Listening to Grasshoppers.

Gestern abend bin ich mit meine Freundinen zum Rathaus gefahren.

You know when you start learning a foreign language they teach you how to say some of the basic places in a city that you might go to like "city centre", "theatre", etc. Well when I started learning German, Rathaus was one of them. It means Town Hall and although I often inserted it in those sentences where you have to talk about where you went when you went to town, I can now say it and it wouldn't be a lie.

Bombay has a Town Hall. And I went there yesterday evening for the book launch of Arundhati Roy's Listening to Grasshoppers.

An evening spent with friends on the edge of my seat listening to Roy who spoke so eloquently with a voice that you want to listen to all night long on issues ranging from Kashmir, Climate Change, Narmada, displacement of tribals, terrorism, etc. to the first sentence she ever wrote (which is hilarious) and her night spent in jail...

I came away ashamed and enlightened. Ashamed because I haven't actually read The God of Small Things yet and also because I know so little about so many things in general. I read a lot but I realised that it's not near enough. There are so many things that I have no idea about, that I ought to know about my own country. Things that might not directly affect me but that's no excuse for ignorance.

And enlightened because I learnt so much and I had to put on my critical thinking cap and you just gotta love an author who can make you think. Widen your horizons. Don't just accept everything at face-value. Question. Test everything, hold on to the good. That sort of thing...

Ahhh! This is definitely going in the "Best of 2009" list :)

Atticus.

Love, Love, Love this film.

At the American Centre they screen movies on Fridays and Saturdays. Today I went to return a book (The Time Traveler's Wife - Excellent book btw!) and found out that they were screening To Kill A Mockingbird. I've read the book and watched the movie once before but it was a Saturday afternoon, had nothing to do and their auditorium is really nice so I thought what the heck!

And I'm glad too. Atticus Finch, I have decided is my favourite book/movie character ever. Have you ever seen such a level-headed, patient, persevering, wise, kind man?

Please watch this film if you haven't. Better yet, read the book by the same name by Harper Lee.

I Know This Much Is True

I would really love to post pictures from the weekend but my internet is being annoying and I'm busy trying to finish the last 100 or so pages of this big fat book that I've been reading for almost a month now. It is now overdue at the library (darn it!) so I have to finish it tonight...
It is a brilliant book by the way. Granted, it took me a while to really begin to appreciate it (around 650 pages to be precise! :P) and it's intimidatingly long but I would highly recommend it. The characters are really beautifully developed and they just grow on you... I'm actually kind of sad I'll be finished with it soon.

"We'd all be a bunch of geniuses if we had hindsight ahead of time."
-- Wally Lamb (I Know This Much Is True)

p.s. I know you should never judge a book by its cover but isn't it just beautiful?

Come Saturday.

Another week of non-classes. Teachers (supposedly all over India) have been on a strike for a week now because the stupid government refuses to pay our teachers their due. Goodness knows when it will end. I've never been the kind of person who enjoys non-classes for long periods of time. The only exception was Econ classes but then I dealt with that issue by dropping the subject so... I'm not very happy about this strike!! I WANT MY CLASSES! :(

Anyway, thank goodness for K'scope (our college festival) which allows me to still stay outside the house for a good portion of the day :P We've started with our workforce photo-shoots which keeps us in college till at least 3 o'clock.

I also visited the Library yesterday and spent almost an hour trying to decide what to read next! (So many books to read!!!) I kept picking books off the shelf and then putting them back. Finally I decided on The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - a book that's been sitting on my virtual to-read list for a while now. I've read a couple of chapters so far; I was pretty hooked from the first page. (And... I just found out that's there's a movie based on the book in the making too. Not surprising.)

So there's an update on my not-so-happening-life.

On the bright side: This Saturday I'm going to watch a famous play by Samuel Beckett called Waiting For Godot. It's a totally weird play and I'm pretty sure we're all going to be pretty dazed by the end of it but I'm finally getting to go to this theater that I've heard so much about - Prithvi - and even better, wait for it... I get to see Naseeruddin Shah on stage! :)

You want rain?

