3.5 stars Pretty much exactly a year after his girlfriend Merrin Williams was found raped and murdered, Ignatius “Ig” Perrish wakes up after getting blackout drunk and discovers horns spouting from his forehead. He’s not entirely sure they’re not a hallucination at first, but when he discovers how people behave around him due to the horns, he realises that they are sadly all too real. Turns out the horns make everyone around him spill their deepest, darkest secrets. They confess to their most shameful wishes […]
A historical romance with abductions and a drafty castle
Taran Ferguson has decided that if left to their own devices, his two nephews are never going to get their act together and find suitable brides. So just before Christmas, he takes matters into his own hands, rallies his faithful retainers, rides over to the neighbouring estate where there is a house party at present and kidnaps the three likeliest young women. Only because it’s dark and things got rather confusing, they end up with four ladies and one really rather pissed off Duke, who […]
More like museum of obsession and drudgery
Thirty-sixth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. It’s really difficult to capture the uneasy feeling of longing and desire that one gets when one can’t have their way. Some of us succumb to it and fall prey to obsession, going to great (and sometimes ugly) lengths to get what we want; almost always failing to get it. We all deal with such a heartbreak at least once in a lifetime and it is rare that someone comes out of it unscathed. So why would […]
The wise old economist speaks
Thirty-fifth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. Amartya Sen is the benevolent, wise and knowledgeable grandpa that I never had. He talks of some of the stickiest issues and suggests solutions that sound beguilingly simple, mainly because he explains them in that tone of a wise old man. He talks of secularism, poverty, hunger, gender inequality, the nuclear arms race, the identity of India and the idea of Indian culture. These are quite drab topics to write about, and indeed, to read about. […]