Reading beyond recipe books

Rachel’s father was suffering from Alzheimer’s and his condition caused him to lose his teaching job as History professor. She moves back to be with her family, at the time of her breakup with her boyfriend. There were many undercurrents in the family; her demented father’s past affair long time ago, Linus, her younger brother, had left home because of the father’s drinking problem, and Rachel’s mother who was divorced with her father but still staying under one roof. The story of the Rachel’s relationship with her father was unfolded through letters and notes her father wrote to her while she was little. A deep love for his first child was the saving grace in her relationship with her father despite his earlier failures as husband in the family. Linus had refused to be part of the family until he also broke up with his girlfriend. He returned home as his father’s condition worsened. The result was a family which healed together even as the mental faculties of

1965. Jeff, Jack, Maurie, Dave and Luke were teenage boys from Glasgow. They formed a band called The Shuffle during the period when British music was taking the world stage by storm. When Jack was expelled from school, he decided to keep it a secret from his parents and head to London, where the bright lights are. His 4 other friends impulsively followed Jack in search of adventure. Jeff, the only one out of school, stole a car from his employee , packed everyone in and set off south. While trying to shake off Jack and Maurie’s parents, they made a bad judgment call and gave a lift to someone who turned out to be a mugger and a gangster. Along the way, they picked up Rachel, Maurie’s cousin/step sister in Leeds but landed in big trouble. Trying to shake of Rachel’s druggie boyfriend, they made mortal enemies of him (Andy). Jack struck a friendship with Rachel on the way to London, putting strain to the boys’ friendship. In London, they took shelter under the a

This book is a collection of short travel stories from different travel writers and how they received kindness from strangers on their trips, planned and unplanned.  One Night in the Sahara was Amanda Jones' account of how she was brought to safety when she accidentally wondered away from her friends in the Sahara desert. She was vulnerable and elft to the elements until a nomad man took her in for the night but spared her the inevitable but unwanted sexual advances. In Highland Remedy, Fran Palumbo went off to the Scottish Highlands to recover from a failed romance and experienced twice the kindness of an old man who was recovering from his own personal tragedy. In Looking for Abdelati, Tanya Shaffer and her male traveling companion went to Morocco to look for their friend. And as fate has it, they went directed to the family of another person with the same name. After experiencing the hospitality of almost the entire clan only were they to realise that they were with

Tennant, a media junkie talks about uncoupling oneself from the digital world so that Christians can build real relationships. The desire to be a star in cyberspace is a hindrance to putting Jesus on the throne of our lives and Tennant take pains to point out the pitfalls of a self absorbed world in the digital realm.  While convincing, this book could do well with more scriptural references to support his arguments.

After a lengthy illness, Fiennes took time off before college and left England for Texas where he began to trace the return of a flock of snow geese to the Artic tundra near Churchill Canada. It was a journey blessed with many people who offered him a helping hand and shaped his traveling experience and understanding of migration of humans and animals. How nature and animals react to the tides and times is well explained and revisited over many chapters. Of note is the exposition of the circadian cycle of living things. Though it is a write up of an odyssey of the feathered kind, it points back to Fiennes who after almost a year's travel in the US yearns to return to where he came from. It is a nature, travel and science book all in one, beautifully written in prose-like manner. The flight of the geese northwards and his wait for spring to come is poignant and lyrical. It is worth buying the book for a second and third read.

This book has a calming effect for the reader. Iyer used certain people of note to expound on the benefits of staying still so that one can go deep. Examples are Dalai Lama, Leonard Cohen and Matthieu Ricard, who abandoned a high flying job in search of inner peace. Iyer's however could do better to include what happened to those who after searching deep within themselves return back to the hustle and bustle of the world. It is not the author's intention but the afterglow of retreating into inner self could be better shared with his readers. In any case, the benefit after reading Stillness is that I have become a fan of Leonard Cohen's poetry. It shows that one does not need to be able to sing in order to have good music. Perhaps Cohen's experience of looking for himself enhanced his poetry and lifted him to fame.