Hello all,

Here's what it looks like outside my window on this very very WET and dark monsoon afternoon. Water, water, everywhere. It looked much the same last night when I went to sleep around 10:45pm. And of course today, we didn't really even consider braving this to go to college. I haven't seen this kind of rain in a long time or maybe... ever. It'll be bad news if it keeps us like THIS for much longer.
Anyway, so what am I doing at home? I just finished reading another book - Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. Remember that fabulous Audrey Hepburn 1961 film? :D

I found it at the American Centre Library of which I am now a member!! It all started last Thursday. Our Sociology class was invited to the American Centre in Churchgate where they showed us this documentary about the workings of the student newspaper at Penn. State University. It was interesting since one of our subjects this year is Sociology of the Media. After that they gave us a tour of their library and I was smitten. Especially because you can make use of it at a nifty price of Rs. 300/= for students! Lucky me, I'm a student!

Libraries and book-shops are my happy places and since book-shops work out to be more expensive, I joined the library! :D Obviously since they're the American Library, most of their books are American but I found that they have a better collection than the British Council Library and also being a member means you can access the online databases that they have institutional membership to. Very useful for my projects. And the general atmosphere is just nice... after you get past the rather paranoid security at the entrance of course ;)

Lots of reading to do. And then of course there are the bundles and bundles of notes that we're given in class to go through and movies to watch and blogs to read...

So yeah. I'm keeping myself busy :)

Be still for a spell.

Hello! I almost forgot I had a blog. Okay, that's pushing it but yeah. It's been a while.

There are things that I want to blog about - things that suggest that I do think about things beyond my little world ;) but that requires time to sit and ponder and stuff and quite honestly I haven't really had that kind of time. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I like to be busy and between classes, K'SCOPE, and all this crazy reading that I've suddenly gotten into; it has been pretty busy around here. I like to be busy because that helps the missing-home thing and other various things that I worry about (Global Warming, world peace and all that stuff :P) but according to my doctor, somewhere along the way I am apparently subconsciously thinking about all of this anyway which finds it's expression not through my mouth but through my body and this is not so good. So maybe I need to make time to sort out my thoughts and EXPRESS myself and this is one of the primary reasons I started the blog so... Hello blog.

Yesterday, my friend Antu and I went to this amazing exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery and it was just... beyond words. It was organised by this man called Neville Tuli and his OSIAN Foundation who has this massive collection of photos, paintings, posters, artefacts, etc. There were paintings and photos from like centuries ago depicting the 1857 Mutiny, actual photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, original Clint Eastwood and Amitabh Bachan film posters... It was crazy and oh-so-exhausting to take it all in and apparently what we saw yesterday was just a tiny fraction of everything that he has... Whoa! If you live in Mumbai, it's still on till the 2nd of July and then they're starting in Delhi on the 3rd. Go check it out!

I decided to do my Gender & Society project on Aung San Suu Kyi and Shirin Ebadi as Human Rights Activists. I'd been thinking about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from the beginning and the lady with whom I had the amazing conversation with on the train a few weeks back also suggested it so I talked to my teacher and she seemed pretty enthusiastic... YAY! And then I went to this place Centre of Documentation in Colaba which is this amazing place where they document all these newspaper/magazine articles in these huge files according to the topic and I came across Shirin Ebadi who I'd never heard about but it'll interesting finding out more about her especially in the light of the current circumstances in Iran. So yay, again! :)

On Sunday, Sonu and I went Landmark bookstore and spent some quality time there flicking through books and even though I resolved not to buy anything because I have so much to read anyway, I couldn't resist and ended up buying a classic. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. We had studied North & South by her in A'levels and so mostly I wanted to read another Gaskell for nostalgia's sake but I am glad I bought it. Classics are the cheapest books to buy so it's almost guilt-free and I am really enjoying reading it...

I'm also reading Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman (my dad's recommendation). Honestly, I was pretty skeptical about getting through this book because I'm not much of a non-fiction reader and if you see the size of this one... it's pretty daunting! I have to admit though that I am impressed and am actually enjoying it. It is so well-researched and such an important issue and one that I am concerned about so I recommend it too!

In the music scene, I'm still mad about Brooke Fraser. Her songs bring me joy for hours on end. :)

In the autumn on the ground,
Between the traffic and the ordinary sounds,
I am thinking signs and seasons while a north wind blows through
I watch as lovers pass me by
Walking stories - whos and hows and whys
Musing lazily on love
Pondering you
I'll give it time, give it space and be still for a spell
When it's time to walk that way we wanna walk it well

I am waiting for you baby,
I'll be holding back the darkest night.
Love is waiting till we're ready, till it's right
Love is waiting

-- Love is Waiting by Brooke Fraser

Rain Rain Where Are You

First of all, thanks a lot to all of you who left comments/voted on my last post! I’ll keep you updated if anything comes out of it...

The monsoon is still playing games with us. It has rained some in the last few days but it’s not quite the monsoon, they say. I wish it would come. It’s kind of scary how dry this month has been, by now usually we’ve already had a “rainy day” and been unable to go to college because of the water logging. I’m just hoping it doesn’t all come in a mad deluge!

Life otherwise is okay. Classes annoy me sometimes. I don’t know why, actually I do know why. I guess I was expecting it to be better, more interesting, more serious, more challenging… And then there's this one teacher... Argh!! And what bugs me more is that there’s this resigned acceptance of the whole thing. Like when I tell people who have experienced this themselves they say, “You know what, degree is just a name-sake thing, you just have to get through it.” Hmmmm.

Also, who would've thought getting used to not having any classes at all or even any free time without Sonu, Sharan and Vini would be THIS hard! :(

I know there’s a purpose for everything; I just wish it were easier sometimes to believe that!

Anyway today I went to the Crosswords bookstore near our college to kill some time before I headed to see my doctor in Bandra and started reading Jodi Picoult's new book Handle With Care and it is fabulous! I just read a few pages and was real sad that I couldn't take it with me (I don't like to steal and it was too expensive to buy and they don't let you borrow!). And I also found this autobiography of William Wilberforce - you know that British guy who fought to abolish the slave trade? I'm a big fan. His story teaches me something new every time... (Amazing Grace anyone?)

All in a day of third year!

Look who we found on the train ride to college at 7:20 in the morning almost dozing off while reading The Return of The Native? Sonu lives further from town than we do now so she has joined the masses on the local trains... I think this might be one of the first times we got to sit down on the train in the morning after travelling second class for the first couple of days before we got our first class passes down. We're "happy" commuters now. Second class is treacherous!

Sharan, darling that she is, got me some C.S. Lewis book from the British Council Library! More books for my Book List 2009!Classes started on Wednesday and it's kind of weird not having anything else but Sociology all day long! For the first time I don't have to write the name of the subject in my timetable only numbers to denote which part of Sociology I have at different times... Crazy! Sitting in the classroom after a fun lesson with a fun teacher! I had to make some posters to advertise Photography Team interviews for K'SCOPE (our college festival). I'm on the interviewer side this year and not the interviewee :DStrange as it may sound, our timetable is actually more relaxed than last year! On most days we only start at 8:50am instead of 8:00am and there are breaks in between classes too... YAY!

After college yesterday we decided to grab some lunch and watch a movie at Colaba. Lunch was at Leopold Cafe which is a really old and famous eating place in Colaba (Shantaram anyone?) It's like a melting pot of cultures actually, there are usually a lot of foreigners around and they have all kinds of food for reasonable prices (although they've increased the prices of everything a little now...)

Madhuri, Shruti and Sonu

Looks picture perfect doesn't it? Vini's order...

Outside the theatre after the movie. L-R: Vini, Sonu, Madhuri, Monisha and Shruti

The movie - Bride Wars - was okay. You know how chick flicks go... :D

In a nutshell.

*On my playlist:
Come Back To Me - David Cook ♥
Touch My Hand - David Archuleta ♥

*On my mind:
Cinnamon Rolls!

*On my desktop:

My granny, me, my brother and cousins in Kolkata, 1988!

*On my feet:
Salsa! (and a little Bachata!)

*On my tabs:
Hotmail, Facebook, Forming and Baking Cinnamon Rolls: All Recipes Tutorial!

