Out Of Place In Time And Space

Title : Out of Place in Time and Space

Author : Lamont Wood

Publisher : New Page Books

ISBN : 978-1-60163-178-7

'Out of Place in Time and Space' is a delightful read highlighting the things, incidents and situations from the past which resemble the ones that happened or were invented many years later. How is it possible to see things in the past that look similar to the things in the present? The picture of children holding toy helicopters, toy airplanes on the tombs, the presence of planetary objects in the tribal art, writer having written about the doomed gigantic ship getting into an accident with just a few lifeboats - eventually happening much later in Titanic , movie on the President creating an artificial war as a façade to distract the attention of the public away from his personal affair, the mention of Pacific Front of the World War II more than a decade before the war began, UFOs being depicted in the paintings of medieval period - are some of the examples brought into notice by Lamont Wood.

Wood offers a detailed reference list of such cases appropriately supported by illustrations from some very reliable sources like National Geographic and Scientific American. The facts of the knowledge from the past are thoroughly analyzed form logical angles and are presented in an easily readable fashion adequately stirring the curiosity of readers to know more as the book progresses.

The book does manage to initiate a few basic questions in the minds of the readers - Have we understood the time dimension completely? Is time a much more cryptic dimension than it seems to be? What else have we not understood completely ignoring it as just flight of imagination of a set of people in different times? These and some more will surely incite the curiosity of many readers.

A book, full of substance and evidences for the large array of observations that have been made throughout the book. The information packed book is not devoid of humour so it promises to give an enjoyable reading experience to the readers. This is definitely one of the books which offers 'something different' from the regular content.

The pictures and illustrations added to the text, bring out the point much more effectively.

A Waiting Wave by Kulpreet Yadav

Title : A Waiting Wave

Author : Kulpreet Yadav

Pubisher : Cedar Books

A Waiting Wave is a love story of Harry and Kareena, who are confronted with a rough terrain in their married life not too long after they took their vows to be in the relationship. Harry decides to handle the situation by silently exiting from the scene for some time with an aim to introspect.

Most of the ingredients that are typically found in any melodramatic love saga find a place in the story - passionate love, another person vying for heroines attention, short-tempered husband, regular complaints of a working wife and jealous spouse. Tsunami - the natural disaster is also appended to the potpourri and the couple in question is caught completely unawares. But sometimes it does take a mightier jolt for mere mortals like us to realize the pettiness of issues in broader scheme of things.

But unfortunately none of these ingredients make the readers connect with the characters or feel for them the way any love story should.

An ordinary love story, very simplistically told, which moves at a constant pace without attempting to soar high anywhere or dipping down too low. Readers would not be able to take much from the story and the impact will end with the last page of the book. The detailed information about the Andaman and Nicobar islands and the native triabals is interesting and sounds very authentic, which shows the sufficient groundwork that the author must have done to write authoritatively about the same. In my opinion, the main story is not strong enough to hold the attention of the readers. On some occasions the side subplots gain more prominence in the absence of an engaging plot.

What is good about the book is that it is free of all sorts of mistakes - spelling, grammatical, typos so I would say the editing job is done well. But the weak plot can make the book go only this far. Read it once, if you must.

I Remember My Circus by Tom S. Figueiredo

Title : I Remember My Circus (Kindle Edition)

Author : Tom S. Figueiredo

Illustrator : Sidney Falcao

'I Remember My Circus' is a story of an ill-fated magical town carrying an open secret. Most families living in this town have one or the other member who turns into an animal. The story starts with a girl working in a circus whose special feat is that she transforms into a gorilla at specific time of the day but this particular day seems to be far from other regular days especially for the gorilla girl and for the people who have come to see this live transformation in the circus.

That particular night, the narrator who is the 10-year old boy experiences the magic of kindness and the wonders it can create. Soon after that the circus is wound up and every single trace of the circus is magically wiped out of the place. Incidentally the little boy gets to witness the secret of sudden appearance and vanishing of the circus which nobody else knew. And he decides to be a part of the circus by not sharing the secret.

The author Tom S. Figueired aptly brings out the imagination and inquisitiveness of a child's mind. The story is very sensitively and poignantly narrated. Great imagination, fresh idea and very creative execution. The illustrations done in water colours are simply gorgeous. However, I felt the appropriateness with the text is not maintained in the illustrations. The 10-year old boy is shown as a small toddler and pictures showing the mother carrying him in her arms look somewhat unrealistic.

Another important thing, the readers should not be misguided by the fact that since this is a picture book so is appropriate for very young children only. The little children will surely enjoy the colourful illustrations but the idea of the story is very mature and may get lost on them. So this book can be read and fully understood by anybody of 10+ years age.

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