The overdue life of Amy Byler

Author : Kelly Harms 

We got into a situation when as a group we decided to read comedy, voted on a book which looked comical based on reviews and figured out the book is anything but comedy . A complete bummer . But well , we did have fun discussing the pains we took to finish the book . But what was interesting was that the book had such rave reviews and was rated laugh out comedy . All the more reason to stress on the importance of genuine reviews !

Rating : 👎

The little Teashop in Tokyo

 Author : Julie Caplin

Plot: The little Teashop in Tokyo by Julie Caplin is a breezy romance between two photographers who happen to meet each other in Tokyo after an unpleasant encounter they had a decade ago . Fiona is a travel blogger and a photographer who wins an all expense trip to Tokyo , a photography mentor for two weeks and an opportunity to display her photos in an exhibition. What she doesn’t know is that her mentor is going to be someone with whom she got into an embarrassing situation ten years back , an ambitious, successful and handsome photographer Gabe . How the equations play out between them is the rest of the story. But the heart of this book lies in Tokyo itself . During her stay , Fiona stays with a Japanese family which owns a tea shop in Tokyo . She gets a chance to meet women of three generations in that family and through each of them , she gets to understand the little customs, food , attire , the traditions and also the bohemian practices of the Japanese people . Because her profession is photography, she travels with Gabe to all the prominent attractions in Tokyo and captures the soul and the beauty of those places on camera. The first half of the book is really enticing with lot of nitty gritty details about the streets , the houses and the local restaurants of Tokyo. There are vivid descriptions on importance of chopsticks , the broken pots , the Bonsai trees and the cherry blossoms . It is the second half which precipitates the whole book and fails to capitalize on the pace which is set in the first half . There should have been some twist or action, instead the plot drags with stereotypical romance and misunderstandings between the lead pair . I also felt that there should have been few photographs of the places and things in the Epilogue for the readers to appreciate the descriptions in the book a lot better .

But overall, I liked the book. It’s a fast read and for a while , I got lost into the world of cherry blossoms and appreciated the beauty of wabi-sabi and kintsugi once again . If you have a fascination towards Japanese culture , go for this book. Don’t expect too much on the plot , you will not be disappointed.

Rating: 👍👍👍

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News of the world(Movie)

I finally managed to watch the News of the World movie yesterday, renting the DVD from Redbox at a reasonable price. I have already reviewed the book before so I will not go into the details of the plot. My objective here is to compare the movie and the book and conclude which fares better.

To recap, the plot revolves around a 70-year-old retired veteran, Captain Jeffrey Kidd who earns his living travelling from place-to-place, reading news to the people in small towns in North Texas. In one of the towns, he meets a young German girl, who was captured by the Kiowa tribe, and raised as one of their own. The girl, who has lost touch with the civilization, has to be now returned back to her original family, her German uncle and aunt, and the job to escort her, falls on Captain Kidd.

Together they travel four hundred miles down south to the hill country during which they make several escapades. Their journey to the destination and the bond they forge enroute is a feast to watch.

The movie is very well crafted and the visuals are splendid. The aerial shots of the vast Texas Prairies are breathtaking. The unruly terrain, the rolling hills and the hardships of the locals are beautifully captured. I especially loved the enigmatic aura in which the Kiowa tribe is presented in the movie. The lead pair did an incredible job, Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel excel in their roles and get into the skin of their characters.

The movie captures the political atmosphere of Texas in 1870s very accurately. Texas was part of the Confederates during the Civil War, so some of the views presented in the movie may not be to the popular liking. But the screenplay is crisp, the arguments are stated and noted. The political opinions are just presented, they are neither advocated nor ridiculed.

The movie does deviate from the book at many instances. To start with, in the book, Captain Kidd agrees to escort Johanna because he is given a good coveted 50 dollars to do the job, Whereas in the movie, he is shown to be a kindhearted man who is doing the job to answer to his own clear conscience. In the book, Captain Kidd does not read the local news as he believes that information could be obtained easily to the local public. Instead, he entices the audiences with the news from lands, far far away across the globe. In the movie, though there is a glimpse of “The Times of India”, Captain Kidd is seen reading primarily from the Texas newspapers and the federal newspapers. Most of the supporting cast is given little screen time, and they disappear into oblivion once the Captain and Johanna leave the place and continue their journey. Whereas in the book, we learn about the lives of each of these characters in great detail. The captain’s children are not even mentioned in the movie, the chronological events summing up the life of the captain in the movie seems to be different from the book.

Albeit the glaring differences, my observation is that this is one of the rare instances where it is difficult to choose between the movie and the book. I loved them both equally. The movie excels on its own, but if you want to dig deeper, go for the book. The history of Texas is intriguing and indeed worth your time.

👍👍👍👍👍