*On my bedside table:
Embroidery threads and cross-stitch patterns

*On my currently-reading list:
Rumours of Another World by Phillip Yancey
The Breakdown Lane by Jacqueline Mitchard

*On my movie-list:
Well, I decided it's time I watched some of those "guy-movies"...
So far:
Full Metal Jacket: Can't say I loved it, but it is a good movie and led me to Google the Vietnam War. Gotta love a movie that leads me to expand my knowledge :P
Batman Begins: I declare Batman to be my favourite fictional super-hero! :D Loved it. But The Dark Knight wins thanks to Heath Ledger.
Ocean's Eleven: Loved it. Have to find the other... two(!?) {p.s. this is not really a guy-movie actually} Other movies:
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: Umm.. ok.

I can see clearly now...

So after months of squinting and trying to read what was written on the blackboard during Economics class, I finally went and had my eyes checked about two weeks ago. It was vaguely fascinating and at the end of it, they told me I needed glasses. After some more procrastination, I finally went and selected frames and ordered my glasses and I can see clearly now!! I spent the journey back home pushing my glasses a little off and then putting them back on to see the difference… and wow, I’ve been missing quite a bit! The indicators at the train station aren’t blurry anymore, I can read the ads and even the words on my laptop screen and crystal clear! My power is very low (-0.5) and I wish I didn’t need to wear glasses but I’ll take what I can get and run with it! :P

I’m listening to Latika’s Theme from Slumdog Millionaire. So beautiful, so beautiful. A.R. Rahman; you go man! (Thank you, Antu!)

Was listening to the audio book version of Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade – And How We Can Fight It by David Batstone. Wow, eye-opening and I’ve only heard the introduction so far! You can get a free download of the audio book here (only on offer in February so go quick!) (Thanks, Kari)

Also on my playlist:
- Delhi-6 Soundtrack (Again, A.R. Rahman - seriously how do you do it?)
- Jai Ho from Slumdog...
- Dreams on Fire from Slumdog...

Enjoying my last days of 20!

Chips, Dips and Love Letters!

Yesterday Sonu was 20 yrs and 2 days old and because that's more than a good enough reason to call for a celebration, we - ALL seven of us - went to the ridiculously priced little restaurant (Under The Banyan Tree a.k.a UTBT) right under the nose of our college and ordered 'Chips and Dips' which was one of the cheaper items on their menu (Rs. 45) and it turned out to be delicious so we ordered a second plate.
Before that Sonu and I, in our search for an ATM near college found a little Archie's store (cards, gits, etc) and thanks to fast-approaching Valentines Day we had some good entertainment, examining all the mushy stuff and the cards! Oh the cards!! That was a sight to behold. They had a whole lot of 'singing' cards with songs ranging from Time Of My Life to Doori... Oh we all but fell over laughing - it was so much fun! Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Valentine's Day or think it's 'evil' (unlike the Shiv Sena or the 'King of Morals' down south - Mutalik) but seriously some of these cards are really funny :)
Anyway we came back to UTBT and ate our chips and dips and then we were reading out letters from the book Love Letters that Sharan found at the BCL. Letters written by John Keats, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, etc, etc. Basically love-crazed men and women from a very very long time ago. Some were shocking, some were hilarious ("Yours, Beaver"...!?!!?), some were oozing with romanticism and some were crazy ("Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella......."), some didn't make much sense (well, at least to US!) but it made for some fun reading anyway!

Spread the Love :)

And to be cont'd... :P

Book-Worm 2009. (Updated with Strikes!)

I don't make much of New Year Resolutions mainly because I'm pretty bad at keeping them... I don't think I had any last year, except that I wanted to read at least 30 books in 2008. Now, I have no idea if I achieved that because I never bothered to keep count. I could probably find out through Goodreads (which is a very cool networking site where you can record all the books that you've read, want to read and are currently-reading and get recommendations and read the general public's views on various books. If you love to read, do jump on the Goodreads bandwagon, its not like your usual social networking site and you'll find it useful.) Of course there's always the "Lose Weight" resolution which I make and break every year. Nothing new about that.

Anyway, this year I'm going to keep count and aim at 40 books for 2009. Here's a few for my list so far. I'd love to get some recommendations too.

1. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
2. Tramp For The Lord by Corrie Ten Boom
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen: Currently-reading.
4. The NIV Bible: Currently-reading.
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: To-Read.
6. Five Quarters Of The Orange by Joanne Harris: Finish Reading.
7. Brida by Paulo Coelho: To-Read.
8. The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho: To-Read.
9. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis: To-Read.
10. Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins: To-Read.
11. Doctrines That Divide by Erwin Lutzer: Finish Reading.
12. The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur: To-Read.
13. The Famished Road by Ben Okri: To-Read.
14. Candide by Voltaire: Finish Reading.
15. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri: To-Read.
16. What's So Amazing About Grace? by Phillip Yancey: To-Read.
17. The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis: Finish Reading.
18. The Swans Are Not Silent by John Piper: To-Read.
19. The Hidden Smile Of God by John Piper: Currently Reading.
20. Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: To-Read.
21. Night by Elie Wiesel: To-Read.

Recommendations??

P.s. How do you strike words? You know like putting a line THROUGH the word??

Update: Thanks Kari, I took your suggestion and googled it and now I know how to strike out words! Yay! Here's the link to the online tutorial if you want to know how.

And the list goes on...

The good things in life consist of these:

• An hour-long conversation with my bum-chum from Zambia yesterday. We (literally) grew up together and we always have such great conversation! Thanks for calling, Shaon!
• Letters, letters, letters! The ones that come in snail-mail. They make my day!
• Indian food. (mmm, paneer makhani, dal fry and jeera rice with a little pickle on the side in college canteen!)
  
• Knowing that love is alive and kicking. I see it all around me, even in the direst of situations.
• Good books. I'm reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom at the moment.
• Hoping in a God who keeps His promises.
• Blogs. (Sonu has joined us!)
• Just being in college.
• Weddings - the kind that are just brimming over with love, everlasting love!
• Grace - coming to visit me and this big old crazy city in two days! (More on that later)
• Fun Movies. I think I'm going to go watch Enchanted now - again! - and write my movie review on it, while I'm at it.
  

Toodles!

The Best Of 2008

Remembering some of the good stuff of the year gone by:

Tag: The Photo Tag (July)

SMS: From Sharan "You're going to have a daughter, Tina." It was totally out of the blue and well, I hope so. (October)
Bloggers' Meet: With Nithya and Sharan(yan) in Coimbatore.

Movies: Amazing Grace and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (October)
Shopping: MAX! In Bangalore, with Jo. (November)Event: The Jazz concert I went to at the NCPA. It was a treat from a junior from school - Neville. I will forever be grateful for that. It was magic. (January)

Blog Discovery: Confessions of a CF Husband

Dinner: At the Georges' with Sharan, Sonu, Jo and Antu (October)

Journey: To Ooty with some of best friends! (October)Eating Place: The American Express Bakery in Bandra - thanks to Jo! (July)

Book: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Oh, it blew me away. (November)
Re-union: With Niru in Bombay! I'm SO glad you came! (February)Realisation: Ooty is BEAUTIFUL and I will never get enough of it! Holiday: With family in Nagpur (December)
Photo: The mischievous school boys at Coimbatore bus-stand... (October)

Activity: Taking photos during K'SCOPE 2008 (September)

Sunset: Nagpur Sunsets are just gorgeous! Maybe because you can actually see it cause there are no tall buildings all over the place. I've really enjoyed sitting on the balcony at my uncle's place and watching the sun go down leaving behind breathtaking twilight colours. (December)

There's so much more but that could take a while.

Your mercies are new every morning, Lord.
I thank you...
For the abundant joy.
For lessons learnt.
For friends.
Family
2008.
You.

You humble me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Once, Once, Once

I watched it FINALLY! Once is such a beautiful, simple, non-exaggerated, real movie. And what a brilliant soundtrack. Watch it, if you haven't already. You simply must.

I've finished reading Nineteen Minutes and it is now second on my favourite JodiPicoultList. Yup, it has bumped off Salem Falls. I finally found the PicoultTwist like at the end of My Sister's Keeper again. YAY!

