shady dealings (myself included), but how shady they were is revealed by this book - a treatise on Theranos spanning from its foundation till its demise (of which the author was the main catalyst). The amount of laws and regulations that the startup flouted is staggering in itself. But what is more staggering is that the premise on which Theranos was founded (that hundreds of blood tests could be performed on a tincture of blood nipped from your index finger) and which gave Holmes a personal valuation in excess of $5.5 billion, was all a hoax. How this hoax came about, who all were wittingly (and unwittingly) involved in the hoax, and how the hoax could have led about to hundreds of deaths, forms the basis of the investigative novel.
On reading this book, one can easily understand how Carreyrou has won the Pulitzer Prize twice - his treatment is precise and cutting, and very easy to decipher and absorb - even medical laymen like me will have a ton to draw from the book, as is the book's intention.
TL;DR - roller-coaster work spanning the rise and fall of a Silicon Valley startup that got too ambitious for its own good, and in sight of its goal, flouted everything there was to flout. A dense but fulfilling read.

(4.5, rounded down to 4)
This was written by a friend of mine over a period of two years. I'll try not to be biased here.
The only poetry I've ever read is Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll, so suffice to say that I don't “get” poetry. Like most other people, I find ‘serious' poetry that is not epic length (for example, Homer's Odyssey) nauseous.
I'm reluctantly impressed by the fact that the poetry didn't feel heavy-handed, even though it got a bit pretentious for my liking at times. Keeping in mind this is my friend's first book, I'm willing to give the poet the benefit of doubt in this case.
The diagrams add value to the sparse and minimal aesthetic that the work aims for, which is another thing I quite liked. This is one of ‘those' books that one can just reach for when they're feeling bored, and whittle away five or ten minutes at.

This is a masterpiece of the mystery genre, pure and simple. Few books have captured my attention as this work did - without even trying, at that.
Written by le Carré at the height of his literary prowess, it details the story of a British spy - whose last mission is to plant himself in Soviet-occupied East Germany, to get the Russian spy division head assassinated.
Although the plot looked trite and banal in the beginning, I slowly realized that reading this work was like peeling the layers off an onion - there's so much more to it than meets the eye at first glance. And boy oh boy, it didn't disappoint one bit.
Right when you think that you've got the plot all figured out, it turns out you didn't. The best part is, that action is sidelined in favor of dialogue, which I'm actually in favor of - two of the best scenes in the book were simply long dialogue chains.
TL;DR - deserves space on every reading shelf (or device) - this is the tour de force of an unparalleled writer, and it (deservedly) holds its place amongst the classics. Must read.

If the merit of a good non-fiction novel is ‘to tell you what you already know', then this work of art by the self-proclaimed anarchist David Graeber is one of the finest in its genre.

Expounding on his breakout 2013 essay (On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs), Mr. Graeber makes a compelling case on the phenomenon of ‘bullshit jobs' - that is, jobs held by people who feel that their jobs (and by extension, them) do not add anything of value to the world - in fact, they are mighty sure of the fact that if the jobs didn't exist, the world would be better off.

In a world where work is supreme, and the unemployed are made to feel less than dirt, you can see how that might psychologically impact people who think that their jobs should be eradicated. Mr. Graeber takes us through a safari of history, culture, politics and economics to make us see and understand how this toxic and demeaning mentality seeped into the popular narrative, and how it can be rectified.

This should be essential reading for everyone.

“A new age of mass destruction will begin in an effort to close a chapter from the first age of mass destruction.”
A dense (but engrossing) read, this is about Stuxnet, the game-changing virus/worm that signalled the age of cyberwarfare.
Since this is a true story (and not based on one), it becomes a drudgery to wade through the ‘boring' parts, but it is all made up for in the last third of the work, which details how the world landscape was changed irrevocably (for the worse) through trying to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
TL;DR - reads like an expanded magazine article series, read if you can withstand factual writing which looks to be techno-babble, but don't read it if you want some sort of ‘excitement' in your ‘plot'.

I read this book over three sittings - it was worth every moment invested.

Right at the beginning, you realize that there's something very wrong about the main character - it's only much later that you realize that there's something wrong with his obsession (his ‘love interest') as well.

Suffice to say that there is not a single likeable character in this novel, and yet you can't help but plod on, thinking of what monstrous behavior you'll encounter next.

Obviously, this being the author's first novel, some loopholes were found, and there were some Deus ex machinas to make the plot plod along - but these minor transgressions are mere specks of dust in the cesspool of moral decay and corruption that is described by this masterpiece.

