Half of a Yellow Sun

Purple Hibiscus

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus HarperPerennial, 2005.

The Bluest Eye

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

The Golem's Eye: Bartimaeus Trilogy

Stroud, Jonathan. The Golem's Eye: Bartimaeus Trilogy. New York: Hyperion, 2004.

Nathaniel and the djinn Bartimaeus are back in this novel, refreshingly bickering. Nathanielis 14, apprenticed to Jessica Whitwell, and the government's pet boy. he is dealing with the resistance movement. He is forced to call Bartimaeus again.

At the same time, a series of horrible attacks are being committed by a Golem controlled by an unknown wizard. This sends them off to Prague in a desperate attempt to uncover the true menace behind the attacks.

The book acts as a critique against the powerful through Stroud's imagery of the magician/politicians. it is a dark world controlled by magic and the violence of it. The djinn, who has nothing to do with human affairs, do give the most important philosophy to Kitty,the resistance leader. Speaking about her resilience to magic, he says that it is important to study history and to know that greater empires have fallen due to people with resilience coming together.

The Amulet of Samarkand

Stroud, Jonathan. The Amulet of Samarkand. London: Corgi Books, 2004.
This is one the Bartimaeus trilogy of Stroud. One of the young magicians summons Bartimaeus, the evil, but lovable djinni through his magic. Nathaniel alias John Mandrake, is just a 12 year old apprentice, that too, of a not too good magician, Arthur Underwood. In his trials to summon a true Djinn, Nathaniel manages to summon Bartimaeus himself. He has already developed a rivalry with another magician, Simon Lovelace. Nathaniel employs a reluctant Bartimaeus to steal the amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. What follows is a hilarious journey of the Djinni and his young captor.

Pnin

Nabokov, Vladimir. Pnin. London: Penguin Books, 1997.

A Yellow Raft in a Blue River

I am reading Michael Dorris' book. I really liked it. What I liked so much was Dorris' sensivie understanding of women characters - not romanticising but, almost as if he could feel what they are. The disturbed lives of three generations of women from the Native American community could be read in the novel - the granddaugher Rayona, the mother Christine and the Grandmother Aunt Ida are the characters. It raises questions about the community, gender, problems of alcholism, disturbed families, foster parents etc which, I realized later, Dorris would have faced in his personal life.
Dorris is accused of abuse by his foster child and another child of his was also planning to give a case against him. Louise Aldrich and he shared a legendary writing career, but they separated at some point. Dorris committed suicide later.