Random Thoughts

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín My rating: 3 of 5 stars Reading Brooklyn by Colm Toibin feels like reading someone's biography. The story arc moves slowly spending quite some time in describing the day to day life of Eilis, it's central character. Anyone who has moved to another country, to a foreign world, who has been homesick and felt lonely will empathize with Eilis's various challenges and experiences. It takes time to build a new life in a new world, and this book lets you in on that, shows you how the said new life is built brick by brick, gradually. Eilis keeps herself busy throughout the week during her first several months in the new country. This way she spends less time thinking about home. She joins night accounting classes at a local University. She gets used to her life. Gradually, she even starts to enjoy it, doing new things and letting herself be. She eventually falls in love and starts to dream about a beautiful future. But, tragedy strikes back home an...

I visited two cities recently. One is at the sea, while the other is in the mountains. One, bustling with life and energy, the other, quiet, serene and peaceful. Both were covered in snow when I got there. One has a really huge International Airport, the other has an airport smaller than a train station about one hour away from the city with just two airlines running. One is Boston/Cambridge in Massachusetts, the other Los Alamos in New Mexico. Because I went to the two places within two weeks of each other, I couldn't help but notice the difference. Los Alamos is a desert with vast empty spaces, few people and fewer restaurants. But, it is also a beautiful place. You step out of the Los Alamos National Lab and you see the snow capped mountains and realize that you can't take your eyes off them. When writers wax lyrical about nature hypnotizing you, this is what they mean. The scenery is so beautiful with the morning sun rays falling over the snow capped peaks turning the...