Sunday, September 14, 2014

Book Review: Amit Shankar's Café Latte - Eighteen Unusual Short Stories

-by Varsha Singh


In these speedy times, when people don't get enough time for reading long fictions to rejuvenate their mind; it's the genre of short stories which adds freshness into the lives and gives instant creative surge in between the technicality of life.

Amit Shankar's recent collection of eighteen unusual short stories Café Latte is unique in all sense. His stories are short yet crisp, intense yet momentary, deadly yet delightful, and to add much more. This book is unusual in one more sense, as two stories out of 18 are told by 2 talented kids, Kartikey Sharma and Vasundhara Goyal.

Author of three national bestsellers; Flight of the Hilsa, Chapter 11 and Love is Vodka - A Shot Ain't Enough, Amit Shankar, with his extraordinary flair for carving unusual offbeat stories proves to be refreshing in this collection too. Although, he raises his creative bar so high, that few of his stories slightly fail in front of his other best pieces present in the same book.

His strength lies in his story telling technique, and most prominently in his unusual twists at the end of each story which keeps the readers stuck deep into the narrative and shake them from within at certain moments; but the same becomes his weakness too, when his twists fail to hit back the readers' mind as strongly as anticipated by the writer's creative strength. 

The first half of this book is delightful and full of surprises, but slowly and gradually the tricks of Amit start fading in the later phase. The Sixteen unusual stories by Amit are, "The Temple Of The King", "26 Down Express", "Code of Honor", "The Jazz Player", "Let Me Help You Die", "The Black Widow", "The Lion The Leopard And The Hyena", "The Chosen One", "Home Sweet Home", "The Other Side", "The Dream Chaser", "The Guardian Angel", "Every Mouse Ain't A Mickey Mouse", "Smart TV", "True Lies" and "Writer's Block". The other two unusual stories by two talented kids are "A Rose For Her" by Kartikey Sharma and "A Highway Called Life" by Vasundhara Goyal.  

The stories of Café Latte are as instant as a cup of instant coffee. Each story has a different yet unique and refreshing flavor. A must read collection, indeed. Grab your copy today. You will not regret it with your cup of coffee at any time, be it morning, noon or night!  


About the Author
Author of three national bestsellers; Flight of the Hilsa, Chapter 11 and Love is Vodka - A Shot Ain't Enough, Amit Shankar, with his penchant for telling offbeat stories, has this time found his expression in the form of eighteen, unusual short stories. He is an avid music buff and a great exponent of the guitar. His genre includes rock, jazz and blues. To know more about him, Click

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About the book
Publisher: Vitasta Publishing
Publication Year: 2014
ISBN-13: 9789382711445
ISBN-10: 9382711449
Language: English
Binding: Paperback
Number of Pages: 208 Pages
Source: The Bookaholics