Annie Kapur
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Book Review: "Breath" by James Nestor
This is a book about, you guessed it, breathing and how to breathe. The science of breathing is an interesting story because it is only when you actually think about your breathing that you begin to breathe manually. James Nestor admittedly has his own sinus problems when it comes to breathing but there are things that are better about his explanations of these experiences than other aspects. First of all, he has massive chunks of anecdotes and autobiographical information followed by explanations on top of scientific explanations on top of just a one-sentence seeming āexampleā from some time in history. The book, though easy to read, is badly organised and has though it grabs your attention at the beginning with the brilliantly written prologue, it falters to keep your attention throughout the blocks and blocks of scientific stuff and various pieces of information about various sects and histories. So, I want to have a look at the main pros and cons of this book and how they come into play throughout the text.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Longevity
"The Iliad" by Homer
This is a book I first read when I was fifteen yearsā old and honestly I can say that I was so entranced by it and so invested in it, I really didnāt want it to end. It took me a while to read because upon first time, there was a lot of stuff about Ancient Greece and the Trojan War I had to look up whilst doing so, especially the stuff concerning geographical locations and the section about the ships. However, when I finished it, I felt some sense of loss, like I had finished something that had just changed my life entirely and I had no idea what it would do to me in the coming future. From the raging wrath of Achilles to the burial of Hector, breaker of horses - this book came to change everything I had once believed about war. In war, thereās always a side thatās less violent, a side thatās right and a side thatās moral - but not here. Not in āThe Iliadā. In this text, both sides were as violent and blood-thirsty as each other and both had a complete disregard for the well-being of anyone on the other side. They were trained to hate each other and racially, though they may not be so different - they were completely different in all of their views concerning the key woman and her status - Helen of Troy. This book was one of the most immersive things I had ever read in my life and I have read it a few times since, I have even taught it to students who have called it one of the greatest war books they have ever read. Why? Well because itās not all out war. Itās rage, itās difference, itās backstabbing and deception, itās regret and sadness and finally, itās a one-on-one showdown between the two great heroes of the epic from the two opposing sides: Achilles of the Greeks and Hector of the Trojans. And the prize? Well, nothing but the dignity of their side over the death of innocent Patroclus. Patroclus who meant zero harm whatsoever and only want to fight on behalf of Achilles, who would not. All in all, we could say that this is Agamemnonās fault for stealing Briseis from Achilles in the first place. But this is not a feasible excuse for Achillesā behaviour of rage, wrath and ignorance.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James
I was fairly young the first time I read this - around ten or eleven. Iām not going to lie to you, I had my dictionary at the ready and was looking up strange words left, right and centre. First time around, I didnāt really get it, so I went back and read it again and scared myself half to death because, after reading it once, I knew what all the words meant now. For a few days, I didnāt get much sleep and I was up most nights thinking about those weird children and the haunting coldness of Bly Manor. I would re-read the book over the years because the way in which the ghosts psychological enrapture the children is so incredibly intense even though the text itself is relatively short. Youād imagine you would need a long novel to build that kind of atmosphere, but Henry James does it in a short amount of time, leaving you with a shivering and shuddering feeling long after the text has ended. The last time I read it was when I was teaching it, maybe last year some time in the Spring. The students I was teaching it to often admitted that the text felt very dark because of the fact the bad things were happening to children. I think that much like novels such as āThe Exorcistā by William Peter Blatty and āSuffer the Childrenā by John Saul, Henry James offered us a darker look at hauntings and horror through his writing of the innocence and child-like nature of Flora and Miles. It is not only frightening, in some cases it is rather disturbing too.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Horror
The Five Advantages of Being a 'Plain Jane'
I am admittedly a āPlain Janeā type or person. There is nothing interesting about me, nothing that intrigues anyone about my being and my interests are conventional and appropriate to who am I overall. I am in no way a person of interest to anyone and my character is in no means extraordinary. And that is exactly how I want it to be. Being a āPlain Janeā does not mean resigning yourself to a life of indifference, content and often boredom, it actually means that your personality never gets challenged by communities and your willingness to āopen upā emotionally, psychologically etc. to others is within your own grasp so tightly that you only give out what you want people to see. But what is a āPlain Janeā? A āPlain Janeā is often a woman who is considered by others to be boring, uninteresting and in nature, morals and ethics, plain and unadventurous. The way in which it is named is somewhat after the character from the book āJane Eyreā by Charlotte Bronte - the āPlain Janeā being the eponymous narrator in comparison to the character that the love interest, Edward Rochester, is interested in - the decorated Blanche Ingram.From this novel, I learnt to live with my āPlain Janeā abilities and more than often, it has worked in my advantage - and so, this is what I want to go through today. Here are five advantages to being the āPlain Janeā of the family.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Humans
