(7/49) A book by a female author : Yes Please by Amy Poehler

In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by. (Goodreads)

Amy Poehler is my idol. I love her, I admire her, I want to meet her, I want to be her. Ever since Parks and Recreation, I have been a fan of her comedy. But as I read and got to know more and more about her -I became a fan of who she is, as a person. And this book just reaffirmed everything I thought.
I like how she's never preachy, but always says the right things. I like how she interjects humor in her writing - sometimes silly, often witty. I like how she's straightforward about what she has to say. I like how she respects women, treats her friends right, lives her life the way she wants to. I love her friendship with Tina Fey (who is another idol of mine, by the way. Her book is next on my list). I love her laugh. This book was a joy to read (the ParksandRec chapter legit made me cry).
I like this little thing she said (I instagrammed it too) about career :

"Career is different. Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in a public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. Career is something that fools you into thinking you are in control and then takes pleasure in reminding you that you aren't. Career is the thing that will not fill you up and never make you truly whole. Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later."

I like this - because it's exactly how I feel about my life and career right now.

Thank you, Amy Poehler. Thank you for being you and being an inspiration to young people like me all over the world.

(6/49) A book I finished in a day : Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

After 40-some years of marriage, Maggie and David Loony shock their children with their announcement of a planned divorce. But the reason for splitting isn't itself shocking: they’re "just not in love any more." The announcement sparks a week long Loony family reunion at Maggie and David's creepy (and possibly haunted) beach house. (Goodreads)

It's not the most unique story line. In fact, many movies and stories have been written on this idea. But it was an interesting read. Dash Shaw's graphic art style is VERY COOL. He brings out darkness and humor and a tinge of sadness, all with some lines and dots and shades. I liked it. I liked reading this book. And I think I'm going to read more by Dash Shaw soon.

Ps - He has a Tumblr, if you're interested.

(5/49) A book published this year : Royal Wedding (The Princess Diaries # 11) by Meg Cabot

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diaries series, comes the very first adult installment, which follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding—but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare. (Goodreads)

Meh.
That's the only thing I have to say after finishing this book. Meh.
I mean.. Okay let me start from the beginning.
I was SUPER excited when I picked this book up from the Public Library (maybe that's where the problem started - when you expect too much, you're always disappointed). I started reading it that very evening (because an adult waits till she leaves her work place to start reading a new book). It was great! All my beloved characters going about their business - it was like catching up with them after a gap of some years. It was delightful.
The book started out quite well - it made me laugh, made me tear up a teeeensy bit. But then. Too many 'things' happened, and then miraculously all those 'things' got sorted within less than 1/4th of the book.
That's my problem with this book. Don't get me wrong, I love Meg Cabot. The Princess Diaries series and all the characters will always have a special place in my heart. But whereas I grew up, the book obviously didn't. They didn't deal with the 'things' the way I expected them to. It was too idealistic, too perfect, too unrealistic.
Sorry Meg, I love you, but I didn't love this book.

PS - I still have a crush on Michael Moscovitz.

(4/49) A graphic novel : Coraline by Neil Gaiman

When Coraline steps through a door in her family's new house, she finds another house, strangely similar to her own (only better). At first, things seem marvelous. The food is better than at home, and the toy box is filled with fluttering wind-up angels and dinosaur skulls that crawl and rattle their teeth.

But there's another mother there and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and all the tools she can find if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life. (Goodreads)

Creepy.

So creepy.

Creeeeeeeeeeeeeepyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Creepycreepycreepy.

Creepy.

I loved it.

(3/49) A book that made me cry : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. (Goodreads)

They say reading the right book at the right time can make all the difference in the world. I think this is completely true.
The first time I read The Namesake was when I was 16 years old. I lived with my parents, I went to school in my hometown, I would hang out with friends I knew all my life. And at that time, this book had no impact on me - because I just couldn't relate to it. In fact, I even dismissed it as an overrated book.
The second time I read The Namesake was now. When I'm 23 years old, doing my graduate studies in the United States, living here on my own for an year now, away from everything and everyone familiar. This time, the book changed something in me. I always think the best books leave you a little bit changed when you finish them.
I connected to the narrative and the characters on so many levels. I understood Gogol, I resented Nikhil, I loved Ashoke, I sympathized with Ashima, I related with Moushumi. The Namesake moved me like no other book has in a long time now.

ps - My mom's reading this book right now. I wonder what she thought about it.

(2/49) A book with more than 500 pages : A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. (Goodreads)

(What an obscure description that is *points above*)
Anyway. Guess who's super late to the game? Yep, me. I (finally) watched the HBO Game of Thrones series a couple of months ago. I watched 4 seasons in 3 days so yes, it's safe to say I loved it. And then I decided to read it. Huh, I don't know when I started doing this the other way round - watching the show/movie and then reading the book. Oh well.
It's a really great read though! I wasn't bored even for a minute, despite having seen the show so recently. Plus I like how it adds more depth to the characters as compared to just watching the show. I hope to catch up with the books soon enough so that I can be one of those annoying people who acts all smug because they know what happens next.

ps - R+L=J

(1/49) A Play : The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer

The Normal Heart is the explosive drama about our most terrifying and troubling medical crisis today: the AIDS epidemic. It tells the story of very private lives caught up in the heartrendering ordeal of suffering and doom - an ordeal that was largely ignored for reasons of politics and majority morality. (Goodreads)

It was 3:30 am, when I finished watching the HBO movie The Normal Heart. I was sitting there bawling my eyes out, afraid my flatmates would hear me and come and ask if anything's wrong, and I would only be able to gesture at the screen and continue sobbing.
After watching the movie, I immediately knew I had to read the play by Larry Kramer (which the movie has been adapted from).

The play was exactly how I expected it to be. It was poignant, humorous, insightful, heartbreaking, and a great read. I love Ned Weeks. I love him, admire him, respect him. I love Emma. I love Felix. I love Tommy. 

I came across something interesting while reading about this play/movie on the internet :
For the 2011 Broadway premiere of the play, Larry Kramer wrote a flyer called "Please Know", which he often handed out to exiting audience members himself at the end of the performance. This flyer explained that most of the events and characters in the play were based on real events and people. They included : Paul Popham (the basis of Bruce), Dr, Linda Laubenstein (the basis for Emma), Rodger McFarlane (the basis for Tommy), and himself (the basis for Ned Weeks).

It's knowing things like these that add to the story for me.
This story is real, it is relevant, it is important. It was important yesterday, it is important today, and it will be important tomorrow.

I'd like to end with my favourite part of the story. It's something Ned says to Bruce, after being ousted from the Gay Men's Health Crisis.

"I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold… These are not invisible men. Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do — and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don't they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and maybe you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are. The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there—all through history we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth."