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simmi

@sylvansoul_

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Controversial Opinion: I don't think this book is really about Fire . I think it is about love and love just happens to be the thing the author chooses to put into it.

I have never seen anyone write about fire like this. Not as destruction. Not as chaos. But as something that reveals, transforms, tempers, refines and eventually teaches you how to hold warmth without getting burned.

The concept itself is extraordinary. Fire keeps changing meaning as the book moves forward. Fear becomes fire. Desire becomes fire. Jealousy, ego, insecurity, longing, surrender, repair.
Then comes the alchemy - what happens after the burning. What survives. What changes shape. What turns into gold.
And the writing makes you actually feel this transformation.

I loved the structure so much. The prose gives you the thought, then the poetry takes that thought somewhere deeper. I even tried reading some poems before their chapters and then again after them. They felt completely different. The second time, the emotions hit harder because i understood what was sitting underneath them.

There is such a sharp understanding of human relationships here. How fear can disguise itself as jealousy. How warmth can quietly become need. How love can turn into possession when we are terrified of losing someone. How an argument is sometimes carrying years of wounds that have nothing to do with the actual argument.

But what makes this book special for me is that it doesn't stop at identifying these things. It asks what we do after recognising them.
Can we love without consuming?
Stay without owning?
Give space without calling it abandonment?
Be strong without becoming hard?
The book keeps asking these questions in different forms, and somehow each one feels more personal than the last.

I have underlined an almost embarrassing amount of this book. There were moments where i genuinely stopped reading because a sentence had put a feeling into words before i could.
This is a rare kind of book. One that gives you a new metaphor and then makes you see ordinary things differently.⬇️ by @sylvansoul_

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13

2 hours ago

I think we have done something unfair to folklore. We call a story a “myth” and somehow expect it to mean less than history.

Tales from Tribal Land edited by Anoushka Jain, made me question that.

Thankyou to @rupa_publications for sending me this copy. I honestly didn't expect to find this much thought, history and philosophy inside a collection of stories.
This book surprised me because the stories inside it are doing far more than telling us how a river was born or why a festival is celebrated. They explain why people respect a snake, why a forest becomes sacred, why a daughter can become a goddess, why a community remembers a dead king through mourning, why a marriage can turn an outsider into an ancestor and why a song can sometimes preserve something that written history never did.

There is a story where humans learn agriculture from the gods and then lose their paradise because their trust is exploited. The Baiga creation story makes the earth itself a relationship that must be protected. In the Lepcha tale, rivers become siblings and a flood becomes part of collective memory. The Khasi story turns the loss of a bridge to heaven into a warning about greed, while their lost script legend shows how forgetting something can force a community to invent another way of remembering.

Then the book starts becoming even more complicated.

A snake becomes a clan's protector. A missing girl becomes part of a tree because her sister refuses to forget her. Nanda Devi is simultaneously a goddess, a daughter and a homesick bride. A dead mother returns as a bird, a tortoise and a tree because her children keep searching for her. Hidimba's marriage to Bhima becomes the reason an entire community can call him their own. A familiar Mahishasura story is remembered completely differently by the Asur community. Tama Dora's memory moves from an old rebellion into the mind of a child facing his own community's struggle for land.

That is what I found most beautiful here. these stories don't separate mythology from everyday life. Ecology, family, death, morality, geography, spirituality and memory keep entering the same sentence.⬇️ by @sylvansoul_

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63

11 days ago

Maybe we don't actually want everything we lose back.

"Almost.. Not Quite" by sonali bhattacharya is a book about the things life leaves unfinished. People we almost loved. Homes we had to leave. Dreams that got postponed. Conversations that arrived too late. Versions of ourselves that stayed somewhere behind.

The book calls this feeling 'NA PAWA' the ache of not receiving what we once wanted but what i loved most is how the meaning keeps changing across these 24 stories.

Sometimes na pawa is an empty chair at a concert. Sometimes it is a woman waiting for a goodbye that never came. A father who died before an apology reached him. A friendship that quietly disappeared. A woman who stopped dancing because life kept asking her to wait. An artisan whose work remained invisible. A childless couple finding a different kind of family. A father watching his son take the flight he once dreamed of.
And then there are stories where the loss belongs to an entire generation. A home erased by partition. A city that lost its timing. A craft passed down without recognition. A dream that survives through someone younger.

