Have read a wonderful book 'Tis by Frank McCourt.
Am not sure if you heard about 'Angelas Ashes' which was a very popular book about 5 years back and which was made into a movie of the same name as well. This 'Tis' is a sequel to that book.
Angelas' Ashes is an auto-biography of an absolutely poor boy growing up in cold, hunger, poverty and social ridicule in Limerick, Ireland. The way he narrates his story - is simple, direct, honest, readable and compelling - all at once. Start the first page and you will not let it go.
At the end of Angelas' Ashes - Frank grows into a very hard-working youngman who makes some hard choices in life supporting family and so as to plan his way to the US. With some luck things fall in place and he sets off on a boat to US full of hopes and full of tears - looking for a life and some money which could spread it to his mother (Angela) and siblings back home.
Normally sequels are like....you already know what you can expect in it. In a vague sense this is true of 'Tis - but in a totally different light: only here the magic continues !
In this sequel, even as McCourt starts to settle down and adjust to the life in USA - all his worries, hopes, aspirations and fears are all intact. Every small incident - he inevitably compares to his childhood experiences, what they would say in Limerick and what a simple lot they are. Every such comparision and recounting conveys the absolute love he has to the child he was, the simple pleasures and happiness of childhood memories and how bitterly sweet these intertVined experiences can be.
Our insight tells us - this is how we are made into who we are. We are our past which imprints our present experiences forging the future. The beauty of life has to surely continue in the sequel as the magic of McCourts' authentic and compelling narration makes us see ourselves (in more ways than one) in his shoes - navigating through life against this backdrop of our childhood, parents and background.
One can't help but go into a reviour of sorts about ones own childhood (like the fresh smell of life on those school-free summer evenings when one has just taken a bath and is heading to the garden for play, or the magic touch of cold stones on which one lay, or the pleasure of climbing trees, making fire in the backyard......you name it) and remember some of the best moments therein all of which having nothing to do with money or splendour which has somehow become the raison d'etre of present life of ours. I also think being in a different country accentuates this love for life back home and makes us cherish all that we left even more than we would otherwise.
Now about reading these two books - Needless to say 'GO GET THEM'.
