100 Word Book Review:

‘Animal Farm’ penned down by Eric Arthur Blair under the pen name George Orwell. It might have derived its source from the events leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution. The author has channelized his thoughts via making allegorically use of animals, which proves to be highly effective on the reader, makes us see what is unseen to our eyes. The story summaries when given a chance to a country after getting independence to rebuild its constitution and its future, it is in the leaders’ intentions as well as the followers’ which will decide where the county will go.

Who should read:

Animal Farm is suitable for readers who are keen in politics. It is an introductory short story that depicts from the start of a revolution, to the final stage of tyranny state. There are many similarities drawn from history, and present paradigms as well.

Not to mention, the animal responses are exactly the same as how citizens react in the actual world.

Who should not read:

Most likely this book is not suitable for readers who are looking for indept discussion of politics or governance structures.

Likewise it is also not suitable for those who are not comfortable reading about talking animals who live their lives just like humans.

Takeaway points:

Power corrupts.
During every election, it is very unlikely to know which party is corrupted or not. Only when the party is in power, the true colour reveals.
Not all is lost. There are still good leaders who will serve truthfully and altruistically.

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),^[1] better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic whose work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism and outspoken support of democratic socialism.^[2]^[3]

Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England; and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, are widely acclaimed as are his essays on politics, literature, language and culture. In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.^[4]

Orwell’s work continues to influence popular and political culture and the term “Orwellian“—descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices—has entered the language together with many of his neologisms, including “Big Brother“, “Thought Police“, “Room 101“, “memory hole“, “newspeak“, “doublethink“, “proles“, “unperson” and “thoughtcrime“.^[5]^[6]

Biography/Autobiography, Inspirational, Non-Fiction

Have a Little Faith: a True Story – Mitch Albom

21/12/2014 BooksAvenue Leave a comment

Have a Little Faith: a True Story by Mitch Albom

In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds–two men, two faiths, two communities–that will inspire readers everywhere.

Albom’s first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom’s old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he’d left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor–a reformed drug dealer and convict–who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.

As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds–and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.

In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor’s wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi’s last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.

Have a Little Faith is a book about a life’s purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man’s journey, but it is everyone’s story.

Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.

Fiction, Inspirational, Romance

The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom

29/03/2014 BooksAvenue Leave a comment

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination, but an answer.

In heaven, five people explain your life to you. Some you knew, others may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie’s five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his “meaningless” life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: “Why was I here?”

Mitchell David Albom is an author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician. His books have collectively sold over 35 million copies worldwide; have been published in forty-one territories and in forty-two languages around the world; and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed television movies.