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Dan Brown: “The Lost Symbol”

June 4, 2010 by Farnoosh Brock

Finally, I broke the sweet spell of Anna Karenina! Not counting the wonderful short read of Alice in Wonderland on my iPhone, I managed to finish a respectable book following Tolstoy: Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”. Truth be told, I pre-ordered my copy last September (can you tell how I felt about The DaVinci Code, not to mention Angels & Demons?) and let it collect dust, waiting for inspiration to hit me (A Washington DC setting? Really? After Italy and France?), and I kept waiting. After seeing this book featured in every imaginable book store window everywhere during my recent travels (Montreal, Seattle, DC, Argentina, London, Hawaii, you-name-it), my curiosity got the best of me and two weeks ago, I cracked open this 509 page hard cover, determined not to stop til all lost symbols were found and clearly explained!

Reading the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Baroness Emmuska Orczy: “The Scarlet Pimpernel”

January 10, 2010 by Farnoosh Brock

Reading A Scarlet Pimpernel at breakfast in Argentina's Park Hyatt

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 many answers. That I would have loved to read far more classics over the years. Heaps of engineering textbooks, technical jargon and business buzzwords prepared and educated me well for my career but left me with a strong desire for voraciously consuming the classics, literature, poetry, art and history – hence my reading mania since 2006! There is usually a very good reason a book is considered a classic and besides, exploring the genre has hardly resulted in a regret for anyone that I have ever met. [Read more…] about Baroness Emmuska Orczy: “The Scarlet Pimpernel”

Daphne du Maurier: “Rebecca”

November 22, 2009 by Farnoosh Brock

In my mind, I was driving to Manderley last night.

Engrossed in Rebecca's Daphne Du Maurier

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 estate and grounds and a central part of the novel. But this time, I was not particularly thinking about the story. No. I was living in it momentarily. I had a notion that I was driving to Manderley on that very road, veering left and right, winding down a path with the large hanging trees, past the sidewalks covered with the fallen autumn leaves which are sometimes tossed about by the soft palm of the wind, and heading towards the light orange sky with the deep blue clouds in the horizon. It could very well have been the road to Manderley. How fantastic and exciting it all seemed. How swift a return to reality too. Sigh. Is it normal for you to fantasize about fictional places that surely do not exist but in the figment of the author’s imagination, and now in yours as a reader?

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