TL;DR - spellbinding, stupefying, so on and so forth. Worth every moment of binging it.

Inspite of all of Guha's perceived ‘centrism' and his reverence (bordering on idolatry) of Gandhi and the first Nehru, this collection of essays (both old and new) by the eminent historian is immensely readable, dealing with a variety of issues - ranging from his favorite (now defunct) bookshop in Bengaluru, to the ticking bomb that is South Asia.

Guha comes across as a charming and erudite (if somewhat snobbish) scholar, one whose numerous tangents are read fondly, a rare quality for a author to have, and an even rarer quality for a historian to possess.

The main pitfall of this compendium will be the fact, that since it is a collection of essays, and not a standalone treatise on a single topic - many topics are repeated, and this happens fairly frequently. This collection would have been better served by a more meticulous editor, but oh well.

TL;DR - good read if you're interested in history/politics, must read if you're cynical about Indian politics (you'll become even more cynical, but that's a different matter altogether).

“I thought of that phrase, “It's just business.” It's never just business. It never will be. If it ever does become just business, that will mean that business is very bad.”
This was a very engrossing memoir, made all the more say by the very likeable personality that is Philip Knight.
He takes you on the rollercoaster ride of Nike and himself, his ambitions, his fights with the government, with his former creditors, with Adidas and Puma, and much, much more.
You can absolutely taste the depths of Phil's despair and the heights of his joy, leaping at you from the pages, which is a marvellous quality for a writer to have, but even more so when you're writing your own autobiography.
TL;DR - must read if you're into memoirs. One of the best such pieces ever written, as is apt for such an unconventional life.

This book can only be described as a flawed masterpiece - had the novel bothered in fleshing out the characters from the bland caricatures that they were (lucid vs mysterious, ‘clever' vs pragmatic/complacent, and so on), it would have been an amazing read. But it was not, and I can't even blame Barnes for the result - the book is meant to be a short slice-of-life piece, and that's what it remains till the end.

This is a short read, but the ending, while not being a gut punch, was a surprise for sure - of facades and of avoiding responsibilities.

TL;DR - good read for a lazy weekend afternoon, the protagonist is worth empathizing for, and the digressions are not dumped, and feel natural.

Edit of an older review:
When I first read this book, I was too involved with the nostalgia to notice anything else.
Now, once I glanced over it with an unbiased eye, it's a mediocre exercise in vanity - replete with things such as horseshoe theory, transphobia, racism, xenophobia and beautiful lines such as ‘the Internet was the best thing that had ever happened to women and people of color' because you could choose a ‘white male avatar'. Absolutely astounding as to how this guy even got a publisher in the first place.
The villains in the plot have nothing to do with the world's near-destruction - they're just people who want to put a monthly subscription fee for the Internet in place, which is apparently disgusting? As if everything else is okay in the first place and only ‘net neutrality' is worth getting hyperactive over. I thought it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the net neutrality issue in the States, and the protagonist would eventually turn his attention towards more serious issues such as literally anything else, but that never happens? The end result is that Ready Player One is not a decent read at all.
The nostalgia is decent enough, I suppose. Worth reading if only for that. Someone should compile all the '80s references as a community Wiki which we all can lose our minds over, because as it stands the flimsy plot, the narcissistic characters and Ernest Cline himself gets in the way of appreciating those.

I cannot put into words the feeling I got when I finished this masterpiece.

This is the kind of book, though, that most people will hate with a fury that is rarely extinguished, and I can't deny them their hate, because this book is for people who don't mind loose ends dangling just beyond reach, and the plot still unexplainable after one tells it you what it meant (if there actually is one), and no one else.

This is about many things - alcohol, madness, children, trauma, consent, clairvoyance, solitude - and at the same time, it may seem rambling, precisely due to so many converging and diverging themes. Most books run with one or two, three seems like a stretch. This masterpiece handled seven themes with aplomb, and you get the suspicious feeling that this was because the author limited herself to seven.

TL;DR - read it if you're into Gainax endings, don't read if you like linear narratives and storytelling.

This was an eye-opener for me - a politically interested person, who used to believe in partisan/labelled politics - left over right, secularism over fundamentalism, and so on.

This book should be mandatory reading for every person even slightly interested in politics and activism - it will make you realize there is no such thing as left/right (both are equally morally bankrupt), ‘news' (media coverage is extensively covered in the book), and fundamentalism.

It will be an absolute disservice to label the book as simply ‘eye-opening'. It will be more accurate to say that you begin to see things in color, rather than simply black and white. And that is simply the gift that keeps on giving,