Here are posts related to my experience and thoughts on books I read. I share my sentiments on the books, the authors, the characters and the writing style. My reviews may sometimes contain spoilers for the undecided reader.
I finally know the timeless story of Madame Bovary.
What a remarkable journey to delve into the timeless classics whose names I first heard uttered in adult conversations in my childhood in Iran. The Godfather is such an example. Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables another. Madame Bovary yet another.
I read Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece in English, translated not [...]
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This is the second contest on Prolific Living. We had heaps of fun and participation from the first contest on photography in October 2009. For me, the reward was the spirit of engaging you, my readers, and the sheer joy of giving prizes away after building so much energy and anticipation. So I decided to [...]
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“I am sure that if I sat in a quiet place, away from the palace and the bustle of the court, I could remember scenes from my childhood much earlier than six years old.”
- Prologue to “The Heretic Queen”
I wish there were still a thousand more pages to read but alas I have finished [...]
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The most magnificent films of our time would be hard pressed in creating the visual images Michelle Moran stirs up with her powerful words, from a history that existed over three thousand years ago, a kingdom that ruled in the heart of Egypt in an unstable period, and a queen that was so beautiful and [...]
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If I had to do it all over again, I would….?
When you ask yourself that question casually, what is the answer? In some situations, we cannot change the past and the opportunity has passed. In others however, we may be able to set a new course. A few years ago I realized one of my [...]
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Be it naiveté or lack of insight, I have never understood all the fuss about New York and its self-proclaimed greatness. Try as I might, I cannot recollect a single memory of a warm encounter, a nice experience or a kind human interaction during my visits. Sadly, I do have a few sour such memories, [...]
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In my mind, I was driving to Manderley last night.
I was driving my little Honda down a remote highway when I went into this state of complete mental absorption. Less than a day after finishing Daphne Du Maurier’s classic of a novel, Rebecca, I was finding it nearly impossible to stop thinking about Manderley, the magnificent [...]
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I read “Daisy Miller” and “Washington Square” because Azar Nafisi mentioned them in “Reading Lolita in Tehran“. I had set out to complete the reading list of all the books mentioned in Nafisi’s tales of Iran, and next on my list were these two short novels of Henry James. They came in the same book. [...]
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Reading “Blink” made me more confident in trusting those instant first impressions. Gladwell put some logic and reason into what I could only describe as instinct. Agree or disagree with him, Gladwell knows how to tell a compelling a story, and it is the stories that grasp his readers, or at the very least, me. I read [...]
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I lived in Turkey with my family for 3 years in the 1980s after we had left Iran, and I distinctly remember my dad constantly begging us to take a trip to Greece. For some inexplicable reason, the whole family was against going anywhere else. Perhaps the unexpected move from Iran had left us in [...]
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What did I do on a 4-day vacation in Montreal in September? We came to Canada a few days before Toronto International Film Festival and Montreal was the obvious traveler’s guide choice in which to spend a few late summer days. We walked countless miles every day, and while I found the people warm and [...]
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To be fortunate enough to have an infinite source of wisdom is rare, so I consider myself lucky. The source is my younger brother, Sina Bahram (I have been informed that he is now too old to be called my “little brother” but you know how that goes). Sina happens to be the smartest, sharpest [...]
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Japan has fascinated me since I was a child. My grandparents made a trip over to Tokyo in the 1970s and for years, they talked about it to everyone. That’s what people did back then. Or at least where I grew up. They would go on one trip to a “foreign” land and come home with [...]
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Reading Jane Eyre marks one of my most bittersweet journeys into a novel and into a character’s life and psyche.
I read Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece of accomplishment for an unusual reason. I wanted to find a way to get closer to her sister, Emily Brontë. I devoured Emily’s singular publication of ”Wuthering Heights“, a story that is at the [...]
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