Unread: Bookish Blogs

It is not every day that I can alert you folks about an upcoming book. But it looks like today is a very good day and I was offered the privilege to give out information about this book which is coming out this May. So let’s throw a parade to the first ever book launch alert on my blog.

Presenting to you The Wedding Photographer

By Sakshama Puri Dhariwal

A fantastic debut with wedding, love, photography, scandal and cricket – a perfect summer read!

What is the book about?

On a seventeen-hour-long flight, a chance upgrade to business class lands journalist Risha Kohli next to handsome young real estate tycoon, Arjun Khanna.

What’s more? Risha has been moonlighting as a wedding photographer and her next assignment is Arjun’s sister’s wedding: the most talked-about social event of the year!

But Arjun doesn’t trust journalists and suspects that this smart, sexy and incredibly spunky girl is only using their mutual attraction as a ploy to invade his privacy for a newspaper scoop.

And Risha, unaware of Arjun’s personal demons, is worried that this irresistible boy’s unnerving behaviour will jeopardize her biggest professional gig so far. What follows is a rollercoaster of snarky quips, sizzling chemistry and simmering drama amidst a Big Fat Punjabi Wedding.

Should you read it?

Definitely. The plot line above gives away enough information that it is not another typical Indian love story. You see, the protagonists don’t exactly zing at the first sight and that is rare enough pick this book up.

And did you see the last four words of the plot line? It says Big Fat Punjabi Wedding. Imagine the drama this book would have in it. Plus there is cricket in it too.

You should read it if you bored of all the college romance books available out there. Besides, it is published by Penguin Books India, so expect a well edited and formatted book. You should also read it if you are desire more than some romance in a story. The Wedding Photographer talks about an independent woman who is juggling two careers- one for the security of it and one for her passion. The story contains equal ounces of talent, romance and humour.

Where to get it?

Currently it is available for pre-order on Amazon.in.

It should hit your nearest bookstores after May 1st 2016.

About the author

Sakshama Puri Dhariwal was born in Delhi and brought up in the era of 1990s’ Bollywood music. She has an MBA in marketing from S.P. Jain, Mumbai, and has spent several years as a brand manager in industry-leading companies like Snapdeal, Hindustan Times and Tata Teleservices. She has worked on marketing campaigns that have won awards at Cannes, Effies and Goafest. Sakshama reads romance novels the way most people eat chocolate—fast, often, and constantly craving more. Her favourite romance writers are Judith McNaught, Julie James, Sarah MacLean, and closer home, Anuja Chauhan. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and their Netflix subscription. The Wedding Photographer is her first novel.

Contact her on her Facebook Page.

Other informations

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (1 May 2016)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0143426265

ISBN-13: 978-0143426264

P.S - This is not a sponsored post.

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I have never been good in deciding what or whom I like most. When I read Harry Potter for the first time, I decided J.K Rowling would become my all-time favourite author. But then I read Percy Jackson and thought Rick Riordan should be my favourite. Every month, if not every week, my favourite book changes and so does the name of my favourite author.

For the time being, my favourite author is Rainbow Rowell. And I crowned her this spot last month after reading Fangirl and Carry On. About a year ago, she had been my favourite for quite a few months when I read Eleanor and Park but was later dethroned by Robyn Schneider (for his brilliant work on The Beginning of Everything).

I am very fond of Rainbow Rowell’s writing style with the brilliant and heart-smashing endings that each of her books carry. I won’t rant about how good her books are in this post but a quick visit to GoodReads should tell you all about it. It is a shame I haven’t reviewed any of her books here on my blog yet. If you happen to like John Green, you are bound to like my current favourite.

My reading taste is strictly limited inside the Young Adult genre and even though I have books from Harper Lee, Salman Rushdie and Aravind Adiga on my shelves, they are yet to be read. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is the farthest stretch that I have gone out from my comfortable genre. Oh! Also Dan Brown’s books featuring Robert Langdon.

The list of authors that I called favourite before Rowell is a long one. All of them are YA authors and are pretty famous. They include the likes of Ernest Cline (Ready Player One), Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) and many more. Closer home, I can’t name anyone except Durjoy Dutta and Chetan Bhagat. Even though not all of their books are likable, Till the Last Breath of the former and the latter’s Revolution 2020 are commendable works.

Everyone in bold above has been my favourite for a period or two. I understand that I have so many more authors to try out and crown the good ones as favourites, to move out of my genre and explore literacy works, to fall in love with more worlds and swim in the lyrics of excellent books and that my reading universe is very very small. I can’t wait to read more.

