Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Our 15 year-old fan and an avid reader shares her thoughts on “Little Women”

Genre: Drama

Our Say: - Wonderful read for early teenagers

My Favourite Book

Books are our companions. They are always with us. Whenever I am alone, frightened or sad I read a book and after finishing it I am happy again.  I have many books but ‘Little Women’ is my favourite book. The author is Louisa May Alcott.  In this book there are four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Their father is in the army and at the present is fighting in the Civil War. The family is not too well in financial matters. The story is about the four sisters who lead interesting lives despite of their problems. They and their friend Laurie who lives next door are the main characters. Their love, sadness, enjoyment and fear of their father, Mr. March is set so beautifully in the book that readers will find themselves feeling what the March girls feel.

The movie Little Women (1994) is based on  the book

This is my favourite book because this book helps me understand my duties to my siblings and parents. Mrs. March is a very kindly person who always takes the right decision. She not only gives her daughters but me too good advice.  There are many situations in the book which girls face. The book helps me be aware and tells me the decision I should take in such situations.

Archita Mitra

Why should you date a woman who reads?

Date a woman who reads. Date a woman who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a woman who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the woman reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most women who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a woman who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a woman who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because women who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Women who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a woman who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a woman who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a woman who reads.

Or better yet, date a woman who writes."

Author - Rosemarie Urquico
Check out her blog!

Women's Day Special- Enid Blyton

Today on Women’s day, Librarywala writes about a female writer  who is accredited for animating millions of childhoods with her skillfully spun stories. 

To the epitome of success in the land of books- Enid Blyton

The famous writer Enid Blyton a.k.a Mary Pollock.whose books many a million have spent their childhoods reading was born on 11th August 1897 to Thomas Carey Blyton and Theresa Mary Harrison Blyton

Blyton's books are completely works of her unbound imagination. Her series of books roof a variety of sorts.

What makes Blyton so successful is her imaginative, exciting and magical style. Her writing has sent countless young readers on thrilling adventures and generations will continue to enjoy her enchanting stories.

The Early Years:

From an early age, she liked making up stories better than anything else. As a child she would go to bed at night and stories would flood into her mind "all mixed-up, rather like dreams are, but yet each story had its own definite thread—its beginning and middle and ending."

The ENID BLYTON approach to writing:

Enid explains in “The Story of My Life” that she simply relied on her fertile imagination rather than on conscious invention. It was like viewing "a private cinema screen inside my head... and what I see, I write down." she adds: "But it's a 3-dimensional screen, complete with sound, smell and taste—and feeling!"

Enid Blyton's writing displays an appealing freshness and spontaneity. Enid has a knack of painting apt, imaginative word-pictures without resorting to lengthy descriptions or complicated phrasing.  If she sometimes fails to stretch her readers' vocabulary, she definitely does not fail in stretching their imaginations.

Inspirations:

She sought inspiration from her favourite books as a girl.  What appealed to her "wasn't so much the story as the strange 'feel' of the tale, the 'atmosphere' as we call it. It hung over me for a very long time, and gave me pleasant shivers."

Her senior school days inspires many anecdotes in her series of books St Clare’s and Malory Towers.

In her times, she was popular, full of fun and threw herself wholeheartedly into school life.

Other sources of inspiration for her books were her pets. She wrote letters for her Teacher's World column about family life as seen through the eyes of Bobs - her fox-terrier.

Her fascination with animals of different kinds is particularly evident in her various books – where fairy tales and fantasies have been spun around animals & creatures adapted from them.

The Ladder to Success

As a teen, Enid received countless rejection slips from publishers. However, that only made her more determined to persevere with her writing.

Enid Blyton took a great interest in children of all ages.  Therefore she wrote for a wide age-range.

Altogether, Enid Blyton is believed to have written around 700 books She earned a fortune from her writing and in 1950 she set up her own limited company, Darrell Waters Ltd., to manage the financial side of things.

