Yes you are right, its Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.But why am I talking about this now? Because on Jan.28 it will be exactly 200 hundred years since Jane Austen introduced us to the travails of a mother trying to marry her five daughters, and the greater agony of the men who fall prey to her attempts.

I’m not much of an explorer when it comes to books, I have to admit. I have my selected reads and I’m happy. But something about this book had me extremely curious. For one, the comical Anu aunty with the giant read bindi (vermillion) on her forehead really caught my eye and then there was the obvious —a guy my age just published a book that offers advice to young people on how they can become entrepreneurs.

If you started off 2013 with a huge bang, and your enthusiasm has fizzled out by now due to the appearance of huge blank spaces in your social calendar with the end of the holiday season…then you are just like me.

Now I don’t do celeb stories, but this one is really funny. My laughter when I thought of it was so contagious; I was literally rolling on the floor laughing and I bet you would too, if you saw me then.So here’s the story: I was loitering around on Twitter, when my eye caught “Twitter trends”. Something called “#WeRespectHaylor” was trending. On opening it, I realized Haylor stood for Harry + Taylor, and that they’re dating. “They”, of course, are Harry Styles from boy band One Direction and popular country singer Taylor Swift.

We all know that music is an important part of society, and it reflects and shapes the mindset of the people. Melodies, rhythm and lyrics especially, affect people very much, especially when they’re at an impressionable age. So before you start wondering, no, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a musician to maintain a certain level of decency and morality in their music. And it applies for any other public figure.

If you think that little fights happen only among actors and actresses, that it’s only the Khans and the Kapoors that end up in a feud; then you are so wrong. The world of literature isn’t far behind. They have all together written their own book of feuds. So here are the top literary feuds of the year 2012:

In the very beginning, in his note to the readers, Bill O’Reilly is quick to clear that Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelotis a book based on facts.O’Reilly penned this book in collaboration with Martin Dugard. Dugard is a highly skilled researcher, who collected all the facts with immense thoroughness, and once that was done, O’Reilly put it down in an entertaining story. This ensured the presence of accuracy, as well as amusement in this book.

It is the story of young Sabby who lives in his own world of imagination at his grandmother’s house in Kolkata (then Calcutta). He lives in a family where the anglicised values co-exist with the Indian values and nationalism.

The Last War by Sandipan Deb is a novel about a business family that deals in many illegal activities. The novel stretches from the year 1955 to the year 2007, during which time the life of the family members takes various twists and turns. The novel bursts with drama, deceit and manoeuvre. Rustom Pestonjee, an aging Parsi businessman chances upon Yash Kuru in Bombay in the year 1955. With no heir of his own, Pestonjee hands over the reins of his empire to Yash; having pledged celibacy for the sake of his nephews, Shankar and Shiv. Yash accepts Pestonjee’s offer only to transfer it to his nephews’ sons. On his death-bed Pestonjee prophesises that his nephews’ sons will fight for the empire and a war will take place between the two sides.

Techno-thrillers are as Wikipedia describes them, “a hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from science fiction, thrillers, spy, action and war and feature a disproportionate amount of detail on their subject matter”.Zero Day has to be called a techno-thriller. Having grown up on a constant diet of Michael Crichton, Robert Ludlum and Robin Cook, I take books of this genre to heart.