Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

When winter comes The phrase `the land in winter` is the house words for House Stark in George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones fantasy novels, serving as a warning of the long cold months and hard, dangerous times ahead. Andrew Miller has used these words aptly as the title of his Booker- shortlisted The…

Book review: Intemperance by Sonora Jha

The quest for love With a quirky central premise, this book draws you in straight away. A middle-aged Indian academic based in Seattle decides to hold a swayamvar to find a groom. The author follows up her previous critically acclaimed award- winning book ‘The Laughter,’ with this witty, perceptive, sparkling story. The book is narrated…

Book review: The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie

Intimations of mortality After an artful meld of history, imagination and some brilliant writing in `Victory City,` after a show of cold anger in `Knife,` Rushdie is the Elder Statesman or rather, the Elderly Litterateur here. This quintet of stories is quite self-indulgent, with many of the characters being vehicles through which the writer expresses…

Book review: Heartbreak Unfiltered by Milan Vohra

The heartbreak manifesto It is ironical that the latest book by India’s first Mills & Boon author, Milan Vohra, is about love… followed by loss and heartbreak. A sign of the times perhaps, when sweeping right on one of the many dating apps does not necessarily lead to happily- ever- after; when we are more…

Book review: Called by the Hills by Anuradha Roy

Over hill and dale First, it`s a memoir that takes us on a leisurely wander through the forests and dirt tracks of Ranikhet, where the author has lived for a quarter of a century now. Second, it has the most luscious illustrations ever, all done by the author, giving us a clear picture of just…

Book review: The Third Pole by Mark Synnott

THE THIRD POLE is Mark Synnott`s engrossing account of going up Mount Everest in search of the remains of the second of the fabled explorers of 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. For those who don`t know, the duo had attempted to summit Everest via the northern side in Tibet, had been last seen 800…

Opinion: A little superstition to make the medicine go down?

Just a little superstition? I have to start with a disclaimer: I am not superstitious. When a black cat crosses my path, I just call out, here kitty, kitty. When the salt shaker slips from my grasp spilling the white stuff everywhere, I just grin sheepishly. When I burned the sleeve of a blouse I…

Book review: The Little Book of Goodbyes by Ravi Shankar Etteth

A wistful look back at life This slim volume of short stories delivers on the promise of its title: it really is a little book of nostalgic look-backs. The author digs deep into his personal cache of memories, mines it for sentiment and poignancy, takes us to a little town in south Malabar, then moves…

Book review: U-turn and Other Stories by Gauri Shankar Raina, trs by Pankaj Bhan

Gentle tales from the vale U-turn and Other Stories is a curation of Kashmiri tales written by Hindi/English/Kashmiri writer and filmmaker Gauri Shankar Raina and translated by Pankaj Bhan. Quite a few of the stories are situated in Jammu, which one doesn’t find too often in books on and from Kashmir, the focus usually being on…

Travel: The gorgeous Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal

Books, enveloped in beauty The very first thing that strikes me as we arrive at the doorstep of the Livraria Lello in Portugal`s Porto, is the bouncer. He has a genial half-smile pasted on his lips, and is courteously listening to people whose tickets he is checking. But nothing can disguise the fact that he…