Whenever I finish a book though, it takes a while to get into a new one so I've been watching movie's instead:
Bowling For Columbine: A documentary made by Michael Moore trying to figure out why things like the shooting at Columbine High School happen in America.
A Room With A View: Based on the book by the same name by E.M. Forster. Ah, brilliant!
August Rush: It has the cute little kid who playes Peter in Finding Neverland. And the hot guy from Bend It Like Bekham - Jonathon Rhys Meyer. The movie is not technical genius or anything like that but its a beautiful tale with a beautiful soundtrack with a happy ending. The best kinda feel-good movie! ;)
Definitely, Maybe: Again movie with cute kid - this time, the brilliant girl from Little Miss Sunshine. I really liked this movie.
Stolen Summer: This was really interesting. Its about two kids; one from a Jewish family and one from an Irish Catholic family. Sometimes, I think that we like to think that we know all the answers but really we don't know squat - we ought to be more like children...
Once: Haven't I said enough about this already? Just watch it!

I Want A Baby!

He he he. I like that title. Don't worry, I know that there is a time under the sun for everything and I'm not going to go making babies right now.

I had a GREAT day today. D and I went to Max (AGAIN!) which is a new clothes-store in Bangalore which is pretty reasonable and they have a nice collection which does get a little old when you go there too many times though as D and I discovered today. Anyway, so I got myself a pair of jeans and another t-shirt (which I seriously lack - I'm usually seen comfortable in my kurtas/kurtis).

And then I went to lunch at my cousin's place who was a 8-month old little boy and he is just SO adorable!! The last I saw him in Kolkata he was just 1 or 2 months old and well he didn't do much but sleep, eat and cry but now he's crawling and stands with support and loves to jump and SMILES - oh how he smiles!! Absolutely adorable. I'm usually not great with kids but I'm proud to say ladies and gentlemen, that he DID NOT cry when he came to me and I had a ball playing with him!! I do have a few photos but am too lazy to upload them right now.

After that my Pops and I went to buy a camera-case for the handycam and then went book-shopping! Our favourite. If there is such a thing as a book-worm or book-buying gene - I got it from my dad. Although I gotta admit he's better at actually READING everything he buys than I am. Sometimes a book will sit for years on my shelf until I actually get around to reading it. And sometimes if I don't really like a book or even the first chapter, I just cannot finish it. I know its not a good thing cause many a book with a painfully boring start actually turns out to be pretty good... Anyway I bought three books today:

• Persuasion by Jane Austen: I've been wanting to read this for a while now. The only Jane Austen I've read is Emma and that I HAD to read cause it was in our syllabus for EngLit in A'levels. I actually have many fond memories related to this book - phone convesations that invariably led to the question "So have you read Emma yet?" during the summer holidays cause we didn't really know what else to talk about... :)
  I know, I know, shame on me - I haven't read Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility yet but let's see how I get through this one first cause I really struggle to read classics unless I'm forced to like for Lit classes! ;)
• Marley and Me by John Grogan: I've heard good things about this book and I keep seeing it whenever I enter a book-shop and have been wanting to read it for a while. Its about a dog who reminds me a lot of Joey (not the FRIENDS Joey; the beautiful Labrador Joey who came to live with us for a while but we couldn't handle his boisterous and extremely hyper nature so had to send him back).
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier: I read the abridged version of this a long time ago in Zambia (I think I borrowed it from the tiny library at my school) when fat books scared me and I loved it. I figured well I've read Gone With The Wind (which is a MIGHTY FAT novel) I can definitely handle this now and I have been wanting the read the WHOLE story for a while now.

Today's The Big Day

...well, I'm guessing by the time we hear it'll already be tomorrow for us.

America is barely waking up now and today - 4th of November, 2008 - she will get her new president. Or to put it the other way round - the world will get its new American President.

Who's it gonna be?

In other news:

I was watching 'Bowling for Columbine' last night before the electricity went out - it's... chilling to say the least. Its scary to even think about what must be going through a teenager's mind to be able to KILL. Related to that, I'm reading Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes at the moment which is based on a similar situation. She is a talented woman that woman. If you haven't read any of her books - you SHOULD! Here's a list of the one's I've read in order of preference:

Jodi Picoult

• My Sister's Keeper: So far, still the BEST. Niru recommended this one to me about two years ago; it was the first Jodi Picoult I read and obviously not the last.
• Salem Falls
• Nineteen Minutes (still reading it but it's already here on the list!)
• The Pact
• Perfect Match
• Change of Heart
• Vanishing Acts

And now I'm bored and they're showing Grey's Anatomy re-run on TV so I'm gonna go!