This is where the book became more interesting to me. It never treats longing as something that simply needs to be healed. Sometimes you carry it. Sometimes you grow around it. Sometimes it changes what you notice. Sometimes it quietly becomes the reason you give something to another person.

I also loved how ordinary the worlds feel. Tea. Old letters. Railway stations. School corridors. Tailoring shops. Ghungroos. A steel box of coins. A wooden ladle. A yellow bus. A passport kept in an old cupboard. Tiny things carrying enormous emotional weight.

Some stories stayed with me more than others. A few felt a little too neatly resolved for my taste. Still, the emotional idea running through the collection is strong enough to hold everything together.

Maybe the real tragedy is not getting everything we wanted.
Maybe it is believing that a life without it can never become meaningful.

This book understands that some things remain unfinished forever and somehow that unfinishedness becomes part of who we are.🤍 by @sylvansoul_

3

35

17 days ago

We have turned wellness into an industry that can sell you an answer before you even understand the question.
That is exactly why DHIalchemy surprised me.

The word DHI comes from the idea of deeper intelligence the ability to understand, reflect, contemplate. The author builds the entire book around Delete, Heal, Install.
Delete what is keeping you stuck.
Heal what needs understanding.
Install what you consciously want to build.

And suddenly this isn't another book telling you to wake up at 5 drink something green and become a better version of yourself.
It asks something much harder.

WHAT IS ACTUALLY RUNNING YOUR LIFE?
Your fear? your childhood beliefs about money? your need for control? your relationship with food? your phone? your idea of productivity? your inability to rest?
This book goes everywhere. Anxiety, money, self care, open mindedness, goals, longevity, food, fasting, exercise, hobbies, sleep. Later it moves into spirituality, meditation, loneliness, failure and gratitude. The range is huge yet the central idea keeps coming back: become conscious of your patterns before those patterns quietly become your life.

The chapter on anxiety alone made this book worth reading for me.
One question in the takeaway section asks:
WHAT STEPS WILL YOU TAKE TO REWRITE YOUR ANXIETY STORY?

The discussion around avoidance and LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, the difference between reacting and responding, the tiny space between what happens and what we do next.
And this is where i think the book is at its strongest. The author teaches. She brings research, references, examples, personal experience and practical questions into the conversation. Sometimes she makes you think. Sometimes she makes you uncomfortable. Sometimes she gives you something you can actually try that same day.

I also appreciated the ambition of the book. It asks what kind of life your mind and body are helping you build. What Is The Point Of Living Longer If You Aren't Really Living?
I loved it enough to gift it to two of my friends. I knew they would find something here. They did. And honestly if you ask me whether you should read it.
JUST READ IT.

Grateful to @rupa_publications for this copy🌷 by @sylvansoul_

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53

20 days ago

Grief is not a book about death.
It is a book about what death, loss and change do to the person left behind.

Srinath Sridharan writes about grief in many forms. Losing a parent. A sibling. A partner. A child. A friend. A pet. A job. A relationship. Even losing the version of yourself you once knew.

What I liked most is that the book refuses to give grief a deadline. It does not tell you to move on. It asks you to move with it.

The G.R.I.E.F. framework gives the book its structure: Groundlessness, Restlessness, Introspection, Emergence and Flow. Each stage looks at grief from a different angle. Some chapters feel deeply personal. Some feel like a quiet conversation. The later chapters move towards spirituality, impermanence, resilience, science and healing.

My favourite idea from the book is simple: you don't have to forget someone to live again.
The book also talks about the grief people rarely
recognise. Miscarriage. Infertility. Divorce. Estrangement. Losing a job. Losing a pet. Losing a life you thought you would have. These losses can hurt deeply even when the world doesn't know how to acknowledge them.
I did find parts of the book repetitive. Some ideas return again and again. The writing sometimes becomes too reassuring. I wanted more complexity in a few places. More uncomfortable truths. More space for the messiness of grief.

Still, there is something comforting about this book.
It reminds you that healing does not mean becoming the person you were before the loss. You change. You carry the memory. You make room for joy again.

