Book Review - Vita & Virginia: A Double Life By Sarah Gristwood

Title: Vita & Virginia
Language: English
Genre: Historical Biography
Pages: 208
Rating: 4/5

Excerpt: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West Fell in Love.

Vita & Virginia is an extraordinary double biography beautifully describing work, friendship and love between the prolific formidable novelists of the early 1900s. It is a real story behind the longest and most charming & admirable love letters of literature. This book is drawn from their letters and diaries to illuminate the enormity of the love the two women shared from the day they first met to the day Vita learned of Virginia’s death — a love that remained every bit alive until the end.

These women challenged and redefined conventional norms & beliefs of love, femininity, sexuality, art and politics during the Victorian era. The book is a cultural legacy of these legendary women - Virginia Wolf & Vita Sackville- West, enduring icons who put up a fight for gender equality and female liberation both in terms of love and literature.

My thoughts:
This book is very rewarding to read, I recommend you to read this book if you are a literary fan of either of the writers or want to explore an unusual encounter of a historic episode.

I think this is a book that will stay with me for a long time as it made me admire the writers and their writing more dearly, for I grew fonder of their existence.

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Waiting to be crowned - A Short Story

Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash

“Anything you need from the store sweetie”

Christine looked up as she was reading her favourite book by Raymond Carver.

Did he really ask this question? He did have no clue? Did he know nothing?

She couldn’t help being blunt and annoyed.

What happened to her being a queen.

“Queen of the day”

That was how they’d always done it.

Done it for years! Twenty-five long years, a quarter of a century.

And on his birthday he was king of the day.

He would always make her breakfast in bed with a pink rose in her favourite crystal bowl, an English breakfast just the way she liked it always!

All these years he’d done the same.

“I’ll be back in an hour”, he said.

Christine didn’t bother replying this time.

“Did you hear sweetie?”

She looked, his face was kind of strange.

It was as if was shying away from smiling, leaving a hint.

This was no time for jokes she thought to herself.

It was her day, she ought to be treated like a queen, not be the butt of a joke.

“Okay,” she muttered as he went out through the back door.

She could have sworn she saw his lips part swiftly with a grin, through the window as he walked towards his car.

He acted like he was 25 again.

Just how old he was the year they met no more than that!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved

Websites to download Free E-books to read during Quarantine

"The first thing that reading teaches us is how to be alone" - Jonathan Franzen

Photo by James Tarbotton on Unsplash

Books have always been the expressions of a human mind, connecting with the reader then and for all the future generations and the deepest emotions, of empathy in the form of a creative gift. It is a human intellect at its finest, showing how these logical abilities are only a blessing in these times of distress and COVID-19 lockdown. They may have only been pages, and only ink from a press, but now it is how we are keeping ourselves connected to the world and a ray of hope that we can indulge in our reading interests. 

I have always been a voracious reader and I love to read a lot since they always have had a way of showing a beautiful perspective of the world. Many of us are out there who love to read books or always hoped to improve our reading habits or incorporate them into our daily lives, but failed because of lack of time. 

In the times of the pandemic where most of us are locked away behind four walls, maybe it is time we bring this long lost hobby to life by reading. 

I am sharing a list of links, which can help get your hands on the finest books through the websites. I'd love it if I could help you read during these quadrant-times and help you with your reading. 

Links to Download PDFs Books to Keep you company!

1. PDF Drive
2. Library Genesis
3. Book Boon
4. PDF World Books
5. CALAMEO
6. National Emergency Library   
7. Google Books
8. Children's Digital Library
9. Feed Books
10. Open Library  
11. Internet Archive

(I tried to make a list of ten, exceeded it by one, could not help so it is 11 now! )

Additionally, Amazon recently cancelled the subscription of books and audio stories for children and students of all ages, people anywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories across different languages, that will help them continue learning, dreaming and just exploring some new genres. 

All these are free to stream on your desktop, mobile devices using the following link - https://stories.audible.com/start-listen 

Let me know if you come across more links, it would be helpful. 

Stay home. Stay Safe.

Happy Reading Folks!

"It is always better to have too much to read than not enough" - Ann Patchett

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Stay, one way or another - A Short Story

Photo by Ilona Panych on Unsplash

Nylah is seriously beginning to have edgy moments around her husband. He was unfaithful to her. Piling reproach after reproach upon himself, he added aggressiveness to his adultery. She knew this was the beginning of the end.

She was more than upset: he began to grow silent, unresponsive, grim as the dark starless night as if he did not hear her cry each night when they slept at the end of the bed they still shared. He was unfaithful to her: and oh, in such a trivial way. Oh, and also he was gradually turning into a narcissist, isolating himself from responsibility, she failed to see deeply hidden beneath his charming aura in their 8 years of marriage. Such shame, such shame! She pitied herself. But he only smiled wickedly now, which he so carelessly denied to hide and asked her what she wanted.

She said, “ A Divorce”

He quickly said — “Sure”, without giving it a second thought, or without thinking about their daughter, who still did not know what was happening between her parents.

It pained Nylah, to think now that her daughter will be soon feel abandoned, and alone.

As she thought of her husband’s betrayal, her lips curled and nostrils flared. Her head a great deal of throbbing with the blood gushing into the veins. Her once sunny and loving happy family memory, now felt tarred and disfigured. She kept her gaze off him because she did not want to make eye contact with him, she was still so heartbroken by his behaviour, his betrayal, wondering how he could walk out of his family, with a blink of an eye.

She bitterly stifled and made herself comfortable on the doormat spread across the floor after he left slamming the door, right across the room, with an unsympathetic shrug. They say a bad parent was a traumatized child, maybe Dev was caught in the fires of his suffering, thoughts more like a hurricane than poetry. I guess!

Deep down, she believed that there exists a road to forgive, a way to see the bigger picture and move on without having to break this family, without abandoning their daughter, head held high. When we identify it, we can learn to heal, learn to work on the relationship, learn to love anew and approve of each other in a way that is deep and calm. Then they could become good parents and start a new cycle that is loving and healthy, plant a good seed in the rotten wood and watch the new spring grow without drifting apart.

Nylah had lived without her mother, lonely, starved of warmth, little Nylah often stared into the blank wall as she grew up as she did now, looking for answers. She was drowning in the sorrow of her childhood and how her marriage slipping right through her fingers, yet a spark of strength within let her stay strong for a few moments, for her daughter. Then a stream of tears emerged from her eyes along with bitter sobs and screams. What had she done to deserve this dejection? Outcast by her family and frightened by society, all alone she had nowhere to call home if Dev left her. Even though no words came back from the stillness and emptiness in the house, she could hear the sounds of nature, tickling the tip of her ear, keeping her company, giving her strength, to attempt to give her daughter Lily, a normal childhood she deserves.

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Live Through This with Hope…An age of pandemic

 Requiem for a dream

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

In the current scheme of things, hope is like a bead tied by the thread to every heartbeat. It radiates a soothing calmness into me, same the blood flows into my veins, bringing the mind to repose. Each bead perfect, each one like a tiny world of its own. I can’t know for sure that today will be better than yesterday for everybody with the spreading pandemic across the world taking so many lives, or if this is time, nature, Mother Earth is calling it her “win”.

Honestly, I am trying to be optimistic, as much as I can. Perhaps, it is the time, you can turn off all the lights and still see my soul shining bright, always burning with joy, love, always ready to start a new blaze. That’s why I feel optimistic, hearing a flock of pigeons, parrots and other birds in my balcony singing with joy, cooing and flapping away tree to tree, rejoicing the newfound silence, clean air and utter stillness around them, which they have missed for generations. Each slow chirping echoes through my mind, reverberating off a realization that this is teaching us to respect what we all took for granted — our resources, our blessings, our privileges, our environment which is now finally laying down to rest.

I sit down to meditate, close my eyes and feel the positive energy flow, recharging my myself, refuelling my energy, enthusiasm, and sparkle. So call it a little bird constantly chirping while on my shoulder, whispering “This can’t be the end!”; my hope will never be doused before my time on earth is done, not until I have lived to my heart’s content, my fullest, I have lived only a few years over two decades.

In a world of pandemic sickness, where blinding greed and cruelty is the cause and love and kindness is the antidote, the patients will soon start to declare themselves doctors and seal the fate of the world!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally Published on The Spiritual Tree