#5 The Fracking King by James Browning

The novel is a about fracking in USA. The novel protagonist is a high school student who plays scrabble - Winston Crwth. Winston is studying in Hale on Dark scholarship. Hale has given their land for lease to Dark Oil & Gas which uses the same for fracking. The fracking around the school is causing water pollution which is making all the school student and faculty ill. Winston Crwth want to win a scrabble competition, so that she can meet the Governor LaRue. Every scrabble winner gets an opportunity for photo with the Governor. Winston plan is to win the scrabble competition and then meet the Governor to tell him about fracking and lot of other things. The novel is told in first person as Winston Crwth. He goes through his adolescent thought and the book is fun to read.

I really like the way Author has made effort to make things easy to stick in your head. For example: protagonist tells that his name has Winston as in Winston Churchill and Crwth with w as in truth. There are lot of scrabble words and anagrams in the books which makes it a fun read.

#3 Secret letters of the monk who sold his ferrari - Robin Sharma

I have never read the famous book - 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', so I fairly enjoyed this book by Robin Sharma. It is quite possible that both books are pretty much same.

The Jonathan is having a decent job which he does not like but anyway spends a lot of time in it, due to which his relationship with his wife and son is strained. His mother is worried and asks him to talk to his cousin who has now became a monk. His cousin Julian asks him to collects amulets from around the world. Each amulet contains a mantra/learning of the world.

I fairly enjoyed half of the novel where you learn by going around the world, understanding cultures and understanding philosophy. But the other half becomes boring with the same stuff repeated again and again.

Anyway overall a though provoking novel. 

#4 Fade Out - Kayleen Schaefer

This is a small novel which can be read in an hour or two. But this is closest to the idea which is in my head this days (what life you want to live). Jarrett Schaefer (Kayleen's brother) is missing some years after having his first movie "Chapter 27" select for the sundance festival. Kayleen is finally able to find his brother in Mexico living a life as a poor person. The reason he moved from USA to Mexico as it was tough to USA to live as a poor person. The story is told from the way Kayleen seeing things without telling the readers why Jarrett made such a decision (or may be I was not able to figure that out). The writer does not try to preach about life or give any insights. She just tells her story. There is no right or wrong (no prejudice). I just love such stories which make you think without preaching.

The "Chapter 27" trailer can be seen on you tube. It is about John Lennon killer David Chapman. David Chapman had the book 'The Catcher in the Rye' which has only 26 chapter.

I am still intrigued by what happened to Jarrett Schaefer and why he did what he did? 

#2 The Immortals of MELUHA - Amish

Second book of 2019. Being a Hindu living in India, I have been to Shiva so many times. But with no formal study on religion, I have no knowledge how and why we worship Shiva. There are so many small information about Shiva. Like he is called Neelkanth. His wife is Parvati. His adobe is Mansarovar and so on. Amish has written this fiction book which is about Shiva and his life. Really a easy read. He linked history and religion in a fiction which was easy and fun book to read. 

#1 Chai Chai - Biswanath Ghosh

This was my first book of 2019.  I accepted the challenge to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I and author (Biswanath Ghosh) have too many similarities. For starters, we both belong to Kanpur and we both are connected to West Bengal (Biswanath being a Bengali and my wife being born in Kolkata). The similarities do not end here. We both love train travel and love to watch the people around us. I have always been fascinated about small city living and this is what this book is all about. The book speaks about the small cities which grew around major train junctions. The junctions on the north are Jhansi, Mughal Sarai, Itarsi. The junctions on the south are Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai and Shoranur.

The book is presented in simple language and makes you aware about India and it's small cities in an interesting way. Author travels by train to multiple places to explore it. He stays there for a day or two, talk to the local and pen down his experiences. He has articulated things in an easy to remember way as well. I was taken back in past remembering the small cities and places there. Author at one time speaks about the snack shop in Mughal Sarai which are attached to the wine shops. I have attended these snack shops multiple times in Ghaziabad. Although, I have stopped drinking alcohol, but I did transported back to my college days.

Author also told interesting and easy-to-remember facts about these small cities. Like itarsi is a combination of two words - ita (rock) and rasi (rope). Jhansi is famous for Rain Laxmi Bai and Dhyanchand. Some rational on why Mughal Sarai have this Sarai suffix. Jhansi is also close to my heart as one of my good friend belongs to Jhansi and I have been to Jhansi and the polytechnic college there.