Swot Analysis of Railway Transportation

1. 1 Study objective * To satisfy the necessity of this module, Introduction to Land Transportation and Railways mode * The goal of this examination is worried about recognizing Analysis of Railways Transport. * To increase additional information on Land transportation that will help me now and later on. 1. 2 Scope The initial step worries of presenting Land transport and Railways mode. Second step is indicating the Strength and Weakness Analysis of Railways at that point examine in subtleties on Strength and Weakness focuses. 1. 3 Introduction We utilize different items in our every day life.But do we realize where are they created? A large number of them are created at better places far away from our area. So how would we get them? These are carried on from every one of those spots through rail, street or air and are made accessible to us at our territory. You more likely than not seen trucks, rhythm, bullock trucks; and so on. Those would convey items and crude materials from a sp ot to another. Additionally, you likewise more likely than not seen individuals making a trip starting with one spot then onto the next by transports, trains, vehicles, bikes, carts, cycles, and so on. This development of merchandise and people is significant in business.Because of this, crude materials arrive at the spot of assembling, completed items arrive at the spot of offer or utilization, people move around to deal with the business, and so forth. In this exercise, let us figure out how merchandise and travelers move starting with one spot then onto the next. 2. 1 Mode of Transport Basically transport is conceivable through land, air or water, which is known as the various methods of transport. Ashore we use trucks, tractors, and so forth , to convey merchandise; train, transport, vehicles and so on. to convey travelers. In air, we discover planes, helicopters to convey travelers just as goods.Similarly in water we discover ships, liners, and so forth , to convey products and travelers. All these are known as different methods for transport. Let us examine about different methods of transport. The methods of transport can be comprehensively separated into three classifications: Land transport, Water transport and Air transport. 2. 2 Land Transport: Land transport alludes to exercises of physical development of products and travelers ashore. This development happens on street, rail, rope or channel. So land transport may additionally be partitioned into Road transport, Rail transport, Ropeway transport, pipeline transport.Let us know the insights regarding Rail Transport. 2. 3 Rail transport Transportation of products and travelers on rail lines through trains is called rail transport. It possesses a significant spot in land transport arrangement of our nation and is the most trustworthy method of transport to convey products and travelers over a significant distance. Other than significant distance, nearby vehicle of travelers is additionally given by n eighborhood trains or metro-rail in some metropolitan urban areas. Rail transport is accessible all through the nation with the exception of some sloping or rocky districts. In India two sorts of trains are found.One is traveler train and other is merchandise train. While traveler trains convey both people and a constrained amount of merchandise, the products trains are solely utilized for conveying products starting with one spot then onto the next. These trains are driven by rail motors and they use steam, diesel or electric capacity to move. Let us presently talk about the SWOT Analysis of Rail Transport. Figure 1: SWOT Analysis of Rail Transport 3. 1 SWOT Analysis of Rail Transport in Malaysia There is some quality, shortcoming, openings and dangers have been found in the rail transport arrangement of Malaysia.Malaysia primary rail framework was mange by Kereta Api Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) since the 1940’s, the railroad organization deal with an aggregate of 1,699km of tracks in the Peninsular Malaysia. The following are the SWOT investigations for KTMB 3. 1. 1 Strength * Cheap The passages offer by KTMB are moderately low cost, hence it is reasonable by people in general in Kuala Lumpur. Tolls from 1 station to another are beneath 5 Ringgit Malaysia, model Station Tasik Selatan to Mid Valley Station just expense about RM2. 40 for a grown-up. * Eco-Friendly Since the vast majority of the train worked by Malaysian Railway was controlled by overhead electric wire, no carbon emanation was produce.Therefore by utilizing the train, air contamination was limits. * Large Capacity Since train can be long by including cart or carriage and will have a gigantic limit, it is conceivable to deal with a lot of cargo transportation and furthermore travelers to one spot to another. In KTMB, trains are able to deal with enormous measure of cargoes and up to 300 travelers for each outing. * Long Distance Trains are structure for either short or significant distance of voyaging. Starting with one point then onto the next, present day train can be quicker than vehicles to arrive at a destination.Since KTMB has a long track of 1699km, it is simple for voyager from the north of Perlis to venture out toward the south of Johor effortlessly. Accordingly without sitting around idly, exertion and cost, explorer can unwind by going on train. * No Road Congestion Road clog is a significant issue in each city around the globe, investing energy in street blockage are frequently disappointing and exercise in futility. Since rail transport can go on its single track absent a lot of obstruction, it is liberated from street clog. Publics in Kuala Lumpur regularly take KTM Commuter to function as a method of transport to evade the substantial traffic in pick long stretches of Kuala Lumpur. . 