"A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest J Gaines
I first read this book in school whilst I was first reading āTo Kill a Mockingbirdā by Harper Lee and even though Harper Leeās book absolutely wowed me, this book hurt me in ways I couldnāt even imagine. If you want to read about how African American people are mistreated by the justice system, and how they are systemically made to look evil and violent then you definitely need this book. I recently re-read it and it made me cry yet again like it did last time. Thereās something incredibly dark and uncomfortable about this book and yet, it is enlightening because it teaches us so many things about injustice, prejudice and the value of human life as seen by three different sides: the teacher, the individual and the reader. It is unbelievably moving in its writing style, its storytelling technique, its politics, its time, era and order, the way in which America is prejudice against the outsider and finally, we get various lessons in what it means to be alive and what it means to die. The high emotional stress of this book gets me every time I pick it up and ever since I first read it, I have been moved by it every single time. Thereās nothing more emotional than seeing someone convicted of something they didnāt do and absolutely nobody believes them. They turn to their teacher and yet, it almost feels like it could never be enough. Thereās something holding it back and stopping it from having a contented ending. Youāre left feeling a little hollow and a little guilty, as if you wanted to scream out that this man is innocent. It is heartbreakingly good and the book will always remain with me for as long as I live.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Antkind" by Charlie Kaufman
The debut novel by the director behind one of my all-time favourite movies - āSynecdoche, New Yorkā - has come to light and though it may not be a great work of fiction, it is definitely an interesting one for the beginning of the book does not reflect the middle and again, the middle does not reflect the end. The writing style that pervades through the novel changes as the character encounters more details of his own personality mixed with this ālost filmā discovery of stop motion animation of puppets that we see come from a friend of an old age. The book on the whole is a great discovery for post-modern pseudo-biography, but in terms of interest, it leads back and forth on a scale of moderately immersive to flat-out boring. Though the language style is often diverse and packed with second meanings, I fear that the character os Rosenberg himself is a clichĆ© of the now cookie-cutter character given to us in pieces by Chuck Palahniukās āFight Clubā and was practically perfected by Bret Easton Ellis in his novels āLess than Zeroā and āImperial Bedroomsā. On the whole, the book is average in its approach to being a post-modern novel, great in its attempt to be a linguistic roller coaster, and terrible in its attempt to create a character that is both believable and someone the reader would care about enough to read such a long book on their ramblings and references.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
"Columbine" by Dave Cullen
I read this book for the first time whilst I was in university and honestly, it scared the living daylights out of me. When I first bought it, I already knew what it was about but seriously, I couldnāt resist but read it. I was hoping it wasnāt overly gory with details of the actual shooting but I was also hoping that there was a good amount of investigation in the books into why, where and when. The fact that it was Columbine that caused a number of other school shootings in America with a lot of them doing it in order to feel belonging and fame, means that this book is highly relevant not only to its own time and decade but to ours as well. When it comes to school shootings, there is one thing that they all have in common - they have a child or young person with a high temper, emotional strain and anxieties and depression wielding a weapon in which they have no or very little control of their actions. This book seeks to prove that not only that is true but influence and this almost cult worship culture has intensified the culture and association around the school shooting and massacre history over the years.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Utopia Avenue" by David Mitchell
Honestly, I am slightly biased seeing as David Mitchell is one of my personal favourite authors ever. He is able to create such brilliant realities within his novels such as āThe Bone Clocksā, āSlade Houseā or, his magnum opus, āCloud Atlasā which was made into a film with Tom Hanks and Ben Whishaw in 2012. One thing that this book does that the others do not is that it takes a single reality and shows it to us through this psychological evolution. The other novels tend to span over different realities and then turn and come back on themselves. This novel is, wait for itā¦linear. Linear realities are not really very common in the wonderful literary world of David Mitchell and guess what? I like it.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
"Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell
This is a book I read once whilst I was in school and not again until recently, about last year. I had completely forgotten all about it and now, I feel like itās so important to talk about my first reading experience of it because it was such a memorable study of Orwell. By the age of fourteen, I only knew George Orwell as writing āAnimal Farmā, ā1984ā and āKeep the Aspidistra Flyingā and yet, I had never even heard of this book before. When I began reading it, I realised that it wasnāt anything like any of George Orwell novel I had ever read. This one felt more realistic, it felt more like my own world and yet, it was so different to my own as well. I remember my first reading experience being so immersive that when I actually finished it, I went back to read certain quotations and pages again. Especially the ones about the economy and the deception of large companies and organisations. When I came back to read it again, I was about twenty-three and I noticed so much more than I did before, especially having experienced more about the key themes in my own life and times. It was like reading an autobiography and I know that it is supposed to be, but I have to wonder how much of it is completely true - itās just in my nature.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
"The Brothers" by Masha Gessen
I read this book when I was about twenty years old, so around a year after the book was actually released and honestly, this book scared the living daylights out of me. I donāt think I slept well for a long time after reading it and yet, when it was finished, I read it over and over - trying to make myself believe that it wasnāt real. But the only problem is that all of it was real. It all actually happened and not a single detail had been missed out. This is a book that is basically our generationās answer to Truman Capoteās āIn Cold Bloodā and like Capoteās novel it takes two people from a very human background and sticks them in a situation that endangers them, turns them inside out and indoctrinates them. I have read this book so many times and I think that it should be required reading in high schools all over the world. It is one of those books that teaches you about how people can just turn bad because of their struggles, can commit crimes because of their problems and can hurt others purely out of the want to cause chaos and dread in every single person around them. This book is all about the two brothers that committed the horrifying Boston Marathon Bombings in April, 2013. I remember seeing it on the news and really, I donāt think I had ever seen such a horrific sight on TV since the Twin Towers came down. To think that the living brother is only a year or so older than me makes me want to be sick. He is and will always be an absolutely terrible human being.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
"Billy Budd, Sailor" by Herman Melville
I first read this book when I was in school and it was shortly after I read Moby-Dick by the same author. The real reason that I initially picked up this shorter work by Herman Melville was initially because I recognised the authorās name and in fact, I thought stupidly that they were a part of some series. Even though I was disappointed when they werenāt a part of some series, I read it anyway and Iām going to be perfectly honest that the first time I read it, I didnāt get it. So I read it again because I thought Iād missed something - and then it hit me. This book is a religious allegory of the treatment of Jesus by the Romans. The way in which people like Clagart treat Billy Budd is a very similar situation but it is when Billy Budd reacts that he is punished and it is for this punishment that everyone else suffers greatly. I only realised later that there were many literary criticisms published on this book and honestly, they were all so interesting because I had such an extensive memory of reading and experiencing the book. I could really get lost in those articles that examined the instances of violence and punishment in so much grand detail. I have been amazed with every piece of literary criticism I have found on this book so far and hopefully, I will find more soon.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Geeks
"The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson
I first read this book when I was about fourteen yearsā old and honestly I can say that I lost a lot of sleep afterwards. I found it in the library and the copy was a bit tattered and old, it looked like it had been there for a while and I took it home to read at night time. Honestly, I didnāt think it was going to be that bad because by that time, Iād already read and watched William Peter Blattyās āThe Exorcistā and read a bit of Stephen King. I was pretty solid during my teens. But this book is a book that literally chilled me because different to all of those, it was a book in which your mind is completely turned and twisted and even the language makes you swallow your pride. The book is a reality of one woman who slowly loses it and yet, you lose it with her. Itās almost impossible not to feel the book in your body whilst your going through the insanity of its history, its story and every single one of its three dimensional, dark and flawed characters. Before you ask, I wasnāt a big fan of the TV show even though I did watch it - it didnāt seem to have anything similar to the book but the name. I hope they donāt do the same thing with āThe Turn of the Screwā by Henry James. I really hope they donāt. But, Carla Gugino was stunning as always.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Horror
