ENGLISH BITES! : A Book Review

 

Picture Courtesy Author

Book: ENGLISH BITES!

Author: MANISH GUPTA

Published By PENGUIN INDIA

Year of Publication: 2012

MRP:250/-

Story: I was afraid to review this book with my limited vocabulary. I was worried that Manish Gupta would come down on me for not garnishing it well with power words. Thus, my review starts (or is ‘begin’ a more suitable word here?) with the last paragraph of this book.

Here the author speaks in first person with his readers, “I hope you agree that this saga will continue and I will discover more interesting anecdotes, stories, observations, trivia and mnemonics to bring out another book for you. I also hope that some of the lessons from my endeavors, in a small way, will help you achieve your aims objectives, All the best with your language adventures!”

This story is about you, me and every other Indian who lives and learns a foreign language for survival and for having no other option. It is about our society that gives out jobs on the basis of how fluent you are in English and not just how good you are in your field of work. Look around, there are multiple examples and if you find none pick up to read ENGLISH BITES.

Characters: The main character is that of the author who speaks loud and clear about his rag to riches story where riches mean proficiency in English Language.

Writing Style: One could feel the awkwardness with which the subject was dealt initially to express the discomfort with the language and slowly eased out to an effortless flow.One gets used to the sharing of new words and the bottom of each page. Also looks forward to little pictorial inputs too.

Conclusion: This is a clearly a book for students, educators, writer, parents with young children and people who have a never ending affair with English Language. This is not an easy book to read. It is not meant for frivolous, time pass readers or for readers who are looking for a simple heart-warming story.  Oh, yes it has a story and many inter connected plots. However, the theme is all powerful and encompassing.  Pick it up ENGLISH BITES! to improve English language in a way that your syllabus never allowed you in School. Pick it up to live the language and connect it with your own life in engaging ways.

Quote Unquote from ENGLISH BITES!: “I had grown up believing that starting a sentence with ‘and’ was nothing short of a serious crime and, of course commas were never to be used before the seven coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet). These days, puritans have grudgingly accepted sentences that commence with ‘and’ as well as the authors who construct them.  And there are new rules for placing commas before coordinating conjunctions.”

Thank you~