Beyond Books

I am no writer, and have no intention of becoming a published author. But sometimes, I do feel like penning my thoughts on all things bookish. Here are a few of my thoughts and writings.
(As is evident, this page is a work-in-progress. I have written a lot more than these few articles. Stay tuned. 😃)

Author Specials:


Bookish Write-ups:



✤ Five Types of Non-fiction that Even Fiction Lovers Will Enjoy! - Guest Article for Blogchatter's BeStorified series. - March 2025.





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After Life - Gayle Forman - ★

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AUTHOR: Gayle Forman GENRE: YA Contemporary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: January 7, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A YA contemporary fiction with mild fantasy elements. Could have been awesome but the FMC is too YA, if you know what I mean. 😬 Basic writing, annoying characters, convenient developments. Minimal and ad hoc fantasy content. The only thing I liked was the plot structuring. Can’t recommend this, sorry. Plot Preview: When Amber cycles home one spring afternoon, the last thing she expects is her mother to scream on seeing her walk in. The reason is horrifying even to Amber. It seems she has been dead for seven years, having lost her life in a hit-and-run accident while riding the very same bicycle she just rode home. But Amber doesn’t feel dead! The return affects not just Amber but her family and other acquaintances who were active in her life when she was alive. A lot has changed in the last seven years and Amber needs to be prepared to face those developments bas well....
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Photographs of Emily and other stories - Annalisa Crawford - ★★★★.¼

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AUTHOR: Annalisa Crawford GENRE: Story Collection, Dark Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: July 24, 2026 RATING: 4.25 stars In a Nutshell: An indie collection comprising one novella and three short stories. Excellent atmosphere and lyrical writing. Dark and haunting. Much recommended. I've been a fan of this author ever since I read her story collection titled "The Clock in My Mother's House and Other Stories."  Since then, I've read three more of her works and enjoyed all of them. Safe to say that I now pick up an Annalisa Crawford work without even reading the blurb. A risky strategy, but with the right author, the reward is almost always assured. This latest book justifies my faith in her writing. The collection comprises one novella and three short stories. The novella takes up about 65% of the book. The mood in all four entries is somewhat similar: melancholic and haunting. The stories circulate around the same core topics of personal loss, grief, mental hea...
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The Ferryman and His Wife - Frode Grytten - ★★

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AUTHOR: Frode Grytten TRANSLATOR: Alison McCullough NARRATOR: Colin Mace GENRE: Literary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: November 18, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary fantasy-fiction set on a fjord in Norway. Introspective, not morbid. Too many characters, too meandering and monotonous for my liking. Some unnecessary triggering and crass content. Better for those who are more about prose than plot. Recommended, but not to all. Plot Preview: One morning, Nils Vik, a ferryman, wakes up and knows that it will be the day he dies. He still wants to follow his routine, so after his morning routine, he looks around his empty house for one last time, walks out, and boards his beloved boat that he has been ferrying on the fjord for many years. As he sets off, his dead dog joins him, and one by one, several other souls also make their way to Nils Vik one by one across each of the ferry stops. Each, including the dog, discusses several things from the past, sometimes offering the ferryma...
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The Awesome Physics in Your City - The Amazing Theatre of Physics - ★★★★

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AUTHOR: The Amazing Theatre of Physics GENRE: Juvenile Nonfiction, Science. SERIES: Science All Around Us, #2 PUBLICATION DATE: June 24, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: An illustrated book about the real-life examples of physics in a city. Practical and informative. A great option for STEM enthusiasts in the middle-grade and teen age groups. This is the second book in the interesting STEM series titled ‘Science All Around Us’. It does an excellent job of enlightening children about the practical aspects of two of the most dreaded science subjects: physics and chemistry. I have already read two books from this series: Book One: The Awesome Physics in Your Home and Book Three: The Amazing Chemistry in Your Home . Book Two maintains the same level of quality, though set in a different environment. As the title indicates, this book leaves the ‘home’ setting and focusses on applications of physics in the city at large. I appreciate how the places chosen are the ones that children actu...
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The Book Witch - Meg Shaffer - ★

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AUTHOR: Meg Shaffer GENRE: Fantasy-Romance PUBLICATION DATE: April 7, 2026 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A book-about-books fantasy featuring the titular book witch. After the super-interesting start, this absolutely didn’t go the way I expected it to. Too much of insta-love. OTT dialogues, absurd plot twists, and immature characters. I enjoyed this author’s first two novels but simply couldn’t connect with this one. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: Despite her youth, twenty-five-year-old Rainy March has been a book witch for more than a decade. She follows all the rules of the profession seriously, including the one about ensuring that fictional characters and the real world do not intersect. But when she is sent on assignment into the book series starring the Duke of Chicago, her favourite book character, she forgets all the rules and ends up in a relationship with him. When this is discovered by the head witch, Rainy is forbidden from interacting with the fictional characte...
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