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My January ended up being a fanstastico month. I sacrificed enough pizzas and saved enough petrol to be able my swipe my card to buy eleven books this month. Five out of eleven reached me before 31^st January, while the rest are still in transit. Pushing away the remaining six books to the February haul, let’s dive in to check the books I got in the first month of 2016 -------

One is missing. I lent it out.

1. Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

“My day started out normally enough. I was sleeping under a bridge when some guy kicked me awake and said, ‘They’re after you.’ Next thing I know, I’m reunited with my obnoxious uncle, who casually informs me that my long lost father is a Norse god.”

That part of the blurb was enough to make me pick up Magnus Chase. Besides, it is from Rick Riordan, the writer of so many awesome fantasy books. Percy Jackson and the Olympians is one of my all time favourites. Magnus Chase and the sword of Summer is the first book in an all new series called Gods of Asgard. Rick is fusing modern day with Norse mythology in this series and I think it very nice. I read this one as soon as I received it. Discovering Norse myths out of the marvel movies was such a new experience. I can’t wait till autumn this year because that is when the next book is scheduled to come out. {Check my review of the book here)

2. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell had impressed me a lot with Eleanor and Park which I read almost a year ago. But for some reason I didn’t pick up any of her other books. In the last few months of 2015, she was all over the Internet with her newest release, Carry On. I liked the cover of Carry On and I wanted to have a taste of Rainbow Rowell once again, so I order this book as soon as I got my pocket money. Carry On is a fantasy book and I have heard so many good things about this one. It has got magic, vampires, mysteries. I plan to read this soon.

3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

The catch in getting Carry On was that I had to buy Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl too. The characters of Carry On are based out of a fictional story inside the plot of Fangirl. While it is not necessary to read Fangirl to read Carry On, a major amount of bookworms recommends that you should read Fangirl first. I read Fangirl this week and enjoyed it a lot. I shall post a review soon.

4. Our impossible love by Durjoy Datta

I always pre-order any book that Durjoy Datta releases. His new book was launched this month and even though I have no idea what it is about, I can safely guess it will be filled with peppy romance. I am saving this book to read in long distance bus or train journeys.

5. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass

Now this one is a book I discovered somewhere around November. A quick Google search took me to the fandom surrounding this book or the series that goes by the same name. I ended up reading a lot of good reviews of this series and it created a slot for itself in my to-buy-books list. I had enough cash this month to order the first two books of the series. The first book is here, adding decor to my shelf while the other is still in transit. I will start this series as soon as I finish collecting the third and the fourth instalments of the series.

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There are almost as much of a variety of readers as there are varieties of books. From reading tastes to reading styles, every reader is unique on their own. While there are a lot of reading habits to discuss, I shall only talk about one in this post. Are you the kind who prefers to listen to music as you read or you are the one who needs complete insulation from your surrounding when you pick up a book? Tell me in the comments.

I personally do not prefer to listen to music if I am reading a book. It is too distracting for me. I will just end up singing the lyrics instead of keeping my concentration on the book. I have tried reading with headphones plugged into my ears quite a few times, experimenting with different kinds of music but none seems to work with me. My concentration always ends up getting deviated. The only kind of music that isn’t too distracting to the reader in me is the soft instrumental kind with no lyrics in it. But surprisingly I can concentrate on a book without any problem even on a loud and busy surrounding. It is a bit weird because music is my enemy while I am reading but ambient noises do not bother me.

I chatted with a bookish friend of mine who belongs to the other kind of people. She keeps her headphones plugged in when she reads and I told her to explain why prefer that. She told me – ‘I have always been listening to music while reading. Now, it is almost a habit. I find music supportive to my reading. Music creates that atmosphere to me where I can comfortably get myself drowned in a book. Also it separates me from all the noises in my surroundings. I can give all my attention to the book if there is music.’

‘What kind of music do you listen to?’ I asked her.

‘Anything,’ she replied. ‘But mostly slow music. I try not to select the playlist with the catchiest songs in it. I listen to the kind of music that helps to concentrate, not the kind that disturbs it.’

The way I get it, music affects the pace of reading. I am a very fast reader and likes to finish a book in one go. I think I cannot listen to music when I read because of my pace. I need my whole concentration on the plot to keep reading at my comfortable speed and music can only be an obstacle to it. But my friend is slow compared to me. She reads little by little and sometimes it even takes her a week to finish a book. While it will be wrong to say that her habit of listening to music is the reason of her slow pace, I am sure it is definitely one of them.

Also before I end, I want to say that it doesn’t matter if you prefer to listen to music while reading or you don’t or you are a fast paced reader or a slow one, what matters is that you read.

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This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

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