Beyond the Writer:

Enid Blyton married Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters after the sad disintegration of her first marriage to Major Hugh Alexander Pollock. Blyton's second marriage was very happy. Both were immensely proud of one another's achievements and she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor's wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges – dedicating her life to her family and writing.

Enid Blyton – The Legend:

Several decades after her death in 1968 , Enid Blyton is not forgotten. The best of her lives on in her books, many of which are still in print. Her storytelling is timeless and this result confirms that her books are still a firm favourite today.

In her words,

"Even if you have never met me, you know me very well because you have read so many books of mine... I am sure that you know exactly what I stand for, and the things I believe in, without any doubt at all.”

Librarywala

Celebrating Womanhood this Woman's Day (8th March)

Celebrating the existence of the Venusians –

Yes, the so much talked about, the so-much called for, the one’s that more-often-than-not leave your mouths open with the phenomenal change that they bring about, the only one’s that can work with astute shrewdness in the office but can play Juliet to their spouses back home, the gender that was once called weaker but is now audaciously rising to the peak of its strength………………yes, the women,…

The Women’s Day celebrates mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, grandmothers, all over the world……….

Here’s to the essentials of being a lady,

to our multitasking abilities

to our patient natures, to our mood swings

to our fear of cockroaches, to the thriving audacities

to the gossip, to the work meetings that we conduct

to the tomboyish natures, to the transformation to beautiful ladies,

to the stifled laughs, to the hysterical laughter,

to the wailing cry on breaking a nail, to bearing the pain of labour,

to the livid faces at the eve-teaser, to the miss-goody-two-shoes look

to the flea-market chappals, to the drunk dancing with 6-inch Jimmy Choos

to black nail paints, to the liberty to wear pink

to bad hair days, to the looks that kill

to challenging ourselves, to our love of being pampered

to the ability to stun-gun people with all the things we do……….

To all the female readers, writers, publishers, women celebrities who have been written about, including fictional protagonists…

Cheers to Womanhood! 

Happy Woman's Day :)

Rikta Doshi -
A Librarywala fan

World Book Night

An ardent book lover's idea to spread the joy of reading.......

"Just like all members of Librarywala, I too love books. There hasnʼt been a more hackneyed phrase in history, Iʼm sure, but sadly, such is the truth! So, I was delighted when I discovered World Book Night.

World Book Night is possibly the worldʼs largest book give-away drive. Conducted only in the UK and Ireland, this book give-away shortlists 25 titles for their drive each year. 

Forty thousand copies of these books are then given away to members of the general public – just like that, for free! Volunteers, known as ‘givers’ –  20,000 of them – select any book from the 25 titles, and give away 48 copies of their chosen book; the other copies are distributed on World Book Night itself (this year on March 5), in places that are difficult for volunteers to reach, such as prisons and hospitals. 

What a fantastic idea to spread the reading bug! Though India doesnʼt have similar programs running, perhaps pioneers such as Librarywala, armed with its huge member base, can start something like this. Any further ideas on how this can be done?"

blogpost by Shefali Sunderan Harsha - a Librarywala fan

Uncle Pai departs for heavenly abode

Anant Pai, better known as Uncle Pai, creator of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle comics passed away on the 24^th of February, at the age of 81.

The trendsetter that he was in the world of comics showed millions of Indians the route to their roots with his mythological stories in Amar Chitra Katha.

In fact – the very concept of “comic strip”izing stories of the Indian culture was very innovative and  gave an impetus to reading of the Indian mythology.

The idea behind starting such a comicbook series came to Pai from a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in February 1967, in which participants could easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology, but were unable to reply to the question "In the Ramayana, who was Rama's mother?"

In the same year, the educational comics series Amar Chitra Katha was launched. Each of the comics in this series was devoted to a person or event in Indian history, religion and mythology. Anant Pai conceptualized of all of these, and wrote the scenarios for most of them.

