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Tips to become a succesful book blogger

No one has become a superstar blogger overnight.Recognition in blogosphere takes time and there are no short cuts for achieving instant success as a blogger.Read like there is no tomorrow and pen down your sincere thoughts in a lucid, organised and unpretentious manner.Your work will definitely get its due.

Blogadda-Quikr Shopping Fiesta: My Experience

It was like a slap on my face.Thankfully Arun was not there with me to witness by embarassement. I was all set to call him when some random piece of paper with a phone number written on it from my pocket caught my attention.

Book Review:Salvation Of a Saint

On the whole,’The Salvation Of Saint’ is a decent thriller.It may not be as racy as ‘The Devotion of Suspect X’,but still it’s a pretty good one.

Interview with Doctor-turned- Writer Deepal Kripal

Earlier this week,we chatted with Doctor-turned-Author,Deepak Kripal.He has authored 'The Devil's Tale:An impossible journey',published by Leadstart Publishers.In this candid interview,he tells us about his debut work,future plans,his journey as a writer and his other interests in life.

Private India: Book Review

On the whole,'Private India' by James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi is a strictly average work.

October 31, 2009

Angel Jhon review featured in Varnachitram.com

nikhimenon@gmail.com

Varnachitram.com is a popular blog about movies.They had earlier featured my minnaminnikkoottam review as guest review.

Now they have also accepted by review of Angel Jhon in their guest review section.

Here is the link...

http://varnachitram.com/2009/10/30/guest-review-angel-john/

October 29, 2009

The weekly Gossip round up- 1


 written and posted by nikhimenon@gmail.com



Look who is up and who is down this week...
      
Mammootty: Played Pazhassi Raaja to perfection.After defeating bhootam with  his ‘Angel’ act, his driver might make Mohanlal do atleast  a ‘Chotta Raajaa’next!.
      
Prabhudeva:  Prabhu Devas wife threatens Nayans.When you have market and even a blockbuster bollywood movie to your credit,there ‘s nothing wrong in trying outside food once in a while!
    
Mohanlal: Angel jhon has bombed! Antony,where are you?
    
Priyadarsan: Says the bollywood directors are scared of him! Quite true,Mr.Priyan,after your Billu and Mera Baap Pehla Aap,we too are scared  which Malayalam movie you would butcher next!
    
    
Dileep: hiked his salary. C’mmon ,when Prithviraaj scores a hit,it’s his moral right to divert his producers na?! We hope that he will soon release a movie titled, ‘Ettavum Puthiya Mukham’!
    


October 28, 2009

How to write like Chetan Bhagat

nikhimenon@gmail.com

Chetan Bhagat is said to be 'India's most loved author.(atleast that's what he claims to be!).This 'four books old' writer(though none of them were literary marvels), usually writes 'light stuff' with the sole intension of entertaining his readers(though the output may not be necessarily entertaining; his recent one, '2 states' being the  testimony to that fact).


Anyways,for all the wannabe Bhagats out there,here is a  piece of info that you might find useful..


1. The characters should be 'funky' and invariably IIT/IIM educated.They should necessarily begin their conversations with the F word..!( point number 1 will help your target readers identify themselves as one among them  )

2.Never under look even  the minute instance in the story where you can throw in, the maximum number of cheesiest lines possible.
( your readers will definitely find it funny...!)

3.The  hero should fall in love with a 'hot' girl (ideally his prof's daughter or his friend's sister,the college beauty queen may also be enough) and he should be smart enough to make love with her on a regular basis.(that's what most guys fantasise  about,so they might find it interesting!)

4.The hero should have an  'I don't know, how i made into the IIT/IIM'  attitude through out the story.(no doubt,the readers will symathise with him)

5.Most importantly ,try to convince a publisher who would sell your books at a prize,not more than 90 bucks.(C'mmon you want your book to be popular ,naa?)

6.Make friends in bollywood.(this will help you find takers for your book there too!)

Try this, it works....!