1. 2 Weakness * Crowded Although train are liberated from street blockage, it is outlandish for individuals to maintain a strategic distance from the jam-packed circumstan ce in the carriage during top hour. It is most exceedingly awful when the cooling framework was coming up short or the individuals around are perspiring or grimy. In Malaysia, during the morning when individuals are answering to work or schools, early afternoon during lunch hour and night when everybody is hurrying home will be the most noticeably awful an ideal opportunity to be ready on a passenger train. * Delays Rail transport can cover and arrive at numerous urban communities, thusly appropriate time the executives must be implement to forestall delays or late arrivals.Unfortunately for KTMB, delays are the most widely recognized sight in their stations, at times it can postpone as long as an hour or more. This defers regularly pressing the station and furthermore the carriage much progressively swarmed, KTMB clients frequently need to trust that couple of train will pass by before they even can get into a packed train. * High Maintenance Cost One of the shortcomings that can b e found in each railroad organization will be the high support cost. Railroads Company needs to go through a ton of money during train update, track upkeep, electric link substitution and numerous more.While on account of Malaysian Railway, money was spend on support of the track and renovation in the vast majority of their old bearers while bringing in for the new electrical train to show up from Mitsubishi Electric and Rotem. * Low Flexibility Train are configuration to run distinctly on steel tracks, in this way the train goal and refueling break are fixed decreasing the adaptability of decision of goal. With the constrained decision of goal it will be difficult to satisfy the requests in specific territories. In this manner, it is significant for the organization to choose where to assemble a station to satisfy the requests and not building it for a waste.KTMB stations in certain zone are old and some of the time excessively near another station, most noticeably terrible the qua ntity of individuals getting down the station was less. While in specific zones the interest was high however the clients may need to walk or take transport to come to the closest station. * Sound Pollution Sound was produce from the motors sound (diesel power motors), the steel wheels running contact and furthermore the horning sound. While the tracks for the train to run on were frequently close to the lodging territory, this regularly disturbs the occupant in the areas.The track for KTM some were fabricate only not many meters from their lawn, consequently the sound of each train pass by can be boisterous and irritating during rest hour. 3. 1. 3 Opportunity * Development of Public Transport There’s tremendous zone accessible for advancement in broad daylight transport in Malaysia. Open vehicle framework in Malaysia are serving general society around a normal score just, in this manner, it is obvious that rail transport can be prospect or to be a key friend in need to impro ve and build up the open vehicle framework. For KTMB, it is being talked about of building a railroad line for superior slug train to serve the public.With this, it will be a preferred position for explorer from neighboring country’s to reach Kuala Lumpur very quickly. * Advertisement (Income) Carriage or cart frequently had dispersing on the outside accessible for paint works or publicizing purposes. Subsequently, by leasing this scattering to the market for business reason will be a favorable position to procure extra pay for the organization and decrease an opportunity to time painting cost for the carriage or cart. KTMB can lease all the more dispersing for publicizing rather than simply keeping up it with the yellow, blue and red shading. * Social ServicesPeople with handicap regularly made some hard memories going with other method of transport, for example, jumping on a transport or a taxi. Hence, with rail transport, Railway Company can structure their station for han dicap cordial and set up an exceptional area for the incapacity to enter the train. KTMB can assemble slants and visually impaired guide’s floor for the nearby OKU (Orang Kurang Upaya) in each station. The organization can likewise utilize a teacher on the ground to control this individuals into the train. * Increase Employment Rate Managing a railroad organization requires numerous laborers to make it a success.Therefore, railroad organizations, for example, KTMB can utilize individuals to deal with the railroad track, train, electrical cables, planning of train and a lot more occupation position. * Technology Improvement Since innovation around the globe are improving, it can likewise assist with improving the innovation apply on the train. Train in certain nations has begun to run on magnet power. Along these lines, it has a gigantic hole of innovation in Malaysia to be improved. KTMB should begin to change and improve their innovation on tracks as well as their station an d tagging framework. 3. 1. 4 Threat * Losing Market Sh

Islamic Mullah

Islamic Mullah Mullah is the name givenâ to instructors or researchers of Islamic learning or the pioneers of mosques. The term is typically a sign of regard yet can likewise be utilized in a critical way and is basically utilized in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and the previous Soviet republics of Central Asia. In Arabic-talking lands, an Islamic priest is called an imam or Shaykâ instead. Mullah is gotten from the Arabic expression mawla, which means ace or the one in control. All through Southern Asias history, these leaders of Arabic drop have driven social transformations and strict war the same. Notwithstanding, a mullah is general a neighborhood Islamic pioneer, albeit at times they ascend to national noticeable quality. Use in Modern Culture Regularly, Mullah alludes to Islamic researchers knowledgeable in the holy law of the Quran, in any case, in Central and East Asia, the term mullah is utilized on a nearby level to allude to mosque pioneers and researchers as an indication of respect.â Iran is a special case in that it utilizes the term in a disparaging way, alluding to low-level ministers as mullahs on the grounds that the term gets from Shiite Islam wherein the Quran calmly specifies mullah on various occasions all through its pages while Shia Islam is the predominant religion of the nation. Rather, priests and strict pioneers utilize elective terms to allude to their most regarded individuals from the faith.â In many faculties, however, the term has vanished from present day use but to deride the individuals who are excessively ardent in their strict interests - a kind of affront for perusing the Quran to an extreme and accepting oneself the Mullah alluded to in the hallowed content. Regarded Scholars In any case, there is some regard behind the name mullah - at any rate for the individuals who respect those knowledgeable in strict messages as mullahs. In these cases, the shrewd researcher must have a firm comprehension of everything Islam - particularly in accordance with the contemporary society wherein the hadith (customs) and fiqh (law) are similarly significant. Customarily, those viewed as mullah will have remembered the Quran and the entirety of its significant lessons and exercises - however generally since the beginning uneducated regular society would incorrectly name visiting pastors mullahs as a result of their huge information (nearly) of the religion. Mullahs can likewise be viewed as educators and political pioneers. As instructors, mullahs share their insight into strict messages in schools called madrasas in issues of Shariah law. They have additionally served in places of intensity, for example, the case with Iran after the Islamic State took control in 1979. In Syria, Mullahs assume a significant job in the progressing strife between rival Islamic gatherings and remote enemies the same, esteeming the security of Islamic law while fighting off Islamic fanatics and endeavoring to reestablish majority rule government or cultivated type of government to the war-torn country.

The Best Books We Read In February, 2015

The Best Books We Read In February, 2015 We asked our contributors to share the best book they read this month. We’ve got fiction, nonfiction, YA, and much, much more- there are book recommendations for everyone here! Some are old, some are new, and some aren’t even out yet. Enjoy and tell us about the highlight of your reading month in the comments. ____________________ Being Mortal by Atul Gawande In this book, doctor and really excellent medical writer Atul Gawande tackles “how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending.” The book is so very smart when talking about how the medical establishment is structured and how those structures affect end-of-life care. It’s also important in the way it addresses the values we have as we age. But the book is truly excellent in the way Gawande opens up about the end of his father’s life and how deeply personal and difficult these choices are. It’s such a stunning, emotional book that I am going to push on a bunch of people. Kim Ukura The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison I promised I would read it in my Book Riot post, and so the great Toni Morrison binge was started in February. Interestingly enough, I thought I would read this one quickly because I responded so well to the sentence structure it has a pace to it that’s comfortable for me. But, then again, despite the pacing, I was surprised to realize that this book needs digestion. I needed to slow myself down to understand and appreciate the character of Pecola. I can say she’s on my thoughts when I’m not reading the book even hours later. My reaction: I’ve got her other novels lined up and I’m still angry with myself that I haven’t soaked in Morrison until now. This book is simply so good, so entrancing, so important.   