Reading list update -3

So, for all those reading (or not), here’s what my last two books were like. Seven moons of Maali Almeida was a good read, even though the whole after-death genre does not appeal to me, also all that stuff about dismembering bodies. Is it that books these days have more violence and gore across genres or are we finally beginning to write about who we really are, as people. That is a crazy, frightening thought. The previous review is here with a link to the original reading list.

1. Seven moons of Mali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, a definite 4 on 5.
2. Read if you want a fantasy novel filled with ghosts and demons and all things walking dead, written in the second person, the dead man talking about the living man, both the same person.
3. Read if you want a book on history, because this one pokes the bloody underbelly of the Sri Lankan civil war in the 80s.
4. Read if you just want creative, witty prose, the self-deprecating humour of the dead narrator, the satirical commentary on just about everything alive and dead, on human nature, before and after.
5. Or read as a whodunit that spins around a wartime love story. Man from dysfunctional family with commitment issues falls in love with a beautiful boy from the ‘other side’.
6. In a strange room by Damon Galgut, a 3.1 on 5.
7. Read if you want a travelogue or two or three, written sometimes in the first and sometimes in the second person, the person who was and who is, both the same person.
8. Read for a simple, honest recounting of disconnect – being the perennial outsider, not fitting into home, not fitting into places that can never be home.
9. Read if you want unfulfilled love stories, maybes, perhapses and what-could-have-beens. Peripatetic young man attracted to unlikely travel companions.
10. Or read for the story of a troubled girl trying to escape her broken life, high drama played out in the beach resorts and hospitals of Goa.
11. “And, without a doubt, that is the kindest thing you can say about life. It’s not nothing” says the ghost of Maali Almeida, reflecting on his before-death.
12. “…he feels no connection with anything around him, he’s constantly afraid of dying. As a result, he is hardly ever happy in the place where he is, something in him is already moving forward to the next place, and yet he is also never going towards something, but always away, away.” says Damon about Damon’s before-life.
13. In a strange room was short-listed for the Man Booker prize in 2010. Seven Moons by Maali Almeida won the prize in 2022. Both leave you wondering about life and death and the story in-between.