من عند Panch Ghari, West Bengal 721626، الهند من عند Panch Ghari, West Bengal 721626، الهند

There is so much to take from this book, I think each person in the book group interpreted characters and themes slightly differently. It was a very interesting chat. Who amongst us understood Anna... what would we have done in her shoes.. who liked Levin.. opinions on kitty and dolly... not to mention, who would have fallen for Vronsky! It was also very interesting get a snapshot of what it might have been like in high society Russia at that time. Interesting.. but at the same time, the level of detail could be boring. If 'Interesting but boring' makes sense?! We all found it a tough slog reading it but most of us felt an achievement on finishing it and that we would remember and draw from it for a long time. It is a book that stays with you. No need to mention the skill in the writing, this is Tolstoy.. enough said.

Unfortunately, Crichton is too convincing in his anti-global warming propaganda piece. The story is great, sure, but this book is just that – a very thinly veiled piece of propaganda for the right wing oil industries and politicians who want us to believe that there’s no such thing as global warming. And he is very, very convincing. My mother says she read that he’s actually receiving kickbacks from oil companies. I can’t even counter the arguments, so I’ll have to read more about it. Crichton is even self-righteous, claiming he wants his readers to decide for themselves and providing a long bibliography. Of course he knows that one in a hundred people will actually look anything from that list up, so he can be confident that his book is doing its job. As for the story, it boils down to a global conspiracy by militant environmentalists to actually create natural disasters, deadly ones, to convince the public that global warming is going to horribly change the world in the near future. The lawyer who is the main character ends up in many life-or-death situations struggling to find out the secret and save lives by stopping many of these disasters (a huge glacier breaking from an ice sheet, a flash flood that would kill school children on a picnic, etc.) from happening. I found the book entertaining but overall disturbing in its implications.