Maybe that is what grief finally teaches us: love does not end when someone leaves. It changes shape. And sometimes, learning to live with that love becomes the beginning of living again.

Thankyou @rupapublication for sending this my way!💓

[grief book srinath sridharan grief and healing grief journey grief recovery grief awareness grief support grief quotes healing journey emotional healing loss and grief dealing with loss coping with grief mental health books self help books emotional books psychology books personal growth books books about grief books about healing books about loss grief memoir healing books book rec] by @sylvansoul_

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36

a month ago

𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐨.

Herta Müller’s "Traveling on One Leg" is a strange, uncomfortable book about leaving a country and discovering that leaving does not mean escaping it.

Irene moves from Romania to Germany. She gets a new apartment. Meets new people. Tries to understand a new city. Even waits for German citizenship. Still something in her remains somewhere else. Her past follows her through photographs, letters, streets, strangers, beds, windows, weeds, feathers. Ordinary things suddenly feel unfamiliar.

What makes this book so fascinating is the way Müller writes exile. Irene does not simply say, “I miss home.” Her homesickness becomes physical. A strange feeling in her stomach. A memory triggered by a smell. A room that suddenly feels wrong. A bed that seems to remember another country. Her body understands something before her mind does.

The book quietly asks some difficult questions.
!What actually makes a place home?
!A passport? A language? Familiar streets? Memories?
!Can you become a new person without carrying the old one with you?
!What happens when you leave a country but the country refuses to leave you?

Irene also struggles with her own identity. She sees another woman behind her face. She sees herself in strangers. She cuts people out of photographs. Sometimes she cannot tell whether something happened or whether her loneliness created it. Reality starts feeling unstable.
Love does not rescue her either. Franz comes close yet there is always a distance between them. Irene wants to arrive together. Instead she realises she has arrived alone.
Even citizenship feels strangely empty. A government can give you papers. It cannot tell you where you belong.

That is what I loved most about this book. Müller takes tiny details and makes them enormous. A feather becomes disturbing. A window becomes a place of surveillance. A city becomes a person. A journey becomes an identity crisis.

This is not an easy book. It is fragmented, unsettling, sometimes almost dreamlike. But maybe that is exactly the point. Irene’s world feels fragmented because Irene herself is fragmented.⬇️ by @sylvansoul_

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38

a month ago

𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐆𝐥ü𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬.
Perhaps the strangest thing about "Marigold and Rose" is that it makes you miss a life you have never lived.

Author gives us two infants and somehow places inside their little world the questions we spend years trying to answer. Who am I? Who are you? When does a person become a self? Why do we remember? Why does everything we love have to change?

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬. 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭. 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫. 𝐈 𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐭.

There is something almost sacred in the way Author writes about memory. “𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝.” I don't think I will forget that line. We don't remember the morning while we are still inside it. We remember it years later when the light has changed, the house is different, the people have moved on. 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬.

The twins encounter death before they have the language for it.They lose their grandmother. They begin to understand absence. Marigold looks at the world and slowly discovers its impermanence. Everything will disappear. The house. Childhood. People. Perhaps even the things we believe will remain ours forever.
And then comes language.

Marigold wants words. She wants to remember before she has anything to remember. She wants to write a book before she can properly speak. That longing felt deeply moving to me. Perhaps this is where writing begins.
Author keeps returning to the mystery of other people too. A mother once had a childhood. A sister has a private world you cannot enter. ⬇️ by @sylvansoul_

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46

a month ago

ᴛʜɪꜱ ʙᴏᴏᴋ ɪꜱ ʙᴀꜱɪᴄᴀʟʟʏ ʜɪꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ʜᴀᴠɪɴɢ ᴀ ɴᴇʀᴠᴏᴜꜱ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋᴅᴏᴡɴ.

And somehow. I mean that as a compliment.

Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea by Sergio Ramírez is set in Nicaragua and brings together poets, politicians, actors, priests, lovers, drunkards and people with way too much to say. Rubén Darío is somewhere in the middle of it all.
You don't really need to know anything about Nicaragua or Rubén Darío before picking this up. The book gives you enough as you go. You just have to let it take you wherever it wants.

