Goodnight and God Bless- Anita Nair

Imagine this, you are a published writer, with a dozen odd books under your name. You frequently write articles on random things for various newspapers, magazines etc. After a while you realize that you have a repository of published & unpublished articles, and you are left wondering what can be done with them. Then zoop, pops out a brilliant thought. ‘Lets publish a book with those’ and in order to bind the randomness together, let’s use the threads of literature around it’. I guess thats how Anita Nair would possibly have incubated Good Night and God Bless. However for me, it was good thought and the outcome was blissful.

I thrive on bed-time reading, and that’s exactly what made me pick up this book, as the book’s back cover describes ‘a bedtime ritual of drinking a warm cup of malted milk and along the books by her bedside’. The book talks about her bedside table, which usually contains an assortment of books & the delight that they bring alongside. She has complied some 40 odd essays on various topics ranging from food, cooking,travel,places she visited, hotels she stayed in, people she met including her friends, literary contacts, a friend’s father who introduced her to the world of books ,her cook from kerala, about her mother & being a mother, about being a writer, siblings, pets, son & husband. What seem like mundane essay topics, have actually been given a good uplift with the literary connects, with foot notes and references to work done by some great literati.

What’s good about the book is, the random reading is relaxing and at places fairly interesting. She has put in fresh as well as honest thoughts. I could actually relate to some of these essays, especially the ones that revolved around reading, the joy & peace that follow (been there and hence experienced it). I also enjoyed the way she connected certain thoughts or events to a piece of work by a writer and what that writer had to say about the particular thing or event.

Some areas are surprisingly little preachy especially around what it takes to be a writer, win a booker etc. It was alright initially, however it stretched out a little bit too much and eventually I wasn’t enjoying the tone of that segment. Next, few essays are plain boring and had to speed read through them as they seemed to be heading nowhere or taking its own sweet time to make a point. So at places the book is paced very slow.

Overall, a good book to read, especially if you want to hear from a person who has a rich reading experience of years and doesn’t directly talk of books or a book. Also loved the list of “books that can be read” at the end, wonder when will I ever read them all!! However, at the end the book left me wondering why one Indian author just cannot stand another Indian Author, when most of their work bears uncanny resemblances.

Happy Reading
Meetali