Delicious Reads

...then, I'd have no trouble getting hungry ever again! But since they're not, I'd be content to have joined Toni's book carnival. Have you ever imagined your books as food? How would they taste? I used my imagination and came up with the list below:

A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini

If you were moved with Hosseini's The Kite Runner, you'd be more affected with this book. It tells the sad stories of young Afghan women Mariam and Laila amidst the chaotic developments moulding Afghanistan. In the end, there is some relief felt, but not enough to soothe the hurts made.

This book tastes like Tandoori Chicken, the only Punjabi food I love. Very spicy and very hot, it can move you to tears while eating. It is always best to have a cold glass of water nearby.


Passionate Minds: The Great Enlightenment Love Affair
by David Bodanis

Both sinful and surprising, this book tastes like kare-kare and lechon. Delicious while you're eating it, but troublesome once you find out how high your cholesterol levels have become!

It tells the secret and passionate love affair of the French philosophical writer Voltaire and his patron-lover, Émilie du Châtelet. I never imagined the serious Voltaire would have a mistress! The book highlights their intellectual adventures and stormy relationship. Truly, behind every great man is a great woman.


The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz

This book reminds me of a classmate from postgraduate school. For me, this book is the true Italian meal! Yes, complete and beginning with the antipasti, then the primi and secondi piatti with the vegetable contorni and some insalatta, and finally, some sweet fruit or dolci to end everything. It's impossible not to be satisfied.

Oscar Wao is both a true romantic and a dreamer. He exists in every one of us. Killing him would mean killing one of the few persons who truly new what Love meant. Read it! As an added perk, bookworms will simply love to wallow in the way Diaz weaves his playful prose.


Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
by Atul Gawande

I love being an internist, but I always entertained that I can also be a better surgeon. Gawande's book Complications helped me cuddle my dreams of being a surgeon. In this second book, he emphasizes that "Betterment is a perpetual labor," and as a medical practitioner, no advice is more timely than this. Gawande is one doctor who I know retained the idealism he had when he entered medical school, and I like him for that.

This book tastes like minted salmon with vodka cream sauce. It has the right sting and the right saltiness in it. Simple and complicated at the same time, and very hard to forget.


Like You'd Understand, Anyway
by Jim Shepard

Scientific, funny, and witty, this book takes you to different worlds and introduces you to interesting personalities. My favorite is the misadventures of a lovestruck Russian cosmonaut set during the US-Russian Space Race. There's also the merciful executioner of Paris during the reign of Terror. Everything is sooo fantastic!

This is like a food sampler for me, and I can only think of Nobu's lunch sashimis --- the one with soft shell crab roll and the other one with spicy tuna roll.


There! That was delicious, wasn't it? I hope you get to read and taste these books as well. Happy reading!