One moment you're hearing about a poet and his messy love life. Then someone is talking about a theatre production. Then Somoza enters the conversation. Then somebody tells an absolutely ridiculous story. Then suddenly that ridiculous story says something very serious about power, politics and the country itself.

That's what I liked about this book.
It never feels like someone is sitting you down to give you a history lesson. People gossip. People exaggerate. People argue about what really happened. Everyone seems to remember things differently. Truth keeps changing depending on who is talking.

And the humour is everywhere. Sometimes it's genuinely funny. Sometimes it's so absurd that you don't know whether to laugh or stare at the page.

The theatre part was probably my favourite. They're putting together Tovarich while the political world around them keeps getting darker. The play slowly starts feeling like its own little version of Nicaragua. Everyone has a role. Everyone is performing something. Everyone has something they don't want the others to see.

This isn't the easiest book I've read. There are a lot of names a lot of stories and a lot happening at once. But once you settle into it the chaos starts making sense.
If you like books that mix history, politics, dark humour complicated people and a little madness this one deserves your attention.
Because sometimes the strangest way to understand a country is to listen to the stories people tell about it.
Thankyou so much @alephbookco for this.🤍

[margarita how beautiful the sea, sergio ramírez, bookerprize, literature, historical fiction, political fiction, literary fiction, historical novel] by @sylvansoul_

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33

a month ago

What if the best way to understand India is to live in Korea?

"Seoulmates" by Sudha and Vasudev Tumbe is a travel memoir but calling it just a travel book would be unfair. It is also a quiet comparison between two Asian countries, their people, habits, systems and ideas of progress.
The authors spent more than six years in South Korea and their observations come from everyday life rather than a tourist’s distance.

What makes the book interesting is its honesty. Korea is shown as efficient, clean, disciplined and technologically advanced. The authors admire its public transport, infrastructure, safety, punctuality and civic sense. At the same time, they do not turn Korea into a perfect country.
They talk about expensive housing and education, gender inequality, social pressure, low fertility and an ageing population. This balance keeps the book grounded.
The travel portions are warm and enjoyable.
Seasons, cherry blossoms, autumn colours, winter snow, Jeju Island, Korean food, festivals, sports and small encounters with strangers give the book a very personal feel.
JAY their driver becomes more than a driver. He becomes part of their life in Korea. These little relationships make the book feel lived in.

The strongest part for me is the way the authors begin looking at India differently after living abroad. They notice things we usually ignore traffic discipline, cleanliness, public spaces, infrastructure, language, civic responsibility. There Is No Constant Criticism Of India. Instead there is a genuine wish to see India improve.

I also liked the idea that development does not mean copying another country. Korea has its own culture, language and traditions. India has its own strengths too adaptability, frugality, diversity and the ability to function through enormous complexity.
The real question is what we can learn from each other.

At times the book becomes slightly repetitive specially when similar comparisons between India and Korea return again. Some sections could have been tighter. Still the personal warmth keeps it moving.
Thankyou @Juggernaut 🌷

[seoulmates, sudha tumbe, vasudev tumbe, Juggernaut, korea travel, korea diaries, life in korea] by @sylvansoul_

3

50

a month ago

Maybe healing is overrated.

We talk about healing as if one day we will wake up understand everything, forgive everyone and finally become the person we were supposed to be. "For Everything Left Unspoken" quietly disagrees. This book does not heal its wounds. It learns their shape.

Author writes about memory, inherited grief, family, identity, the body, love, survival. She finds them in places we usually overlook: a grandmother tapping a table, food being saved when there is plenty, an empty chair, a cracked glass, a flickering bulb, a second cup left on the table.
The ordinary becomes evidence.

What stayed with me most was the idea that we inherit things without knowing their names. Fear can travel through a gesture. Hunger can survive inside abundance. A family can pass down silence with the same efficiency as language.
Sometimes the body remembers a history the mind never received.

There is darkness here though the book never feels entirely hopeless. Its humour is strange and painfully familiar.
The body becomes a badly managed house. Memory behaves like an unreliable archivist.
Trauma turns up at inconvenient hours apparently without checking the calendar. You laugh, then realise you laughed because you recognised yourself.

The Book Also Asks A Difficult Question: How Much Of Our Life Actually Belongs To Us? Our ambitions, manners, fears, ideas of success, ways of loving.
How Much Came From Somewhere Else? In someone else's handwriting becomes more than a beautiful image. It becomes a question about becoming.

