Some of my sketchs!

As a child I loved drawing and sketching. But, I lost touch with it as I became more and more involved with my studies. Recently, I got inspired by a friend (her sketchs are awesome) and thought of trying my hands on it again. I sketched a couple of them recently and I am sharing two of them today..

I am glad I did some sketching after a long time!

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

This is the 4th novel I have read of the author- Dan Brown. I had started with Da Vinci Code and then read Angels and Demons and then laid my hands on The Last Symbol. I had enjoyed reading all of them. So, when I saw 'Digital Fortress' in the library, I picked it up. It had been in my to read list for a long time.

The novel is fast paced and thrilling and kept revealing its secrets in bits throughout the novel. That is what kept me engaged, I was always anticipating what was going to happen next. But, again there were also some stages in the story where I skipped some pages and then continued to read. I found some of the details really monotonous as if the author had been trying to stretch things a little to much.

After having read four of his novels, I realised a striking similarity in all his stories. They are all written in the same fashion. The story in this novel starts with Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician and the head Cryptographer of National Security Agency (NSA). She wakes up to call from his fiancee, David Becker, a language professor to postpone their weekend plans of holidaying at the Smoky Mountains. Susan is dejected and lost in her thoughts when she receives a call from NSA's deputy director, Strathmore who tells her that there is an emergency in Crypto and asks her to come over immediately.

NSA possesses a high complex code breaking machine- TRANSLTR, that can decode an damn code in this world. But, on this particular occasion, it has encountered a mysterious code that it cannot break. On arriving at Crypto, Srathmore briefs her of the situation. She comes to know that NSA had been held hostage by an unbreakable code-'The Digital Fortress' which is created by an ex-employee of NSA, Ensei Tankado. Ensei had been furious about NSA's intrusion into people's private life because of their ability to access and snoop round anyone's personal electronic data without prior permission. He had worked on the project of TRANSLTR but when NSA maintained that they would not go public about its existence, Ensei was displeased. He did not consider it to be ethically correct and in his quest to set things right in NSA, he decides to create an unbreakable code. If this code is released as planned by Ensei, it would cripple US intelligence and would help organised crime and terrorism to skyrocket!

Susan also learns that Ensei Tankado died of an heart attack in Seville, Spain and is surprised to find that Strathmore has send David to collect the code key. In Spain, David finds out that Ensei had given away the key which is in a form of ring to someone while dying. In his run to find the ring he meets a number of people who are then mysteriously killed by a professional assassin.

In her attempt to help Strathmore in decoding Digital Fortress for her country and her love, Susan comes to know about secrets that she has been so long oblivious about. The story will take you from the walls of NSA to the corporate houses in Japan and to the streets and lanes of Spain in an exhilarting pace.

In the end, as in all the Brown books I have read, all things fall in their respective places. But how that happen is the thing to read in the novel. Of all his books I have read, this is the one I liked least.

Wordless Wednesday - Snow Covered Tree

Wordless Wednesday - Snow Covered Car

My To-Read List of Books 2011

The New Year 2011 is here. Many people make new year resolutions to follow during the year. I too had taken at some point in time in the past year only to forget them as the year moved on. Ever since I have stopped the practice.

However, this time I had made a list of books I would like to read this year and the first in the list was 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' by John Boyne (review). I saw a small part of the movie on RTE just 3-4 days back and I decided to read the book. You might think that is a children's book. Well, it is if you go by the way it is written.It is a thin novel and I could finish it in a day. It is written in a very simple language but the story is heart rendering and will surely leave you pondering for a while. You can check my review here.

Now coming to the other books on my list.

My best friend G wrote to me in a mail that she has completed reading the Twilight Series (review) by Stephenie Meyer. It has a total of 4 novels. She said that she was sad that it is over as she wanted it to be never ending! I had spotted those books in the library many times but never had the interest to read them. Now, that G has sparked that interest in me, I am really looking forward to reading them.

Next is Steig Larrson's other two books of the Millenium Trilogy - 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' (review) and 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest' (review). I have already read the first one last year. You can find my review of the first book in the series - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo here.

I have not read many books by Indian authors. So, I decided to start with 'The Inheritance of Loss' by Kiran Desai (review). I have already bought it from the library.

Next in line is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (review). I had missed seeing the movie but surely won't miss reading the book.

Others are Dan Brown's Digital Fortress (review) and Deception Point (review), The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (review).

Also, I hope to re-read Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I had read them almost 3 years back.

I hope by the end of this year, I will be able to share my experience of reading these books here. Wish you all a very happy new year. Cheers!

P.S. - I have updated this post with the links to the book reviews that I have posted on this blog.