#NaBloPoMo Day 5: Book Review: Mrs Funnybones by Twinkle Khanna

Much Ado about Nothing (Photo Credit)

The Brunch Book Challenge by HT Brunch is about finishing just 30 books in a year. Any books of your choice. A very achievable number, right? Wrong! When one is hard pressed for time and keeps postponing reading because the book she started is too boring to pick up but has to finish it, it becomes a huge number to finish. And I am still on book 19 with 11 books to go in only about 9 weeks! So, I changed my strategy - read simpler, shorter books but at least keep reading. And that's when I decided to buy the famous and much talked about Mrs. Funnybones by Twinkle Khanna. I guessed it's just fluff and it isn't hard for someone like to her get media footage and celebrity endorsements for her first book. (And I was right) Anyways, since it suits my purpose, I went and bought a kindle version of it. (I have turned into an ebook reader, at least it's easier on the move).

My review in one line would be - Much Ado About Nothing!

First, the good

True enough, it was a breeze to read! You can put your brain to rest and sleep walk through it. We all are familiar with her columns. When put together as a book, you tend to see the pattern in her life. It's like a peek into her life that resonates as the story of any woman. I know she has a lavish lifestyle with a lot of staff to help her. But deep down her issues are pretty much the same as any woman's or mother's - getting her son to do her homework, tantrums of her younger child, managing packing on her own, the banter with the spouse, the love-hate relationship with her mother-in-law, getting stains off the sofa, dieting and weight issues, fears of what her daughter-in-law will be like, balancing between work and home, to name a few. The A-Z chapters give it a semblance of structure as a book.

The book is interesting only in tiny bits. The monotony of talking about her daily routine is broken only by her pontification about the topic of the chapter. For instance, when she talks about how despite Karva Chauth, Indian men are nowhere near the top of the highest life expectancy list or when she sadly ponders over the rising suicide cases in the country and hopes she will be able to teach her son never to give up. Some of her quips hit the nail right in the head. For instance,

"A punjabi mother, her son and food form a triad as sacred as Brahma, Mahesh and Vishnu".

Actually true or all mother-son duos :)

Also, my favourite one is her take on people who forward inspirational messages every morning and think that their good deed for the day is done. Her suggestion instead is -

"Go out there! Sweep a pavement, plant a tree, feed a stray dog. Do something, anything rather than just using your fingers to tap three keys and destroy 600 people's brain cells in one shot." And I so agree!

The funniest line in the book is when she says that it helps to have the man of the house cook sometimes so that you can relax on your couch with enriching books "like this one" - truly hilarious and I am sure the irony isn't lost on the intelligent readers.

Now, the bad

Firstly, I did not realise that it was a collection of her columns and not an actual book she wrote to make a book. I actually remember reading some of those chapters before. So, it was a dud for me. The chapters made sense when they were stand alone columns about a topic dealt humorously. It does not make much sense as a book. It just feels like a series of chapters about her daily routine which gets boring pretty soon. The transitional notes between chapters make no sense. The font is too small to read on my kindle and I think this is important since considerable people read books on ebook readers. The book has no meat, nothing to ponder over and exhibits no literary prowess. For once, I am going to say that Chetan Bhagat deserves credit since he at least cooks up a plot and thinks of characters. So, you can imagine where this one stands.

Unless you have lots of free time and can spare for a book like this or need something to speed read through to complete a challenge, you can give this a miss. There will be more columns you can catch up with instead.

For your reading pleasure, here are 12 hilarious lines from the book and you can safely add this book to your list of 'finishes reading'.

Back to books

i have always loved reading. i might sound crazy but the world of books fascinates me so much that its my secret wish to be able to read up all the books in the world! The excitement of looking forward to reading a book is unparalleled. i have read quite a few classics as a major in literature. But even after college, i always find reading soothing. It cuts me out from the real world and takes me into the world of the book and its characters, albeit make believe. It doesn’t matter whether the genre is fact or fiction, as long as it is interesting.

But as real life got busier, there has been less and less time to read. But i never forget to notice if i am not able to spare time for reading. i was thrilled when my husband introduced me to an ipad and had reading applications uploaded on it. Now i could read books on the move - even if i didn’t own an actual copy which would occupy space in my overcrowded apartment! It was a bonus that i could read before i went to sleep - my favourite time to read - with the lights off since an ipad is backlit. (i hate to have to get up and switch off the light just as i am blissfully dozing off reading!) i finished reading books i had from the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time just to enjoy having something to read. In fact, it felt like such an ultimate thing in reading technology that i even learnt to download a software that could convert ant format of books to ipad format (epub). i felt like being a pro to be able to actually download software!!

Getting my own Kindle reader this year was another high point furthering the goal of reading regularly. Light, small, handy and less straining on the eyes since the screen is not backlit but has a matte finish to duplicate the experience of reading a book. i once again went berserk converting books to .mobi format to do justice to Kindle’s capabilities of holding about 5000 books in its tiny self. i have more books uploaded on it than have the time to read.

Somewhere between the ipad and Kindle phases, i discovered a library in the neighbourhood (it’s been there all these years, only i found it recently!) Bingo! All those books neatly lined had me salivating to devour all of them one by one! i found and finished the whole of Shopaholic series (and Sophie Kinsella books replaced J K Rowling books as comfort reading). i got to read books by Kareena’s dietician and her fitness expert (sharing some of the secrets behind her hot-bod) and the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell. i try to pick up a mix of fact and mindless fiction depending on what I feel like reading.

But somehow after the initial euphoria of owning devices that made reading easy and on the go, i seem to keep going back to real books of the library. Even when i am traveling, i no longer look forward to reading on Kindle. i’d rather take my library book along.

What happened there?

Well, i have realised that technology, however convenient it makes reading, can never replace the experiential kick of having a real book. The actual act of touching and holding the book, turning its pages softly, saving it from any scratches and creases- especially if it’s bought spending money- during the reading process, the pleasure of hitting the i-finished-half mark and turning pages to check how many more pages to go are incomparable and no reading device in the world can ever offer that. In fact, the lure of a book shelf in a store and the fragrance of brand new books is second to none. (i am not kidding! The next time you are at a book store, open a book at random and sniff deeply to take in the best perfume in the world!)

i don’t know if this feeling has anything to do with the fact that i spent the first 20 yrs of my life in the previous century and grew up in the pen and paper era. Being gadget-friendly is only an acquired behaviour.  On the contrary, teenagers of this century seem to be absolutely at home with their smart phones and reading/gaming devices.

Reading is a habit that was always encouraged when we were kids. It is one of the virtues that would help us in the future and books are a constant companion, we were told. There’s no harm in using technology to access knowledge. But i think losing an era where one could savour reading real books saddens me. i remember when British Council Library in Mumbai went online and shut its physical locations, one of my friends lamented that our kids might never know the joys of going through piles of books in a library to select a book. True, i am sure my kids, used to having Google throw up links to the exact book that they want in just miliseconds, will pull a long face at the tediousness of having to go through racks and racks of books in a library to find what one wants to read. But you know what, kids, that is the real deal!!