As always is the case, I usually end up emerging from dust (!), just at the time you least expect me to! Well, merely not for you reading this, for me too… why, you ask? Amidst all the excitement of placements going on, most of my friends, if not all, are pretty much engrossed with R S Agarwal’s Aptitude books or Wren and Martin’s English Grammar (forgive me for my limited knowledge about these kinda books), here I am with this blog! Oh yeah, I forgot, Infosys has come to our campus for placements today – the first mass recruiter for our college!

Coming back to the topic of books, with me saying everyone are reading, it would be far from the truth to say I didn’t spend time reading. I spent most of the time reading. If you have read my previous blogs, you would have known by this time, which books I mean when I say ‘reading’. Yup, Novels.

It has always been a favorite pastime of mine, right from my schooling days. I am really very fortunate to have studied is a school, which provided me an access to so many of the spectacular books. But it is a pity that so few made use of them. Anyway, apart from all the crappy philosophy, let me get back to what made me restart this dormant blog again… 2 books.

The first one is called “The Day of the Jackal”, written by Frederick Forsyth. It is, as usually the books I read, a thriller. And, no mere thriller, mind you. It’s a “keep you on the edge of the seat” kind of a thriller book.

The plot goes something like this… The year of 1963 in France. The Extremists want the President of France dead. With all their ‘other’ means failing to yield results thereby weakening the radicals, they seek the help of a professional killer from Britain. This assassin is the Jackal. The story moves on two separate tracks. One follows the Jackal and the other the detective put in command to trace the Jackal.

The seemingly simple plot of the book is so well sewn together that you will not feel like putting the book down. It is a unique kind of book where you know all characters to their true colours, unlike the other mystery books where you keep guessing. But the twists are in the pursuit of the Jackal. And take my word, they are not few. You will be in a spot as to which character to support as the story develops. It is a lengthy book to finish, but you will surely love the experience of reading it.

Now moving to the second, “Shutter Island”, by Dennis Lehane. This is the spookiest novel I have ever read. I have lost a night’s sleep over this book! This is the strangest one I have ever come across. If “The Day of the Jackal” was an edge of the seat thriller, this is a psychotic thriller that keeps you disturbing all the while you read.

The story begins with two US Federal Marshals assigned on duty to an island which houses a mental asylum for the criminally insane. A “dangerous” patient has managed to escape the mental institution. The Marshals are called for the investigation. But the plot starts to blot as pages fly by. The perplexing narration of the story and the mystery keeps you wanting to keep on reading. Once you start to think ‘oh yeah, now I know’, you will be dead wrong. This has to be one of the books that I longed not to put the book down till I finished. I absolutely loved it and suggest you to read this if you get your hands on this gem of a book.