Truly, Lt Mr Anant Pai deserves accolades for so intelligently carving from the Indian mythological characters into people’s minds.

Other than the profound history, Uncle Pai also created one of the funniest and longest running comic series in the history of India – Tinkle. Tinkle is believed to be the childhood companion of many for over two and half decades. – the gamut of stories covered in tinkle and the easy-to read language with colorful pictures attracted children to reading.

Ramu and Shamu, Kapish, Little Raji, Rekha, Fact Fantasy, Funland and Funtime are some of the comic strips featured in Tinkle.

Other works by Pai, include a number of books on personality development for children and teenagers, ("How To Develop Self-confidence", "How to Achieve Success", "How To Develop A Super Memory",UBS Publishers) and a series of audio book versions of Amar Chitra Katha stories, "Storytime with Uncle Pai" (Universal Music India, Dec 2001), where he plays the role of narrator-storyteller.

On February 19, a mere 5days prior to his death, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award this month at India's first ever Comic Convention held in New Delhi.

Thursday morning, Pai suffered a massive heart attack and breathed his last around 5 pm, a family member said.

By far, the child in him, kept the father of Indian comics alive in the comic world – and kept us reading.

An irreplaceable loss to the readers leaves them with a heavy heart – Uncle Pai shall forever live in the hearts of children, the minds of future comic authors and the soul of Tinkle digests and Amar Chitra Katha stories.

Librarywala expresses sincere condolence on behalf of all readers. May his soul rest in peace.

(With additional information from IANS. Wikipedia)

“The Bridge Across Forever” by Richard Bach‏

“Insightful read for the introspective romantic”

Genre: Romance/ autobiography

Our say: A compass in the quest to find “the perfect one” 

Review:

The book is an autobiography of Richard Bach's quest for his perfect soul mate, finding her and growing with her.

The book starts with Richard looking for his perfect soul mate. He meets many women, but finds it difficult to know who can be the woman he is looking for. He meets an actress Leslie Parrish, and gradually grows fond of her company. He realizes pretty late that Leslie is his woman. But he does not believe in marrying her since he feels his freedom may get curbed by marriage. It takes almost 4 years of staying together with her, that he is ready to get married to her!

The book gives an insight to how a human mind functions, gets confused, analyzes and finally reaches a conclusion; a conclusion which may seem obvious, but the the mind must go through these phases to be assured what it wants!

How to identify if one has met the soul mate that he has always longed for? If you ask SRK, he would say, "Dil ki ghanti bhajegi!" :) That will happen in Bollywood. In reality its difficult to know. Richard had almost considered Leslie as his sister, before he realized that he loved her differently! :)

Will your soul mate share all your hobbies, will like what you like, would dislike what you dislike? Well, no. In case of Richard and Leslie they both were different. Leslie loved music and was scared of even sitting in an airplane. And airplanes were Richard's first love! He was a dud when it came to music. 

So what is it that really holds two people together in a relationship? It is the growth of the two in a relationship that actually binds the love between the two! While Richard taught Leslie to fly an airplane, Leslie taught Richard to understand and appreciate music. The differences between the two were shared such that both of them grew with each other. Thats what made them happy together.

I liked a number of ideas and thoughts that Richard wrote. The best was the concept of Richard talking to the Richard of the past and of the future! Dont you ever feel like going back in time and correcting some of the decisions of your past? Dont you ever wonder how you would be in future? Richard feels it too. And he puts down this thought so well...
When Richard went to his house with his wife, Leslie, he remembered how, as a child, he stood near the door dreaming about the lady he would love... And he spoke to that Richard! In this context, I loved this line: "I shouted wordlessly to him over 2 decades ago" :)

- Mukta Aphale

 (Mukta Aphale is a librarywala subscriber & the winner of the Librarywala Facebook 'Celebrating Special moments' contest)

Other books by the author:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah