The year is coming to an end, and I am sure we can all agree that we wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for OTT platforms and books. Staying indoors can take a toll on us, but good content was the much-needed escape we all had.
Now, we are all looking forward to a COVID-19 less year and hopefully a vaccine that can help us resume our regular lives. But, as we witness the development of the new strain, it is still advised to keep social gathering to a bare minimum and continue to follow all the COVID-19 norms as much as possible.
To make the coming year better, The Bridge Chronicle brings to you a list of best reads from the year 2020.
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
The one thing that the world has in common right now is the experience of isolation and the restlessness caused by the uncertainty. And this book reads into the emotion perfectly, through the lives of two families. A young, white, upper-middle-class family headed out to a rental vacation home. And the owner of the rental home, a black family. Both are trying to escape the events around them with a single question, who deserves it more? The author takes us through common preconceptions, biases, and assumptions that surface as these families try to co-exist.
Open Secrets Sheila Kohler
Set in the French Riviera, Amagansett and Switzerland - Open Secrets, is an ideal way to travel through the medium of Sheila Kohler's words. The idyllic life of a banker, his American wife and daughter seem like just another story until something unexpected happens. Their life becomes entangled with that of a charismatic oligarch. Suspense mounts as the novel read into mysteries at seemed impossible in the beginning. The author is known for drawing inspiration from her own life, and this novel makes the reader question.
Caste - The origin of our discontent
The issue of caste persists in nations far east to far west. Caste has impacted peoples lives for generations and continues to do so in most parts of the world. Most people have heard of experienced caste-related issues, and the existence is not new knowledge. But author Isabel Wilkerson digs into this topic in the United States of America and how the country we see today has been shaped by a hidden caste system, based on a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. The stories connect to India and Nazi Germany, outlining caste as an underlining organiser of the society. The stories act as an eye-opener, leading us to reexamine what we know and how we see modern society.
A burning - Megha Mujumdar
In a world where people are learning to speak up, there is an intense fear of offending the unknown. Close to real life, Megha Majumdar’s A Burning takes you through the life of a youngster who faced a similar issue. Jivan, an ambitious young girl from the slums of Bengal, did not know her life would turn upside down because of a Facebook comment. A comment she made on a provocative post while idly scrolling through her feed.
Soon, the police are at her door, accusing her of begin associated with a terrorist group. Quickly after that, she is taken to jail and kept for a comment. But as she tries to understand how she landed here, a mystery unveils, and soon the reader is the third person looking at her past actions, plottings and much more. A Burning is an unconventional story, and a captivating read.
The Address Book
Ever wonder why we have an address? How did ever street get its name? In the times on e-commerce and free home deliveries, addresses are of extreme importance. But when did the concept incept and where are the origins?
Tapping into a very offbeat style of book reading is The Address Book by Deirdre Mask. But don't let the name fool you. Mask, a lawyer and academic, reveals that addresses hold greater purposes than just accurate location of people's homes. The author talks about specific street names across Germany, the U.S and the Caribbean to point out a fact that the sole purpose of addresses is not assistance to the mailing system. She claims that addresses organise people according to who they are. The address is a subtle way to reveal the place, power and status of people. Written with immense research and though, The Address Book will surely change the way you look at an address.