Paul Ancheta

• Rated 2 stars

“Reading Elizabeth Kostova's second novel is like walking through a newly built mansion decorated with an endless array of collectibles from around the world: there are too many furnishings in too big a space, with no central couch to rest on and appreciate the room. Ms. Kostovo's impressive understanding of history texturized the spectacular canvas of her impressive debut "The Historian". However, in "Swan Thieves", her knack for details overwhelmed the characters and made them almost as impersonal as the details themselves. I managed to finish the book through somnolent levels of consciousness driven by too much information.”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Friday, March 25, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“This is the most detailed street map available of Kolkata, published by the government-run National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO).”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Friday, March 25, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“"A Jaywalker's Guide to Calcutta" is Soumitra Das' wonderful compilation of articles he wrote for The Telegraph from 1999 to 2005. The stories capture his rambles in the city streets, musings on its richly textured historic places, and encounters with wizened denizens of a city that once charmed and bewitched both Indians and the British colonialists.

The stories are grouped in 33 street walks, stretching from the dilapidated lanes of north Kolkata, through the majestic buildings of the central district, and all the way to the tree-lined, bourgeois neighborhoods of Alipore in the south. This is not a "Lonely Planet"-type guide book for the city visitor, as the prose requires time and concentration to read. Rather, it serves as a primer for those who seek to humanize the streets and buildings of a city that seems to be stuck in a colonialist time warp. ”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Friday, March 25, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“"Ten Walks In Calcutta" by Prosenjit Das Gupta is a thoroughly-researched guide to Kolkata's myriad heritage sites, grouped according to city location. The author provides a colorful, historic background to each site, allowing the reader to visualize the contemporaneous state of social affairs during Kolkata's time as the capital of the British Raj period. This is an indispensable book to those who want to understand the city's blazing past, along with the men and women who made it such a legendary colonial city.”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Friday, March 25, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“This is the most intelligent book that I have read about Barbra Streisand. It is more a critique of her phenomenal, trailblazing career than a compendium of Wikipedia-like and gossip-page information about her. This means you will not read about why she dislikes the color orange in her trailers or how she fell in love with a hairdresser, which almost every other Streisand book offers immeasurably. Instead, we get from the author a carefully, oftentimes wittily, dissected scorecard of her outputs as a singer, actress, and director. The results are as entertaining, engaging, and unpredictable as the woman herself.”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Friday, March 26, 2010. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“THE Israeli-Arab conflict has spawned so much discussion in the information age, that it has become difficult to sift through the truths. Neil Lochery's "Why Blame Israel?" (Totem Books, 2005) offers an alternative interpretation, and it succeeds.

Mr Lochery's well-researched submissions allow us to understand the circumstances around the conflict in ways that are not usually heard or read in today's media. The polemics are easy to grasp, but this is not an easy reader: several times, I had to go to Google and Wikipedia to have a background check on people, places, and events.

I strongly recommend the book, and suggest that the reader dedicate time, effort, and an open mind in reading it.
”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Wednesday, January 21, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 1 stars

“I read Chetan Bhagat's "One Night at the Call Center" one night in the train, traveling from Kolkata to Jamshedpur and back. Six call center employees meeting God in the most mundane circumstances makes for the most riveting story, but this novel strays away from such call. Mr Bhagat fails to deliver the charm to make me laugh with the characters, the pull to make me cry with them, and the edge to make me rethink how I should perceive God. At best, he gives us cotton candy spun around a very short stick.”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Sunday, January 18, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“LONG BEFORE Bahá'u'lláh, the Prophet Muhammad, the Christ, and Moses, there was Zoroaster. His message revolutionized the ideas of good versus evil, introduced to us the unwavering truth of one God, and stayed with us through thousands of years of constant human evolution. Who was he? Where did he teach? Most importantly, what was his covenant, and what is his religion all about?

Former BBC producer Paul Kriwaczek's "In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet" (Vintage Books, 2002) brings us to a journey of 3,000 years of human achievement across Europe, the Near East, the Indian subcontinent, and then Central Asia, to help with the answers. Written more in the tone of a travelogue than that of a scholarly treatise, the book explores the relationship between Zoroaster's religion and those of the prophets and messengers that followed him. Mr Kriwaczek's attention to historical detail is fascinating: his descriptions of sacred personages, Biblical cliffs, fifth-century Visigoth castles, and glorious temple sites in France, Britain, and Persia are so vivid I often felt like being there myself.

Some of Mr Kriwaczek's assertions are refutable—he calls Zoroaster the first prophet and Muhammad the last—but he succeeds in showcasing the rejuvenating role of divine messengers and prophets in history's ever-changing social and spiritual conditions. I recommend "In Search of Zarathustra" to those who seek to further understand religious truth. ”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Sunday, January 18, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“This is where my problem lies. Mr Brown's fantastic fiction writing is simply terrible. In one singular tome, he sets forth mind-blowing conspiracy theories with relentless passion because a third installment of protagonist Robert Langdon's encounters, adventures, and idiosyncrasies cannot wait. And he begs for understanding. Fast. Witness how we learn what we can about the grandeur of phi, amongst others, because we need to understand—fast— that phi is as hunky and brainy as Langdon is.

The first 300 pages made me think that Dan Brown was, indeed, an informed spiritual person. He laid out, very beautifully, the truthfulness of gender equality, unity of science and religion, and oneness of all religions—the same principles promoted by the Bahá'í Faith. Those early pages made me so very happy.

Then came the episode in which he promotes the station of Jesus Christ as a fabricated reality. Without sounding like a a religious fanatic and losing my appreciation of fictional writing—where heresies are commonplace—I cannot compromise on Mr Brown's obliviousness of divine truth. His fantasy implies a misplaced understanding of the truth of Christ as a Divine Messenger in the cycle of progressive revelation. Worse, it shuns the unshakable fact that the Divine Being and His Messengers remain the greatest source of inspiration for human creativity and the most compelling reason for human accomplishment, including Mr Brown's.

Although the reading went downhill for me afterwards, I must admit that Mr Brown's daring heresies are what make Da Vinci Code a popular work of fiction. In an age where moral foundations have collapsed and material and spiritual equilibrium has lost the balance, the book's conspiracy theories, no matter how badly written, stir the longings of the reader's heart and defies his intellect. Only in this regrettable light can I say that Da Vinci Code succeeds.”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Sunday, June 29, 2008. ( reply | permalink )

0 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 1 stars

“Yet another gods-coming-down-to-Earth-to-meddle-with-mortals fantasy, Maria Aragon's “Deux Ex Machina” is all about five warring Olympian divinities tasked with changing the fortunes of an adult man in a span of a weekend. The man lives with a fifty-something, sex-crazed mom and two older brothers who are either egotistic or smart-alecky. I still can’t figure out why the gods chose this man, whose misfortunes pale against those of millions of other hapless creatures on earth. Worse, I’m at a loss why the book is subtitled “A Divine Comedy” because it’s not at all a funny story. Ms Aragon has written the tale poorly and mixed it with implausible twists and unremarkable turns. I take Marie Phillips’ “Gods Behaving Badly” anytime.”

Paul Ancheta wrote this review Sunday, June 29, 2008. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink )