2020

It felt like a friend walked away today… Someone witty and intelligent, someone who had a way with words and wizardry to turn sentences into little works of art that I was tempted to underline, read again and note in my journal for safe-keeping, maybe, frame them at some point .

I will remember this book. I will remember it for the story, for the places it took me to, for the languid mornings and unhurried afternoons, for sunlight strewn gardens, wine and the conversations… And Rome and roaming.

I will also remember it for the thrill that first love brings along with the excitement and the ache. I will remember it for the poignant intimacy that the author managed to generate between his protagonists, Elio and Oliver.

‘Call Me By Your Name’ intrigued me as a book title. I mulled over it and thought about it, it was just so beautiful… In what sort of a relationship does one demand this from someone, I wondered? After reading the book I understood it.

I didn’t want this book to end and yet I couldn’t wait to turn the pages…

Sometimes one comes across a book that leads to sleepless nights… A book that grips and gnaws. You want to put it down and almost instantly, you pick it up again.

‘How We Disappeared’ by Jing-Jing Lee is one such book.

Set in Singapore of 1942, during World War II, the story unfolds through the voices of Wang Di, who was seventeen at the time of the Japanese invasion, and young Kevin, born two generations later.

Both carry the immense burden of secrets. Wang Di, of what she suffered at the hands of the Japanese and Kevin, who shares his room with his grandmother and is party to her disassociated nocturnal mumblings which he feels compelled to piece together. And we, the readers, want desperately to know how it all pans out.

While the subject of the book is dark, traumatic and heartbreaking, it is written with compassion. The story is meticulously researched and carries a kernel of hope in its dark and sordid centre.

Read it, because some voices need to be heard.