Jessi Lewis Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi I loved her earlier Mr. Fox, but after finally reading Boy, Snow, Bird, Oyeyemi might be my new favorite author. Watching her play with traditional conventions of narrative is like watching a cat play with a wounded mouse: playful yet sinister, and taking her time to toy with the reader before dealing a final and deadly blow.  Reading on the metro, I kept looking around at other people on the train, thinking, “What thecan you believe what she just did there?!  How can you just sit there staring blankly into the distance as if the world wasn’t just torn wide open?!” Minh Le Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury After rewatching the carnival X-Files episode, I remembered Something Wicked This Way Comes. After reading that again, I went on a huge Bradbury binge, which culminated in reading all 100 of the stories in the mammoth Bradbury Stories, without getting distracted by any other books during the reading. He had a peerless imagination and took such joy in writing. This book is an absolute treasure, and will serve as a perfect way to revisit (or discover) his best short work. Also, if you’re a Bradbury fan, Sam Weller’s Bradbury-bio-via-Bradbury-interviews is worth a read. Josh Hanagarne The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande My never-ending quest for efficiency led me to this previously-overlooked classic, The Checklist Manifesto. Or at least it should be a classic, if it’s not already. Gawande takes something as seemingly simple as the checklist and reveals its complexities, its pitfalls, and its benefits. Turns out, they can not only help you remember your groceries but guarantee stable buildings, save lives in operating rooms, and land disabled planes without casualties. They can also be ineffective and unwieldy; it’s all about how you use them. He balances the practical with the personal so well; the case studies keep the book interesting, as well as provide usage tips that are invaluable. For anyone/everyone looking for solid productivity tools to use for work (or your personal life), this is a must-read. Jenn Northington Citizen by Claudia Rankine I finished this book in one sitting and I get chills from just thinking about it.  Rankine writes in a very blunt but vivid style when she describes the microaggressions that African-Americans face.  On the one hand, the accounts sound so nightmarish, but they are real and that’s the terrifying genius of it all.    had to grapple with wanting for Citizen to be fiction but to do that would be to downplay the day-to-day experiences I face.  It’s a fantastic read and I urge anyone, especially those who think people of color are too sensitive, to read it. Morgan Jerkins City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer A city exists at a bend in a river. It was once settled by odd grey people but conquerors killed them off and took the city for their own. Weird fungi grow in all corners of the city, and large mushrooms appear suddenly in the street, where you are sure the street was clear that morning. Can mushrooms really grow that fast? Did it… move? This city is called Ambergris, and the only way to get here is by placing a book by Jeff VanderMeer in the inside pocket of a large overcoat and getting on the #5 train from Chicago to Vernon Hills (though, of course, you won’t find a #5 train listed). You will not be getting back. City of Saints and Madmen has 4 novellas (and a few atmosphere-adding stories in the back) that tell of the history and people of Ambergris, and falls squarely in what some call “the new weird.” If you like China Miéville, you’ll like this collection. I certainly did. Johann Thorsson Devil in Denim by Melanie Scott Contemporary sports romances are my thing. Enemies-to-lovers is also my thing. Two adults who have their crap together is definitely my thing. It really was a no-brainer why I’d like this book, but I honestly didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. Set in the world of baseball, Maggie dreams of inheriting her father’s team. It’s what she went to college for and it’s all she ever wanted. Though with the team hemorrhaging money, her father is forced to sell to self-made millionaire and corporate raider, Alex Winters. The romance is relatable and realistic as it unfolds, but the banter and playful antagonism between the main characters keep things at the peak level of sexiness. The book also has a diverse cast of secondary characters, which is something I love to see in romance novels. Hell, one of the baseball players wives is a smart-as-a-whip, Asian-American woman who did a stint in the Olympics. I’m almost saddened she’s already married because I’d love to see her star in a romance novel of her own. I can’t wait to read the next installment in the series, Angel in Armani, and Melanie Scott is easing her way onto my auto-buy list. Amanda Diehl The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (April 14, Little, Brown) This book is astonishing. When I decided to give The Fishermen a try, I honestly didn’t really expect to make it past the first few pages (it’s not the sort of plot I usually get excited about). But then all of a sudden I was halfway through and could barely catch my breath. There’s just so much that’s fascinating, surprising, and exhilarating about the book. The narrator is an observant but not excessively precocious nine-year-old. The story follows the disintegration of a family in small-city Nigeria. The focus is on a group of brothers whose brutal cleaving drives and haunts the plot. The mood is both abstractly mythic and concretely physical. The writing is perfectly tuned, lyrical in places and bracing in others. The characters’ shifting multilingualism (Igbo, Yoruba, English) plays an intriguing role. The narrative structure has the past float to the surface of the present, then recede, then reappear. And the whole thing is much, much more than the sum of these parts. Derek Attig Funny Girl by Nick Hornby This was my first Hornby, and I’m so glad I finally picked up one of his books. Barbara from Blackpool is a beauty queen with her sights on something bigger. She sets out for London, hoping to become a TV actress hoping to become Lucille Ball, really and she manages to land the perfect role for her. With fame comes intrigue, media attention, network pressure, and romances (even back in the 60s). This novel is a love story and a comedy, but also a look at what it means to be an artist, on and off the camera. At the forefront of Hornby’s book is the acknowledgement of Work:   writing, revising, trial and error, and being true and organic to character and self. This book made me laugh and made me cry and made me pause to reflect on artistry, on being genuine, and on the chasing of dreams. Dana Staves Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey (March 3, 2015, Doubleday) Going into Anna Lyndsey’s memoir, you kind of don’t know what to expect. She suffers from a light sensitivity of unknown origin at first, the sensitivity is slight, only her face reacting to the glare of a computer screen. And then more severe, a burning sensation like “a blowtorch” against her skin. She is driven out of her job and into her boyfriends spare bedroom as the impact becomes worse and worse, getting to the point where she spends weeks and months ensconced in a pitch black room, with foil taped to the windows and fabric pressed to the crack under the door. As terrifying as her story is, the beauty of her memoir is not in the things she’s lost, but in the small moments that she can appreciate. She has brief moments of remission, where she can be outside during dawn and dusk, and the simplest of things the smell of roses in a garden after dark, the sensation of standing in a rain shower these are the joyful and heartbreaking moments in her story. As she tells h er beautifully-written story, you want there to be a happy ending, you want her to recover from this, but at the same time, you know that this is an unlikely conclusion. The resolution is not so much in a cure; the resolution of her story is a reminder to the reader to savor and appreciate those parts of our world that we normally overlook. How satisfying the crunch of snow under our feet, the sting of the winter wind, when the alternate is a lightless prison in your own skin. Rachel Manwill Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum (March 17, Random House) “A bored woman is a dangerous woman.” Anna Benz knows this. Her psychoanalyst says it to her repeatedly. It’s how she ended up having an affairand then another, and another. She told herself the dalliances distracted her from her worries and helped her deal with the problems in her marriage. Anna is lying to everyone in her life, including her therapist, and she knows she’s not far from going off the rails. But she can’t stop. We see Anna at home, Anna with her lovers, Anna with friends, Anna in analysis, Anna alone. This is a remarkable novel about an unapologetically flawed woman whom it would be all too easy to judge and condemn. But Essbaum is more interested in exploring and understanding the less camera-ready aspects of marriage, family, and infidelity than she is about making grand moral pronouncements, and the result is a fascinating, satisfying, wholly human story. Rebecca Schinsky Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer Born from a conversation between Neal Stephenson and Arizona State University’s Michael Crow, Project Hieroglyph is an attempt to create an opportunity for collective brainstorming between science fiction authors and scientists. It’s a fascinating premise that was fully realized in this short story anthology. Each story was surprisingly good, with a good mix of shorter flash fiction and longer novella length pieces. Personal highlights were a fantastically creepy story by Elizabeth Bear, a Western-themed near future piece from Bruce Sterling, an achingly beautiful story about connection and loneliness from Vandana Singh, and stories from Stephenson himself, as well as David Brin and Cory Doctorow. It’s the book I could not stop talking about all month. Nikki Steele Infandous by Elana K. Arnold This tough, gritty, and unflinching