nectar in a sieve by kamala markandaya (1954)

“While the sun shines on you and the fields are green and beautiful to the eye, and your husband sees beauty in you which no one has seen before, and you have a good store of grain laid away for hard times, a roof over you and a sweet stirring in your body, what more can a woman ask for?”


“Nectar in a Sieve” is a moving narrative about Rukmani, an Indian woman’s journey from the time she was given as a child bride to Nathan, a farmer from several villages away, until her twilight years. Her life is marked with hardship, worry, hunger, and ceaseless toil as her family contends with droughts, monsoons, and the onset of industrialization. Yet despite the extreme financial poverty that would mark her entire life, we are awed that such has not impoverished her spirit. When Kenny, the English doctor, expresses frustration over Rukmani and wisps of contempt lace his words, we start asking which of the two is truly suffering from poverty – Kenny who is working amidst people not of his race and whose wife has finally given up on him, on the one hand; or Rukmani, who notwithstanding being bludgeoned by life’s troubles manages to retain a pure ray of hope in her heart and the capacity to see and be thankful for whatever happiness there is.

the story of o by pauline reage (1954)

“Keep me rather in this cage, and feed me sparingly, if you dare. Anything that brings me closer to illness and the edge of death makes me more faithful. It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure. You should never have agreed to be a god for me if you were afraid to assume the duties of a god, and we all know that they are not as tender as that. You have already seen me cry. Now you must learn to relish my tears.”

The Story of O is supposedly Reage’s (pen name of Anne Desclos) response to a challenge raised that women cannot write in the fashion of Marquis de Sade. I have been looking for this book for sometime after I have seen it repeatedly quoted by Erica Jong, Anne Rice, and Wei Hui. It also appears in the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

The Story of O is not for the squeamish and the faint of heart. It shows love from a perspective that the only possible proof thereof is the willingness to undergo pain, suffering, and humiliation and total submission to the wishes of the beloved. And if need be, to offer one’s life.

the jane austen book club by karen joy fowler (2005)

The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.
- Jane Austen (1775-1817)


Six members of the Jane Austen Club – Jocelyn, Bernadette, Sylvia, Allegra, Prudie, and Grigg - gather together at Jocelyn’s screened porch at dusk in March to discuss Emma. It is Jocelyn, the one with the dogs and with the match-making penchant, who has made possible this congregation of minds.

Jocelyn and Sylvia are in their early 50s and have been friends since they were 11. Sylvia’s husband of 32 years, Daniel, has recently asked her for a divorce. Jocelyn has never married.

Allegra is Sylvia’s daughter, 30, and has recently broken up with her girlfriend Corinne.

Bernadette is 67, was formerly married, and has just announced that she was “letting herself go”.

Prudie is 27 years old and teaches French at the local high school. She is the only married member in the club, barring Sylvia, who is technically still married but not quite.

Grigg, 40s, is the only male member in the group. He is new in the place and has decided to get in touch with Jocelyn whom he has encountered in a hotel elevator before, is a big fan of science fiction, and one wonders why he is in this club at all.

The group thereafter meets on a monthly basis and as the members progress from Emma to Sense and Sensibility (hosted by Allegra), to Mansfield Park (hosted by Prudie), to Northanger Abbey (hosted by Grigg), to Pride and Prejudice (hosted by Bernadette), and finally to Persuasion (hosted by Sylvia), we not only are acquainted with the members’ favourite Austen books and their snobbish opinions but more interestingly, their housekeeping habits, personal histories, domestic troubles, and how they resemble characters in Austen’s stories.

This is a very difficult book to put down especially for Austen fans. For readers who still have to get acquainted with the author, this is a good introduction. There is also a synopsis to Austen’s six books at the end.

the little prince by antoine de saint-exupery (1943)

Chapters I love best from this book:

Chapter VI
Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life . . . For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:
"I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now."
"But we must wait," I said.
"Wait? For what?"
"For the sunset. We must wait until it is time."
At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me:
"I am always thinking that I am at home!"
Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.
If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like . . .
"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"
And a little later you added:
"You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad . . ."
"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"
But the little prince made no reply.

Chapter XXII
"Good morning," said the little prince.
"Good morning", said the railway switchman.
"What do you do here?" the little prince asked.
"I sort out travelers, in bundles of a thousand" , said the switchman. "I send off the trains that carry them: now to the right, now to the left."
And a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder.
"They are in a great hurry," said the little prince. "What are they looking for?"
"Not even the locomotive engineer knows that," said the switchman.
And a second brilliantly lighted express thundered by, in the opposite direction.
"Are they coming back already?" demanded the little prince.
"These are not the same ones," said the switchman. "It is an exchange."
"Were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince.
"No one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman.
And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express.
"Are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince.
"They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes."
"Only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry . . ."
"They are lucky," the switchman said.