What makes this collection special is its attention to small survival. Making tea. Watering a plant. Walking someone home. Leaving a second cup. Waking up still carrying something, still breathing.

Maybe we do not heal by becoming untouched by what happened to us.
Maybe we heal when we can finally carry it without letting it decide the entire shape of our lives. 🕊️

Thankyou @rupa_publications for this beautiful book and congratulations on 91 remarkable years of stories, readers and literature. 🤍

[for everything left unspoken, uma shukla, poetry, rupapublication, emotional books, relatable poetry, deep writing, meaningful books] by @sylvansoul_

3

48

2 months ago

“Maybe we romanticise healing far too much.”

Brokenness Becomes Beautiful by @terenceabp is a collection that sits somewhere between poetry, reflection and personal contemplation. It explores the quieter parts of recovery self-acceptance, vulnerability, resilience, gratitude and the difficult process of making peace with yourself.

What I liked about this collection is that it doesn't try too hard to sound profound. The writing is simple, direct and emotionally accessible. Many of the poems feel like small observations about life rather than elaborate attempts at poetry, which makes them easy to read and at times surprisingly intimate.

There is a recurring sense of looking inward throughout the book. Ang writes about appreciating the life we still have, accepting our limitations and learning to treat ourselves with more kindness. The poems also carry a strong sense of hope but the hope here isn't loud or overly optimistic. It feels quieter the kind that gradually appears after a difficult period.

The collection may not appeal to readers looking for dense imagery or highly experimental poetry. Its strength lies elsewhere: in its sincerity and accessibility.

Overall, Brokenness Becomes Beautiful is a gentle, reflective collection about finding something worth holding onto when life doesn't look the way you imagined it would. It is simple, heartfelt and easy to return to when you need a little perspective.🌷

[brokenness becomes beautiful terence ang poetry book poetry books poetry collection healing book self help book motivational book inspirational book mental health books self love book healing journey healing quotes life quotes relatable quotes deep quotes emotional poetry contemporary poetry modern poetry reflective poetry books about life books about healing books about self love books that heal books that change your perspective books for healing books for growth books for the soul books to read book recommendations bookstagram bookstagram india book review book reviews reading community readers of instagram literature poetry lovers] by @sylvansoul_

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62

2 months ago

Every myth leaves something out and this book is built on finding out what.

LYRE: Death of Orpheus opens with the poet Orpheus found dead in the palace of Knossos, his lyre smashed beside him. In the old myths, Orpheus was the musician who charmed the Underworld itself and lost his wife anyway. Here he's found murdered with a strange note folded in his hand.

The one who finds him is Ariadne. You probably know her myth. She's the princess who gave Theseus the thread to escape the labyrinth then got abandoned on an island for her trouble. This book gives her a different life. She's grown up working as an archivist inside the same palace her myth made her famous in and she's the only one sharp enough to start pulling apart what really happened to Orpheus.

She doesn't work alone. Perseus, the monster slayer from the Medusa myth shows up tired of being a hero and questioning if the gods ever cared about doing right. Atalanta, the huntress raised by a bear who outran every suitor sent her way is the muscle and the conscience of the group. Selene, literally the moon goddess who in myth loved a mortal man doomed to sleep forever brings centuries of quiet wisdom nobody else in the room has. And Icarus, son of the inventor Daedalus the boy who famously flew too close to the sun turns up alive and working as an engineer in the palace, gentle and a little mysterious.

The book moves through the palace like a real detective story. Every clue Orpheus left behind is a poem or a cipher, and the group has to crack them one by one. A few lines stayed with me long after reading:

"Two voices weave a single thread, one speaks truth, the other dread."

"Janus keeps watch with double gaze, one face in love, one carved by fear."

"The maze remembers every sin though walls may shift, the truth stays in."

These aren't just decoration. They're the actual puzzle pieces the characters have to solve and watching the group work them out is the best part of the book.
What makes this retelling special is how it treats the myths themselves. Nobody here is exactly who the old stories say they were. Every character gets room to be more complicated, more human. 🔽 by @sylvansoul_

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64

2 months ago