...Madison County, Anybody...?

When I was younger, I used to get my literary kicks reading books by Alistair MacLean. His descriptions blended fact with fiction and captured my imagination. I still recall how, in Fear Is the Key, I think, he describes how a fugitive evades arrest by climbing a tree... He then explains the role of the protuberance above the eye and how it prevented the pursuers from seeing the fugitive.

…I lost my reading habit when I started working. I preferred spending my non-working hours with some interesting friends, I guess.

However, in 2000, I met with a car crash in which I almost lost my left arm. While recuperating in hospital, I started catching up with reading. I started with John Grisham and got hooked on his story-telling style. I was a die-hard Grisham fan, still am. The Firm was my first book followed in quick succession by A Time to Kill and Runaway Jury.

I prefer the Grisham books to the movies that they have been made into. Give me a good book any day… Books spur the imagination, while movies generally tend to be damp squibs, especially after you have read the book.

I generally like the books that have been recommended to me. One memorable book was Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair – for the insights the book gave me into the feminine psyche. One exception was Lolita, which bordered on soft pornography at times but made for heavy reading.

The Bridges of Madison County must qualify as one of the best books that I’ve ever read. The treatment of the theme is sensitive; it touched a chord somewhere deep down inside me. ‘…Madison County’ takes story telling to another level, drawing on the finest human emotions. Few authors can draw pictures with their words and portray characters as realistically as Robert James Waller does.

So, what’s the book about? I’m not telling, but I am willing to lend the book to anybody who appreciates a heart-warming love story. The only condition is that you lend it forward…