The second book chosen for both Cook’s book club and Thoughtful Thursdays were coincidentally the same - A Thousand Splendid Suns. After having read and liked The KiteRunner, I was curious to read the second book by Khaled Hosseini. It is one thing to impress with a well-written first book, after all there is no reputation at stake, but quite another to keep that up and come up with a winner the second time over. While I wouldn’t call this a winner, Khaled did not flatter to deceive.
The book, again set in Afghanistan, is the story of two very different women, one old enough to be the mother of the other, and whose life touches and by a twist of fate, merges. The book, written from the perspective of Mariam and Laila alternatively, gives us a sneak-peak into a woman’s life in war-torn Kabul. The two women, married to the same man and forced to live together, slowly accept the presence of each other in their life, bond with each other over tea and end up caring for each other when the husband becomes their common nemesis.
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I love reading books. Period. There used to be a time when I would finish a book start to finish in one-go and couldn’t wait to finish to start the next one. These days my reading habit (as well as other personal traits) has changed, and I seem to be reading two and sometimes even three books at a time. It is a great wonder that all these books don’t become one huge mish-mash in my head 
Cooking is my passion and one of the reasons why this blog exists. When I heard about this blog event, I knew I could not give it a miss. The book of the month was Serving Crazy with Curry by Amulya Malladi; the fact that I was reading the book when the event got announced was an amazing coincidence. I picked up this book from the library after hearing about this book from a dear friend of mine.
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The book starts with an unusual premise - here is a woman brought down by life - divorced, broke up with her boyfriend and completely depressed. Left with meager choices, she decides to step out of the country, travel the world (well, 3 countries) for a year with the hope that this experience will enrich her and inject some much needed vitality into her life. Does she find hope and peace through and in her journey? Well, that is what you find out when you read the book.
Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir of her travels through Italy where she eats, India where she learns to commune with God and Indonesia where she discovers love. Having read a few memoirs myself (Kabul beauty school - avoid it, Into the Wild - can read, Chasing the monsoon - can read), I did not have high expectations of this book when I started reading. But Gilbert’s chatty style of writing is very engaging and is almost like holding a conversation with a friend. Memoirs can tend to get very repetitive and boring, as it is essentially a monologue capturing the world (and culture) from the author’s perspective. Eat, Pray & Love was refreshingly different in this aspect and there was not a single instance throughout the book when I got tired of the soliloquy.
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