story about girlhood and womanhood and “coming of age” in a very specific, very female way, is fearless. Infandous is the story of Sephora growing up in the rough part of Venice Beach with her beautiful mother, a horrific secret of what happened to her haunting the back of her mind. Between the chapters of her story are dark, un-Disneyed  fairy tales and myths about the ways men have raped and pillaged women for their own benefit. These are ugly, brutal stories, and the perfect metaphor for Seph’s own life, where what looks like it should be nice and glistening on the surface is anything but. Arnold’s novel, which weighs in at just over 200 pages, is much more a study in character than it is plot driven, but the way she explores gender dynamics and sexuality is knock-out good. Fans of Francesca Lia Block’s weaving of the magical and fantastical with reality will eat this up. Kelly Jensen Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll (May 12, Simon Schuster) Ani FaNelli is a gorgeous, successful writer at a fashion magazine. And she’s about to marry Luke, a rich, handsome businessman. So why does she feel like she’s living a lie? As the big day approaches, Ani must face events from her past if she has any chance of a happy future. Told in alternating chapters flipping between Ani’s past and present, Luckiest Girl Alive is a suspenseful, compelling read. And dark ooooo, is it dark! I loved it. I thought that Knoll deftly incorporated contemporary issues facing teens and young women, and she perfectly teased out the big reveal about Ani’s past. And the book did not end the way I was guessing it would it was even better. Liberty Hardy The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon The Mime Order is the second book in Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season series, a dystopian urban fantasy series set in the British Isles of the mid 21st Century. I was looking forward to this one, having enjoyed the first, and I definitely feel that my anticipation paid off. The Mime Order is full of beautifully imaginative world-building of a world to be found in the very familiar streets of London. I love novels that are full of description and imagination while still having a driving plot, and The Mime Order gave me all of that, plus a frustratingly good cliffhanger. Shannon is 23  years old, which makes me all the more excited to continue following her writing. Rah Carter The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae Rae’s essay collection is a romp of self-deprecating wit relating the anxiety-ridden life experiences of a trilingual, fashion-deficient, Stanford-educated, Halfrican millennial. Rae’s stated intent is to entertain and instruct by sharing the uncomfortable moments that shaped her. But her book’s appeal goes far beyond those modest ambitions. It succeeds most dramaticallyand comicallyin presenting an appropriately complex representation of black womanhood in all its quirky splendor. We, as a society, need more authentic representations of black women to push us beyond the usual stereotypes and caricatures. Rae succeeds in sharing a portrait of a well-educated, creative, entrepreneurial woman. Yet she sidesteps the damaging pitfall of presenting a flawless front to bolster respectability and approval. Instead, she jokes about experiences most would edit out of their public profiles, such as of catfishing at eleven and getting blocked on Twitter by a disabled stripper years later. She’s giving us her humanity, warts and all. Maya Smart Moby-Dick by Herman Melville You don’t so much read Moby-Dick as experience it. That might sound utterly pretentious, but halfway through, in the thick brine at the centre of the book when the chapters’ subject matter careers from the natural history of whales to their place in art history to a how-to manual on gutting them to their theological significance to a boys-own adventure I began having fever dreams about whales. Like a storm in the Sea of Japan, it overwhelmed me, but in a very, very good way. Melville throws so much at the reader, drenched in such florid language, it leaves you punchdrunk. Many give up, stagger away, cursing its refusal to rest in one genre. But channel your inner Ahab and persevere. A great, if incredibly odd, book is at hand. It gets under your skin, creeps into your dreams, infects your language. I wanted to use the word ‘unctuous’ a lot. Thar she blows, indeed. Edd McCracken My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga I’m going to be talking a lot about this book in the coming months, Rioters. Deeply moving, often funny, and incredibly unique, My Heart and Other Black Holes blew me away. It was a book that was at the top of my list for titles I couldn’t wait to pick up this year, mostly due to the charming name and the promise of a main character smitten with science and physics. But ah, the book is so much more than a charming title and endearing character. Depression and suicide are not easy to write about, and Warga does it in a way that makes you want to reach out and help the characters you’re reading about. And what an important thing to instill in young readers. The story, and the wonderfully complicated and wounded characters, will