A Splash of Colors in the Wonderland of Books!

Today is Holi, the festival of colors! Here, in India, we celebrate this festival with lots of joy, verve and enthusiasm throughout the country. The festival has many purposes. First and foremost, it celebrates the beginning of the new season, spring. We color each other, almost losing our identities behind the shades of numerous colors, throw water balloons at others, even complete strangers at random, and above all have enormous fun!! ^_^ This festival is one of my favourites and goes without saying, I'm very very excited  about today!

In this regard I'm doing this feature post - the connection of colors and books! Lots of books have name of colors in the titles. I'd be talking about some of those most famous books and also the color coding system of Penguin Publishers books.

Title: The Color Purple

Author: Alice Walker

Publishers: Pocket (2004)

Genre(s): Classics, Historical Fiction

Format: Paperback (304 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 4.12/5

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to “Mister,” a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister’s letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.

Title: White Oleander

Author: Janet Fitch

Publishers: Little, Brown and Company (2001)

Genre(s): Contemporary, Women's Fiction

Format: Paperback (496 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 3.87/5

When Astrid's mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet, murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life, Astrid becomes one of the thousands of foster children in Los Angeles. As she navigates this new reality, Astrid finds strength in her unshakable certainty of her own worth and her unfettered sense of the absurd.

Title: Black Like Me

Author: John Howard Griffin

Publishers: NAL Trade (2003)

Genre(s): Memoir, Non-Fiction

Format: Paperback (200 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 4.08/5

In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity-that in this new millennium still has something important to say to every American.

Title: Green Eggs and Ham

Author: Dr. Seuss

Publishers: Random House (1960)

Genre(s): YA, Humor

Format: Hardcover (62 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 4.30/5

Illustrated in color. Sam-I-Am mounts a determined campaign to convince another Seuss character to eat a plate of green eggs and ham. Green Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed children's book by Dr. Seuss (a pen-name of Theodor Seuss Geisel), first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth best-selling English-language children's book of all time.[1] The story has appeared in several animated videos starting with 1973's Dr. Seuss on the Loose: The Sneetches, The Zax; Green Eggs and Ham starring Paul Winchell as the voice of both Sam-I-am and the first-person narrating man.

Title: A Clockwork Orange

Author: Anthony Burgess

Publishers: W. W. Norton and Company (1995)

Genre(s): Sci-fi, Dystopia, Mystery

Format: Paperback (213 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 3.94/5

A vicious fifteen-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film of the same title. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked".

Title: The Silver Chair (The Chronicles of Narnia #4)

Author: C. S. Lewis

Publishers: HarperCollins Publisher (2005)

Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy

Format: Paperback (268 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 3.91/5

The story starts when Eustace Scrubb, introduced in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is driven into the company of classmate Jill Pole at their miserable school Experiment House. The impetus is their need to find sanctuary from the gang of school bullies who run rampant in this laissez-faire and mismanaged school run by an incompetent headmistress. Eustace confides to Jill that he has recently been "out of this world" to a land called Narnia, and that his experiences there have led to the changes in his behaviour that everyone seems to have noticed. Jill initially believes that Eustace is lying, but when he promises and asks her to attempt to go to Narnia with him, she agrees. When the bullies are about to converge on the two, Eustace suggests asking for Aslan's help, and the two blunder through a gate that leads them to a high cliff in Aslan's Country. 

Title: Blue Highways (The Travel Trilogy #1) 

Author: William Least Heat-Moon

Publishers: Back Bay Books

Genre(s): Memoir

Format: Paperback (428 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 3.98/5

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

Title: The Yellow Wall-Paper

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Publishers: The Feminist Press (1996)

Genre(s): Short Stories, Feminism

Format: Paperback (64 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 4.11/5

First published in 1892, The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. In the involuntary confinement of her bedroom, the hero creates a reality of her own beyond the hypnotic pattern of the faded yellow wallpaper – a pattern that has come to symbolize her own imprisonment. Narrated with superb psychological and dramatic precision, The Yellow Wall-Paper stands out not only for the imaginative authenticity with which it depicts one woman’s descent into insanity, but also for the power of its testimony to the importance of freedom and self-empowerment for women.

 

Title: The Grey King (The Dark Rising #4)

Author: Susan Cooper

Publishers: Simon Pulse (2007)

Genre(s): YA Fantasy, Mythology

Format: Paperback (165 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 4.18/5

"Fire on the Mountain Shall Find the Harp of Gold Played to Wake the Sleepers, Oldest of the Old..."" With the final battle between the Light and the Dark soon approaching, Will sets out on a quest to call for aid. Hidden within the Welsh hills is a magical harp that he must use to wake the Sleepers - six noble riders who have slept for centuries. But an illness has robbed Will of nearly all his knowledge of the Old Ones, and he is left only with a broken riddle to guide him in his task. As Will travels blindly through the hills, his journey will bring him face-to-face with the most powerful Lord of the Dark - the Grey King. The King holds the harp and Sleepers within his lands, and there has yet to be a force strong enough to tear them from his grasp...

