Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...
Michael Crichton, genius author, and director passed away the day before yesterday. This post is in his memory.
I am a huge fan of Crichton's work. My introduction to Crichton was The Andromeda Strain, a book that was gifted to me sometimes in school. I was much too young to enjoy it at the time, and after a few pages, I put it back on the shelf and forgot all about it. During my 11th or 12th grade, I got my hands on Congo. When I was done with it, I went back and dug up The Andromeda Strain. That was it. I was hooked.
In those days, my principal complaint against authors was that each wrote around set plot lines. Robin Cook and John Grisham were so boring after some time! I found Michael Crichton to be refreshingly different! (Now I know better, Crichton writes around the idea of the collapse of a "perfect" system, at least in most cases.) Slowly and steadily I gobbled up his entire works. These were some of the earliest books I bought for myself. In fact, today I own every single fiction novel of his except for Congo (People, this is a hint. Gift it to me and make me happy)
Of all of his books, I have a clear favorite. It is The Great Train Robbery. The story is set in Victorian England and loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855. This book completely enthralled me, I have read it countless times. I don't have a clear second favorite among Crichton's books, because they are all so good, but a few notable mentions would be Rising Sun (a murder occurs during a business meeting, and Japanese and American culture clashes thereafter, technology: some awesome evidence tampering), Timeline (historians traveling to the Middle ages, technology: Quantum Physics), Sphere (alien craft discovered at the bottom of the ocean, technology: psychology, discussions of interaction with aliens), Prey (a swarm of artificially created nanobots evolves out of control and starts attacking humans, technology: nanotechnology, intelligence in distributed systems, Lamarckian Evolution), Eaters of the Dead (set in the 10th century, about a Muslim who travels with the Vikings on their adventures, technology: eaters_of_the_dead! What else do you want!) and of course Jurassic Park (dinosaurs coming back to life in a supposedly controlled environment, technology: genetics, chaos theory)
Crichton has often been criticized that he wrote with a film adaptation in mind. Indeed, at least 11 of his books have been made into films. Even so, Crichton is a real joy to read (especially if you're geeky or into sci-fi) and I would recommend him to all book lovers.
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