stick with me for a while. Eric Smith The Night of the Gun by David Carr The recent, untimely death of the New York Times columnist David Carr has provoked much somber reflection from peers and admirers alike (I would particularly recommend King David, Ta-Nehisi Coatess heartfelt meditation at The  Atlantic). It was therefore with some embarrassment that I realised I was more familiar with Carrs reputation than his actual work. Nevertheless, I doubt I am the only one who has found reason to recent days to pick up The Night of the Gun, or to belatedly realise what all the fuss was about. I generally have little time for memoirs of addiction. As a semi-permanent cottage industry within publishing, their style is often familiar; equal parts crass voyeurism, cheap moralizing and, most unforgivable of all, bad prose. The Night of the Gun is a welcome antidote. It does not reinvent the genre, but simply does it very, very well, which is perhaps the more revolutionary achievement. Reflecting on his years as an alcoholic and cocaine addict, Carr is not only ruthless in his self-criticism most former junkies are but unfailingly journalistic in how he goes about it. The personal becomes professional, and vice versa. Carr was not the first to point out how the insular worlds of newspaper journalism and drug addiction may clash or compliment each other, but the conclusions he drew are among the most eloquent, and the most honest. Sean Bell Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen This was a reread for me, and much-needed one! I don’t remember getting half the jokes and humor in this book as a teenager that I did now. Northanger Abbey is simply delightful, but by far the best part of the book is MR. TILNEY! (His can only be pronounced in a squee.) He is the actual best. So handsome and charming and smart and nice (except when it’s very necessary not to be nice). He’s like if Benedict Cumberbatch and T Hiddles had a baby in Regency England. Mr Tilney is by far my favorite of all of Austen’s heroes, even more so than Mr. Darcy. Oh, and all those amazeball Jane Austen quotes about reading? “The person who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid,” etc. etc.? Come from this book. Tasha Brandstatter On Immunity by Eula Biss Despite the fact that this book has been deemed one of the best non-fiction books of 2014, it completely took me by surprise. By combining historical information and personal essays, Biss takes on the hot button topic of vaccinations and brings it to a level that can appeal to anyone. Plus she is able to take the idea of vampires and our cultural history with those creatures and integrate them into our current cultural fear of vaccinations. Without shaming people who may be wary of vaccines and providing her own personal stories of motherhood, Biss does a really fantastic job explaining how we have vaccines, what they can do compared to what we think they can do, and why they are so important. Rincey Abraham Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian Ohanesian’s novel audaciously and articulately examines the complexity of transgenerational grief still looming from the Armenian Genocide. However, what truly marks the author’s fearlessness is her ability to view history from multiple perspectives. Orhan’s Inheritance illuminates two sides of a horrific and tumultuous era, revealing a century’s worth of fallout with tact and sincere passion. This is an important book arriving at a pivotal point in Armenian history.   Aram Mrjoian Re Jane by Patricia Park (May 5, Pamela Dornan Books) A re-telling of Jane Eyre set in modern Queens with a Korean-American protagonist? I jumped all over this with undignified fervor. Jane is an orphan who lives with her super-strict Korean uncle and his family, working in his grocery store while trying to fit in despite being half white and essentially an outcast. In a fit of rebellion, she leaves to be a live-in nanny for a women’s studies professor and her husband, the latter with whom she falls quickly in love. Tragedy strikes (not the one you’re thinking of, if you’ve read the original), and Jane flees to Korea- and here’s where Re Jane swerves away from the original in really interesting ways, becoming an examination of family, prejudice, immigrant culture, youth, and individualism. This is both a must-read for Jane Eyre-ites and a wholly new, original thing that stands firmly on its own story-telling legs. Amanda Nelson Schizophrene  by Bhanu Kapil   Bhanu Kapil’s beautiful, haunting books push the boundaries of what it’s possible to do with language, asking big and small questions about identity, diaspora, and loss. Each of her books is a hybrid, living somewhere between poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, and you can feel your own world getting bigger while you read them. (A handful of writers including Kate Zambreno, Sofia Samatar, and Jenny Zhang recently discussed her work over at the Believer.) Sarah McCarry The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore If you want a non-fiction read that’s weird and wonderful and KINKY, look no further than The Secret History of Wonder Woman. William Moulton Marston, the inventor of Wonder Woman, was a progressive suffragist and feminist with a penchant for BDSM and a secret polygamous family. One of his wives was the niece of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Oh, and he also invented the lie detector test, as one does. The whole book is beyond fascinating, but most of all I loved reading about the badass ladies of the early birth control movement.   