Title: My Name is Red

Author: Orhan Pamuk

Publishers: Vintage (2002)

Genre(s): Contemporary, Literary Fiction

Format: Paperback (417 pages)

Average Rating on Goodreads: 3.79/5

At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers. The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating the glories of his realm. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed. The ruling elite therefore mustn’t know the full scope or nature of the project, and panic erupts when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears. The only clue to the mystery–or crime? –lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle, My Name is Red is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex and power.

The Penguin Books Color Codes

Arranging books according to color has become quite popular and looks great. However, it is a method that can result in placing paleontology next to poetry and novels next to non-fiction, a troubling thought indeed! That's why I adore the color-coding system that Penguin has been using 1935, wherein each genre is assigned a color and the spine (and sometimes the cover) of works within that genre are printed in the designated color.

The Penguin code is as follows:
Red = Drama
Orange = Fiction
Yellow = Miscellaneous
Green = Crime Fiction
Dark Blue = Autobiographies
Purple = Essays
Cerise = Travel and Adventure
Grey = World Affairs

For more info check out: Phil Baines' book, Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005

Finally, once again Happy Holi to all of you!!! (even if you're not playing with colors). 

Have Fun & Keep Reading!

Review: What Young India Wants by Chetan Bhagat

How I came to Know about The Book: I bought this.

Format of The Book: Paperback

Genre: Non-fiction

Length of the Book: 181 pages.

A Short Synopsis: In his latest book, What Young India Wants, Chetan Bhagat asks hard questions, demands answers and presents solutions for a better, more prosperous India.

Why do our students regularly commit suicide?
Why is there so much corruption in India?
Cant our political parties ever work together?
Does our vote make any difference at all?
We love our India, but shouldnt some things be different?
All of us have asked these questions at some time or the other. So does Chetan Bhagat, Indias most loved writer, in What Young India Wants, his first book of non-fiction.

What Young India Wants is based on Chetan Bhagat's vast experience as a very successful writer and motivational speaker. In clear, simple prose, and with great insight, he analyses some of the complex issues facing modern India, offers solutions and invites discussion on them. And, at the end, he asks this important question: Unless we are all in agreement on what it is going to take to make our country better, how will things ever change? Non-fiction If you want to understand contemporary India, the problems that face it, and want to be a part of the solution, What Young India Wants is the book for you.

Review: 

Please note that this review is not written by me. While going through the reviews on this book on Goodreads I came across this review written by Subroto  (to view his profile on GR use the link given) and seriously there was not a single word to which I wanted to disagree. It was so well written and moreover, it says exactly the things I felt while reading the book. Hence, instead of writing a review myself, I opted for posting his on my blog. Here it goes:

"If this book does even 1/10th of the magic of what he has been able to do with his earlier books (brought reading back in fashion for a net addicted generation, inspired hundreds and thousands of indians to write, with his simple straight english reached hinterlands of india where english language reading was scarcely there ) - he would have made a much more significant difference to India than a lot of intelligent thinkers out there. 

This book will be remembered less for the exact solutions he's proposed for the problems of India (many might debate that they are too simplistic and also India is not that simple an animal) but more for what it stands for - his encouraging us to start thinking - and to start thinking in whatever capacity we are and to never stop thinking cos that is to lose hope - lose hope in our country ever getting better and thus letting the problem fester. He encourages us to be impatient and to try and use all juggad one can to solve the problems of this country :) 

Chetan through his own example leaves back a message for us to not just oppose and debate - but to propose a solution - however simple or rudimentary it might sound. He challenges us to have the balls to propose a solution on (as a lot of intellectuals / politicians would call) incomplete knowledge, even as a lot of other supposedly much qualified people (who have themselves not been able to solve it except cry foul and debate) knock you down with study and data. In such times, he makes a case for us to keep looking for solutions in his own inimitable style. 

Some of his own common sensical solutions make you whoop with joy - allow educational institutions to run on a for profit basis to encourage quality educational set up by private entrepreneurs, run a political party where young professionals are paid salaries /stipends so that people aspire to be one, cut defense expenditure by leveraging strategic defense partnership and astute foreign policy and divert those funds for education / health care set up. 

His style of writing remains what many would say high school. Simple sentences. No words for which you need to use the dictionary. It takes some time to get used to it but after some time you start enjoying his simplicity. Most appealing about this book is the part where he on his own confesses that he may not be right about whatever he's stating here - that's not the intent. There could always be many solutions to a problem. All he's saying is that lets not in all our analysis paralysis forget that the problem exists. Don’t let it drag to its own death or be pushed by another bigger problem. Debate is good for college hall rooms and year long research and theses are better suited for phd students - not to take decisions for a billion strong country. 
Chetan Bhagat haters be damned - I totally loved this book and will recommend it to each and every young man and woman I meet!"

Rating: 

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