Momina's Space

I read this novel a while back but didn't get a chance to post its review here, so here it goes:  The novel is a story of a young man, Dorian Gray, who gets his portrait made by a renowned artist, Basil Hallward, and the portrait in question eventually becomes the reason for his ruin. In the beginning, the character of Dorian Gray is introduced to us as a youth possessing astonishing charm and beauty. It's his beauty that first mesmerises Mr. Hallward who then tries to replicate his likeness onto the canvas. The painter falls in love with his own handiwork and also with the person who inspired it in the first place. He begins treating Gray as an artwork himself and develops a strange tendency to protect him from the prying eyes of the world lest he be "spoilt" by the exposure. Speaking of spoil and exposure, another important character, Lord Henry, Hallward's friend, is introduced here, who upon realising Gray's importance in Hallward's eyes grows...

This book is about a jolly old man called Mr. Hoppy who hold only two things very, very close to his heart: his various plants that he grows in his home garden and Mrs. Silver who lives in the storey just under his balcony and who he falls absolutely in love with. The problem, however, with this happy love story is that his beloved Mrs. Silver has no idea how smitten the poor man is with her. The reason for this is that Mr. Hoppy happens to be a shy man and doesn't manage to say a lot to the lady other than the usual polite conversations that these two share while standing on their own separate balconies. How very sad indeed! Another obstacle that Mr. Hoppy is faced with is Alfie the tortoise who is the sole  object of Mrs. Silver's affections. She adores her pet tortoise so much and cannot seem to get enough of it. She carries it around with her all over the house, keeps it in a comfortable little hut made just for it, feeds it all sorts of nice vegetables, and says nice...

Roald Dahl is one of my most favorite children's authors ever. Today I borrowed this lovely book from my niece to read and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. This is a story of a brave fox, his wife and their 4 baby foxes. They live happily under a tree in the jungle by a village. Mr. Fox takes good care of his little family by going to the village farms and bringing food from their by stealing hens, turkeys and geese. In fact, there happen to be three particular not so gentle men of whose farms Mr. Fox takes a liking to. They are called Boggis, Bunce and Bean. And these people, horrible as they are, do not approve of this even a little bit. Mr. Fox, however, proves to be a very clever young fellow and manages to take what he wants from them all the same. After some stealing sessions though, their patience fails them and they decide to hunt Mr. Fox down by surrounded his hole under the tree. Fox manages to evade all three of them and goes back deep into his hole but this makes them...

For those of you who don't know Urdu, this book claims to have the 13 best Short stories by Prem Chand, the famous Hindu Urdu writer of the Subcontinent. Following is the list of stories included in the book: 1. Kaffan 2. Sila e Matam 3. Baray Ghar ki Beti 4. Haj e Akbar 5. Nayi Biwi 6. Zaad e Rah 7. Do Bel 8. Eid Gah 9. Burhi Kaki 10. Sawa Seer Gehun 11. Insaan ki Qeemat 12. Chori 13. Pos ki Rat Prem Chand is one of those writers who exhibit the quality of writing both complox and obscure topics as well as about simple things in life simultaneously. And because of this reason, his writing is quite unpredictable. Most of his stories included in this collection have simple themes related to daily household issues faced by people which makes reading this book very interesting. He often makes the usual skirmishes between family members, whether they be husband or wife or brothers or sisters, the subject of his tales. Reading it makes you realize how good of an ob...

I posted tgis review on Parhai Likhai's website as well. I'm sharing it here for the convenience of those who like to visit my blog to read book reviews 😊 A huge thanks to Parhai Likhai for sending me this beautiful book. I loved reading it so much! Here's my review of the book (It has spoilers. Read it at your own risk): The shortest way to describe this novel would be to say that it is a study in madness and death, and the correlation that these two enjoy, in living beings. I say living beings because humans are not the only subject of this book. As its name, Raja Gidh - The King Buzzard, indicates, it is as much about the quest for the reasons of madness in birds as it is about humans. And the way Bano Qudsia juxtaposes the two together is simply amazing. In fact, she does not just limit it to a mere comparison, sometimes the characters themselves metamorephose into either the greedy buzzards waiting for its prey to die and present itself as its hearty meal, a...

So first of all, I want to thank the team of Parhai Likhai for being so kind and sending me this lovely book. The delivery was prompt and the book so nicely packaged that it just filled my heart with so much happiness! Also, the book itself was very nice quality and reading it was an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. .. Here’s my review of the book: It is indeed one remarkable masterpiece of a book. Although reading it requires a little patience at the reader’s part as it can get a bit difficult at time. The excellence of this book, in my opinion, lies in how the author navigates through so many time periods, each significant in its own way, so effortlessly. Covering the time of the war of independence in 1857 to the post-partitipn Pakistan in 1947, the author makes his characters – or more precisely tge generations of those characters – inhabit and engage with the lives that they have been entrusted with and evolve as the time goes on. The best thing about Hussain’s wri...

The Story of Philosophy  by Will Durant I'm reading this book these days and enjoying it so very much. I try and read one chapter of it daily and usually talk about it on my Instagram page where I have joined a challenge called #betterreadschallenge from the 1st of January. In this challenge you have to basically update your followers about the books you read everyday whether you get to read a hundred or merely five pages a day. I think this is a really great challenge as it pushes me to do at least a little bit reading everyday.   So this book covers the lives and works of all the important Western philosophers. And it's simply fascinating to read about these great thinkers as real people with real, exciting lives. Most of the times we get to know about these intellectuals with reference to the work they have produced without thinking of them as real human being made of flesh and bones, having relationships and all. So The Story of Philosophy is very useful as it le...

I started reading this book quite a while ago and it took me a lot of time to finish. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I just don't stick to reading one book at a time and start reading any book that comes my way. Yes, I'm quite desperate like that. The disadvantage of this is that I rarely finish any book quickly. Secondly, I had taken a huge break from reading books that are not related to my MPhil thesis, although I wanted to do so very much. But because I had t discipline myself and read the ones that would help me write my thesis better, Beloved got really neglected. Now, however, I've submitted my thesis and can spend all my time reading whatever I feel like. So I just managed to finish this one and it didn't really took me that long  to finish after that. Enough about me now, let's talk about the book itself.  It's a book about an African-American woman, Sethe, who used to be a slave and had had to escape her previous masters in order to...

Curfewed Night is an amazing memoir by a Kashmiri writer, Basharat Peer. Peer tells his painful life story combined with the sanguinary history of the valley of Kashmir. The book gives a comprehensive insight about the Kashmir conflict in an unbiased way. If you are interested to get an insider's perspective on the conflict then this is definitely the book for you.  I have been interested to read this book ever since I came to know about it from a class-fellow of mine. I have a great interest in the literature written about my part of the world, and I have been a fan of Pakistani literature for a really long time. But, unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to read anything on Kashmir and that is beyond sad as I belong to the part of Kashmir that has had accession to Pakistan. It is known as Azad Kashmir. Azad Kashmiris have a really strange relationship with the Kashmir issue, especially those who belong to my generation: They are constantly made aware of its existe...