JAYDEEP PARMAR BLOG

When you think of Egypt, what's the first thought that comes to your mind?  Pyramids? Egypt's famous for pyramids. The country has lots of them.  Mummies? Of course. With great pyramids comes scary mummies. They were terrifying in 'The Mummy' movies we watched in our childhood. The popular TV series Hatim also had a plot exploring a similar story.  The Pyramids and tombs of Egypt are fascinating. Centuries-old tombs of kings and their beautiful wives, having their reliefs on the walls of the chambers. It makes you wonder about their life, their beliefs, and their rituals. The tombs are also decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology.  There's so much to know about Egyptian mythology and their old culture. A simple search on the web will give you a vast amount of information that will be enough to keep you occupied for years. But the best way to learn about them is through a story. A story told by a writer who has a Ph.D. in Egyptology. A writer so popular that th...

 Years ago, back in 2015, I saw a beautiful cover of the book ' The Guardians of the Halahala ' while I was browsing on amazon for Indian mythology books. At that time I was still new to this genre. I had recently finished reading Shiva Trilogy by Amish and loved it so much that I wanted to read more and more books like this.  The recent editions of 'The Guardians of the Halahala' is different than what it used to be before. But I liked the first one, depicting Vishada's dagger in blue colour and purple background. It instantly attracts attention, prompting anyone to read the book or find out what it's about. After a month of putting it in my cart, I bought the book.  In my childhood, I used to read a lot of books in Gujarati, about Vikramaditya. That includes Betaal Pachhisi, Singhasan Battisi, and individual stories of King Vikramaditya's adventures. I think I read around 40-50 such books. I still remember a lot of them and I've told them numerous...

Hey everyone,                        A month ago, I talked about a fantasy book,  Spinning Silver,  by Naomi Novik. Here's a review  of it. I also completed reading a mammoth book, Oathbringer ( Stormlight Archives #3), in April. It was gifted by my friend on my birthday. Honestly, I didn't want to read this one at this time. I like reading Cosmere either in Winter or Monsoon. Anyway, here's where I talked about Stormlight Archive - Fantasy, Stormlight Archive and me.                     So far, all the books I read this year belonged to the fantasy genre—kings of the Wyld, Spinning Silver, The lightning tree, and Oathbringer. But then I drank one from my To Read list on Goodreads, which is science fiction.  This is a review of the latest book of the recently popular Sci-Fi series Murderbot Diaries written by Martha Wells . The Murderbot Diaries is an action...

Hey there, everybody Today I want to talk about a fantasy series I have recently been obsessed with. Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson.  My fascination with fantasy and Science Fiction dates back to my childhood when I used to read lots of comics and stories in the newspaper edition of Saturday. Stories filled with magic, adventure, romance and secret treasures.  It made me love this genre. But the best part about reading fiction is it indirectly teaches you a lot. Some stories are open to the interpretation of the readers. While others are happily ever after kind. While it's natural for anyone to hate the one with a sad ending, if you look at it from another angle you might get why it had to be so.  This reminds me of a quote from my favourite fantasy series, Kingkiller Chronicles. It goes, " It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question...

Hi, everyone   I'm posting a review of a book I read in March. It's Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik .  A 5 stars rating from two of my favourite authors, Patrick Rothfuss and Martha Wells, prompted me to read this book. I really really liked it. And this will be one of my favourite books for years to come. The book won many awards, including Locus Award for a fantasy novel,   Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for adult literature. It was nominated for Goodreads Choice Award and Booknest award for the best traditionally published novel.  Now then, let's talk about this beautiful work.      There is a popular fairytale in Germany known as Rumpelstiltskin .  It is believed to be originated around 4000 years ago.  The story goes that a miller who frequently lies to the people in his town once told the king that his daughter is not only beautiful but can turn straw into gold. As it turns out, this was a lie too. But the king, after hearing this, tel...

This is the first book I read in 2020. Three years after it was in the stores. Last year, the first book I read was The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson . So I'm going with another fantasy book this year too. Nowadays so many of the books that I read comes straight from the recommendation by the authors that I follow on Goodreads. Mostly it's Patrick Rothfuss . When he's reading a book, I check that book out. Like Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Or Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. And this one too. He's still reading it though. Or maybe forgot to update it. He's lazy, you see. A lot of the times. But that's a whole another story. You'll see. So, he was reading Kings of the Wyld last year. That's when I knew I had to read this one after checking the reviews on Goodreads. You're missing out a lot they say if you don't read this book. But for the past few months, this book was on my to be read list. I intended it to read in last year ...

Recently I completed reading Words of Radiance. It's the second book of Stormlight Archive. It's been a while since I read the first one - ' The Way of Kings '. Months actually. 8 months. I like to take a break before moving on to the next one in fantasy series like these. They come once in every 3 years or so.  It's good to read it in intervals till the next one comes.  When I was reading Way of Kings, it took 15 days. And it was around 1200 pages. I enjoyed it a lot. But at that time I wasn't obsessed with the series like I'm now. Words of Radiance was 1328 pages in mass-market paperback version and I finished it in seven days !!! I was so much into it. It was perfect. Brandon Sanderson deserves all the praise he gets for Stormlight Archive.  There were several goosebumps moments in the book. I can't describe them here. It would spoil the book for you. Many times I had to stop reading for a few seconds, just to absorb it. And then resume it ag...