October 27, 2009

Shocking news : Malayalam Directors have started reading again....!

nikhimenon@gmail.com

Long ago, much before the era of Bhootams and Jackies, we had movies based on popular novels and short stories.But  since our directors started treating books as 'potential sources of infection', (one director had even confessed recently that he hated visiting public libraries  coz of Swine flu scare!)those type of movies have become extinct.

The good news is that some of the  mainstream movie makers have finally  dared to think beyond Udaya Krishnans and Benny P nayarambalams.(who are currently the highest paid script writers of the state with movies like CID Moosa ,Lollypop,Chotta Mumbai to their credit).Two movies which are in the post production stage are based on popular malayalam novels.They are Renjith's Palery Manikyam Oru pathira Kolapathakathinte Kadha and Dileep-S.kumar team's Swa.Le.


Paalery Manikyam is a novel by T.P.Rajeevan ,the noted malayalam writer who actually wrote the english version of this novel first (titled 'A Mid Night Murder story').It's about a 22 year old lady named Manikyam who was found dead 50 years ago in a small village called palery near kozhikode.(I had read this novel a couple of weeks back and i must say i enjoyed reading it).

The second one, Swa.le is based on a short story by kalavoor ravikumar (who gave us earlier 'Ishtam') titled 'Dead Line'.Set in the early ninetees, the movie should be a pleasant experience to the viewers unlike the hero's last solo release 'Moss and Cat'.

Hope both the movies come out good unlike the reel version of 'Sunil Parameswaran's Anantha Bhadram,which was a not so great cinematic experience....!

October 25, 2009

Angel Jhon is good in parts....

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com


                                 One advantage of going for a movie with least expectations (thanks to the poor reviews!) is that there is a possibility of you leaving the movie hall feeling satisfied. Mohanlal's fantasy adventure 'Angel Jhon' ,( heavily inspired by Jim Carrey starrer 'Bruce Almighty') when compared to his rival Padmasree Bharat Mammootty's 'Ee Pattanathil Bhootham' is enjoyable as long as it lasts.Those who have seen the latter would definitely know that it isn't much of a compliment...!


                                The protagonist is Maradona,a 21 year old guy who has a shabby life style.(who doesn't care to have a bath even once in a while, his only interersts being watching porn and misbehaving with women of twice his age..).From the first few reels itself,the audience realise that Maradona is a loser in life(not to forget an idiotically picturised song in the fifth minute of the movie).Fifty five minutes into the  movie and a few bizzare, cheesy 'comical scenes' later (which include two separate tracks involving Jagathy Sreekumar and Baiju) Maradona decides to end his life.Enter Angel Jhon( who else?Mohanlal) who gives him two options either to live his destined lifetime as God has willed with problems, or live one third of it with his every wish fulfilled at the rate of a wish per day. Expectedly,Maradona chooses the latter one (only to realise later that he had made a foolish decision!)


Angel jhon is exactly not that kind of film that you would expect from an actor of Mohanlal's calibre,but in these days of Bhootams' and jackies' anything seems to be possible!Mohanlal is actually the soul of the movie and only after his entry (a few minutes before the interval) the movie catches pace. After a rather disappointing first half(which fortunately was only 60 minutes long), none of us (the few pretty souls who were in the theatre) actually expected anything worth mentioning in the second .That is exactly the strength of this movie.The second half is somewhat entertaining and does evoke a few laughs.The scene where Salim kumar meets Angel and Maradona is a cracker.Angel jhon also manages to make a few statements in between.(like the one about the  increasing number of 'student suicides' for petty reasons).The climax was also pretty decent.It can be safely said that S.L.Puram Jayasurya has got talent.


Coming to the performances,Mohanlal with his innocence and cockiness is brilliant as Angel.Shantanu is good in a few scenes.The female lead Nithya menon is adequate.Vijayaraghavan,Jagathy sreekumar are wasted.The two songs which are credited to Ouseppachan seems to be done by his assistants as neither of the two sounded like being tuned by a national award winner.

On the whole,as one of the characters in the movie says, with a better script Angel Jhon would have been a blockbuster. In it's present form i am giving it five point five out of ten, a pretty average rating.