Saturday 21 November 2015

Book Review: A Little Chorus Of Love

Book: A Little Chorus of Love
Genre: Fiction/Romance/Short Story
Compilers: Preethi Venugopala| Anmol Rawat| Tina Basu| Soumyaa Verma
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Anmol Rawat
Pages: 276
Price: 49 INR

Blurb: What is love? The question brews a million different answers. Love is not an entity. It is an emotion that embraces several hues and shades within. 'A Little Chorus of Love – Love through Ages' simply follows the same idea and assembles 24 different writers portraying love in a form they acknowledge the best. 

Immerse yourself into the most powerful emotion with 24 different stories set in different time periods and feel your heart beat for that one special person in your life.

My Rating: 4.5/5

My Review: 

"A Little Chorus of Love" is a bouquet of 24 love stories that will surely mesmerize you and warm your heart. The recent anthologies that I have read usually consist of few very good stories and some average stories. Most of the time, it is a mixed bag of good and not-so-good stories. However, this book is different. I cannot pinpoint even a single story and say that it did not touch my heart.

Yes, all the stories in the book are delightfully beautiful and refreshing. Kudos to the compilers of the book for providing readers with such a wonderful collection of love stories. 

The love stories are of various flavors and therefore, you won't get bored to read the stories one after another. The book starts with Magic of Mask which is a love story of a magician and the ending of it brought tears to my eyes. There are some love stories in the book during the pre-independence era, such as Love through ages and My Red Knight that are beautifully written. 

In the story Timeless love, the author has perfectly depicted how love is stronger than death. In this story, the wife feels the presence of her husband even after years of her husband's death. The story The Recap will warm your heart as you will read the love letters of childhood sweethearts who have spent a lifetime together.I'm all yours is another story about childhood sweethearts and I think it is the sweetest story of this collection. 

There are also some wonderful twilight love stories in the book such as About Time and Beyond Eternity that shows that there is no perfect age for love. There are also some tragic love stories in the book which can make your heart a little heavy. The Eternal Wait is a tragic story where the man doesn't even have an idea about where his beloved is, and yet he keeps waiting for her, year after year with unconditional patience and love. A journey of choice has a tragic ending, but the story will surely touch the innermost chords of your heart. Que Sera Sera, The Partition of Love and Perhaps we could have been also have somber endings. 

I wanna grow old with you has many twists and turns and although it seems that the story will end on a sad note, it has a beautiful, surprising and happy ending. I felt that this is the most romantic story of this collection. When you are by my side is a very soulful story that compels you to think beyond the physical. Prerna is a very different story which has a heartwarming ending. 

All the stories of the book have a unique flavor and that's what makes this book so beautiful. In some stories, the narration is exceptionally beautiful whereas in a few stories, the narration could have been better.

I would like to congratulate all the authors of the book for penning such beautiful, heartwarming love stories. My favorite stories of this collection are I wanna grow old with you, When you are by my side, My Red Knight, The Eternal Wait, Timeless Love and Magic of Mask.

If you are a romantic at heart, then buy a copy of the book right away and let yourself drown in the magic of love once again, 

Recommended to anyone who is fond of love stories. 



Monday 9 November 2015

November Reads!


I visited my Goodreads profile yesterday and saw that I still have 11 books to read this year to complete my 2015 Reading Challenge of 41 books.

Since I was busy working on my own books, I could not find time to read, especially during September and October. So I have a lot of reading to do before the year ends.

Right now, I am reading 3 books: a fiction, a non-fiction and an anthology of short stories.

The fiction I am reading is John Green's debut novel, "Looking for Alaska" which is a young adult fiction and after completing 150 pages, I am getting a strong feel that this book will shatter my heart into pieces, like John Green's "The Fault in our stars". Dear Mr. Green, why do you need to make your readers cry every time?

The non-fiction that I am reading is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic~ Creative Living beyond fear" which is about how to live a fulfilling creative life. I have just started reading this book yesterday, but after reading a couple of pages, I can bet that this book is going to hugely inspire me,

The anthology I am currently reading is "A Little Chorus of Love" (Kindle Edition) which is a collection of 24 heart warming love stories. This book is a review copy, unlike the other two books. The best thing about reading this book is that I am getting to read the work of many of my blogger friends.

So, my November started with these 3 beautiful books, which I would be reviewing soon here, in Purba's Library :)



Friday 6 November 2015

Eat, Pray, Love~ one woman's search for everything!


My best friend gifted me this book on my birthday this year and when I started reading it, I realized that I have earned a new friend, Elizabeth Gilbert. So, I read the book at a slow pace because I was not willing to bid adieu to my friend so early. And when I was not reading it, I used to think about Elizabeth's journey.

Eat, Pray, Love is an autobiography or a travelogue of a woman in her mid thirties, who suffers a horrible divorce which is followed by a heart shattering breakup. Lost and devastated, Elizabeth embarks on a journey to find herself and to seek God. She travels to Italy, India and Indonesia after her publisher makes a deal with her that she has to write a blockbuster book on her journey.

As you leaf through the pages, you get to discover yourself along with Gilbert. You get to understand God along with Gilbert. You get to value your life in a more passionate way, along with Gilbert. The book is not only about the author's self-discovery. It is also your chance to rediscover yourself.

I would suggest especially every woman to read this book. It truly holds the secret of life.

Here's sharing 10 beautiful quotes from this book, that has resonated deeply with me:

1. "Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.” 


2. “You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.” 


3. “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life."


4. “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced
life.” 


5. “There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in.” 


6. "Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship - a play between divine grace and willful self-effort.” 


7. “Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy.” 


8. “We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.” 


9. “You’re wishing’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” 


10. “Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope” 


I cannot rate this book, probably because it is so very special to me. When I have started considering the author of the book my dear friend, I hope you can understand how special it is to me. 

Planning to watch the movie "Eat, pray, love" in the weekend! 

You can buy the book here