The 100 Books Pact - 30/100

22/100 The Grim Grotto 

Continuing the Baudelaire series, this is the 11^th book of the series where the Baudelaires find themselves in the submarine of Captain Widdershins for the first time Count Olaf did not make an appearance for more than half of the book. In The end, the children reached the Briny beach solving the code in Quigley’s telegram and hopping onto the taxi driven by Kit Snicket who is the sister of Jacques Snicket whom they met in the village of fowl devotees(#7) and for whose murder the Baudelaires were accused and a new adventure awaits.

23/100 The Penultimate Peril
Penultimate means next to last thus making this the 12^th book of the series. The children met or saw all the people of their past in the Denouement Hotel like Esme, Geraldine Julienne(the reported of The Daily Punchtilio) and Carmalita, Sir and Charles from the factory, Vice Principal Nero, Mr. Remora and Mrs. Brass from the school, Hal from the hospital running an Indian restaurant.

In the end, Klaus helped Olaf to open the lock of the laundry room fastened by Vernacularly fastened Door as he was sure that the sugar bowl is not there, Violet helped him make a drag chute out of the boat on the roof so that they can land safely in the pond below without a crash as they will accompany him and Sunny reminded him of letting the hotel on fire as a signal to VFD that the last of the safe palce is not safe anymore and they landed up in a boat with him.

24/100 The End
At the end of 13 chapters (14 in case of The End) each in the 13 books, many questions like the whereabouts of the sugar bowl or its contents are unanswered and the fate of many people like the Quagmire triplets and Hector is unknown! That is a disappointment.

25/100 The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Don Tillman is one of the most endearing, charming and fascinating literary characters I have met in a long time. This book is very clever and amusing. It has its laugh-out-loud moments and at some places its very touchy. I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did Bill Gates. Highly recommended.

26/100 The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
This is the sequel to the above book and hence a continuation of Don Tillman and Rosie’s life who are expecting a baby. The author had raised the bar too high with the first book. This in itself is a good book, but relatively, it lags behind “The Rosie Project”. To be honest, I rushed through this book as I wanted to get it done with. Having said that, if there is a sequel, I will still pick it up for the love of Don!

27/100 The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Calpurnia Tate or Callie Vee who is almost twelve, is a born naturalist. She is the only girl in the Tate family of seven children. The story is based in 1899. When there was dearth of earthworms which were required for fishing, she figured that earthworms came out in rains, so she created a little rain for them for a couple of days after which they came just by listening to her footsteps, captured them and sold them for a penny.

She figured why the yellow grasshoppers were bigger and the green ones were smaller. It was hard to spot them in yellow grass despite them being fat and slow while the emerald ones were too easy to spot and gobble down by the birds in the yellow grass, thus confirming the survival of the fittest theory by Charles Darwin.

She finds her mentor in her grandfather who has dedicated the later part of his life in the study of nature.  When she is not exploring nature with granddaddy, she finds herself incapable of doing the girly things her mother forces her to, like knitting, cooking or playing a piano. Throughout the book, she has to balance her curious personality with the restrictions placed on the girl. The book ends with the dawn of the 20^th century and the reader just hopes for the amazing things ahead for Callie.

28/100 The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

This is the sequel to ‘The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate’.  If she was my daughter, I would tell her that how immensely proud of her thirst for knowledge I am. I would tell her that how I love the way she loves and cares for her younger brother Travis, I admire her for standing up for what is right, for being brave enough to voice her desire of going to college and if it was not the year 1900 that how she will grow up to become one of the greatest environmentalist. But since she is a fictional character, I would tell all the children of grade 4 onwards to read these wonderful books. Although not everything in this book is pleasant, hang on and you will find yourself cheering for Calpurnia Tate at the end of this book. I can’t wait for Angel to grow up and discover these books.

Both of these are wonderful books and the reader can’t just have enough of them. I want the sequel to this part as well as I want to know what happens to Callie and her aspirations.

29/100 Murder In Bollywood

I was feeling nostalgic and I searched the library with the words – “India” or “Bollywood” and thus ended up with this book. I got four other books with "Bollywood" in title and I am sure I will read them all no matter how mindless they are. I even read a travel book on India and a cookery book on Indian vegetarian recipes too. Come on, I was am missing India!

So this book is written by Shadaab Amjad Khan, the son of Amjad Khan of ‘Gabbar’ fame from Sholay. An ace Bollywood director Nikhil Kapoor and his wife, a leading actress Mallika Kapoor are found dead on the same night. More murders and murder attempts follow. It’s now upto Senior Inspector Hoshiayar Khan to solve the mystery. The revelation was a surprise and the book is quite engrossing.

30/100 The Crossing Places by Ellie Griffiths
The one thing that stands out in this book is the unlikely heroine. Ruth Galloway is forty something, overweight, loner academician who lives with her two cats. She is convinced that her weight makes her unattractive. This is a mystery book with a flavor of archeology. The mystery is not a mystery as such but the writing style and the twists and turns are beautifully described. I have placed a hold for the next book in the series; yes it’s a series of 7 books as of now.