This is one of those books that will have you nudging everyone within elbow distance to say “Holy shit! Did you know… ?” Rachel Smalter Hall The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson So, yeah, I read this twice this month, in two different formats. Because it was great.   Shadow Cabinet is the third installment in Maureen Johnson’s Shades of London series, and for real, the series is only getting better. The series is about a Louisiana girl named Rory who transfers to a boarding school in London and in the first book, she develops the ability to see ghosts (ooohh). By the third book, she’s been working with a group of young police officers whose job it is to clear up ghost-related crimes and disturbances. Think Veronica Mars + ghosts + accents, and throw in some David Bowie-look-alike villains in Book 3. I know. All I really want is for a weekly procedural show based on the series. Rory’s abilities have changed and grown over the series, but and I was really worried that things would devolve into Rory being savior of the universe (which is my LEAST favorite kind of storyline), but Johnson has broadened the story while keeping the characters realistic and re latable. All in all, excellent funny/spooky YA. Jesse Doogan Shatter Me/Unravel Me/Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi I loved this series in spite of myself, in spite of my years of YA series fatigue. LOVED. IT. Juliette’s voice is incredible, and feeling her progress as her voice strengthens and stabilizes makes for an amazing reading experience. In a nutshell: she’s in an asylum because of a terrible accident resulting from the fact that her touch kills, but she gets out and becomes a badass. I absolutely adore how, despite the fact that there’s a (very hot) love triangle and so many other YA dystopian/romance tropes, this series stands out for the uniqueness of the voice and style. A friend who teaches high school said she’d been put off by the covers, which I’ll admit to loving despite the fact that they are a little cheesy. The coolness of the colors sets the tone perfectly. I haven’t invested in a heroine the way I invested in Juliette in a really long time. Loved, loved, loved these books; how many more times can I possibly say that? Loved. Them. They’ve got me on a YA bender, e xcited to see what else I nearly missed. Jeanette Solomon Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood So this was how I kicked off my Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. My wife, my best friend, his wife, and myself are doing a mini-bookclub with the Read Harder Challenge and we began with a short story collection. Stone Mattress won the day. I’ve read that age is the final frontier of fiction and Stone Mattress approached that theme with integrity and imagination. I feel part of that age theme is reconciling who we were with who we are. We build the bed we must lie in with the triumphs and mistakes of our lives. Sometimes that bed is warm and comfortable, but sometimes it’s made of stone. Either way, it’s ours to lie in. Sometimes touching, sometimes creepy, Stone Mattress was wonderful from start to finish. Chris Arnone Tesla: A Portrait With Masks by Vladimir PiÅ¡talo, translated by Bogdan Rakic and John Jeffries I’ve always been fascinated by Tesla, and it had been several years since I read Margaret Chaney’s biography of the brilliant inventor, so when I heard about this biographical novel by the Serbian novelist Vladimir Pistalo I HAD to read it. And I wasn’t disappointed. Drawing on Tesla’s own letters, interviews, and other personal papers, Pistalo created a world as seen through Tesla’s eyes. We learn that just prior to some of his major breakthroughs, Tesla would see brilliant flashes of light and sometimes feel intense disorientation. At times, the narrative veers away from third-person omniscient to Tesla-focused stream-of-consciousness, and it’s done beautifully. A Portrait with Masks is perfect for anyone interested in this gifted and visionary man, or with the War of Currents during the late 19th century. Rachel Cordasco War Ink I’ve been reading/listening/looking through WarInk.com, a virtual art exhibit that tells the story of California war veterans, mostly from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, through their tattoos. It’s a story I probably would never have gravitated to, normally, but the art is so beautiful, the tattoos just waiting for you to click and hear their origin stories. It’s like a time capsule of mini-memoirs, all wrapped around the themes of war, family, and home. And it’s something that can be a shared reading experience-anyone who happened to look at my screen while I was on the site was instantly captivated too. Alison Peters ____________________ Get a box of YA books and bookish goodies in the mail every quarter with our new YA Quarterly Box! Sign up here.