Book Reviews - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: After the Messiah by Aakar Patel

In the aftermath Aakar Patel`s first attempt at fiction is interesting to say the least. This political fiction is premised on the sudden demise of a strongman leader, the Big Man, and what happens in the vacuum left in his wake. This vacuum is primarily defined by utter confusion since the departed leader, who had…

Book review: Feeling Kerala, anthology edited by J Devika

Kerala Stories Contemporary really is the keyword here. The short stories in this anthology, translated by feminist historian and social researcher J Devika, deals with some of the issues that Kerala is grappling with today. In her foreword, Devika clarifies that neither were the writers for this collection picked from an exhaustive list nor does…

Cat People edited by Devapriya Roy

CAT PEOPLE, edited by Devapriya Roy. Simon & Schuster Books. Such a delightful book, allowing cat people a close look at felines and the humans they live with, allowing non-cat people a glimpse into just what living with a feline brings out in the human character. Like any anthology, it`s a mixed bag, with some…

Book review: Sugarbread by Balli Kaur Jaswal

My Wednesday Book Look is this little gem of a book, SUGARBREAD, by Balli Kaur Jaswal, a 2016 release, HarperCollins Books. Set in Singapore of the early 1990s, the narrator is a ten- year- old girl Pin, Parveen Kaur. In sharp, clear tones, Pin tells us the story of her life, her easygoing lottery-addicted father,…

Book review: Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang

The perils of purloining This book quite lives up to the buzz it generated at release. It`s a brief, acute meditation on the agony and the ecstasy of writers, the insecurity that goes with the act of turning author, the imperatives of the publishing industry. All of this shelters under a zinger of a story:…

Book review: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway. Penguin Books. Hemingway wrote this classic a little over seven decades ago. I first read it a little over four decades ago. Now, thanks to my book club, I did a re-read, and OMG, was blown away – again – by the powerful story. For those…

Book review: Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors

TEEN COUPLE HAVE FUN OUTDOORS by Aravind Jayan. Serpent`s Tail Books. September 2022 release. Think Holden Caulfield. Think a slightly older Holden Caulfield transplanted to Trivandrum, living in a regular middle class locality with his father, mother and elder brother. Then, one not-so-fine day, said brother Sreenath`s sex tape with his girlfriend Anita goes viral….

Book review: Wayel Kati by Linthoi Chanu

Guardians of the realm First the good news. The story of the Divine Scissors of Justice, Wayel Kati, is a composite of various folk tales from Manipur that combines all the hero/villain/monsters/protectors/desecrators tropes, and produces a very interesting tale. The list of protagonists is headed by Atingkok, the Father God in the form of an…

Book review: Soft Animal by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

Love in the time of lockdown Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan spins a most readable tale of how a woman in her late thirties, married to Mukund, who seems to be quite a nice guy, jobless and facing an endless number of lockdown days back when Covid-19 raged, is forced to take a close, grim look at…

Book review: Digesting India by Zac O`Yeah

When food and literature mix….. Travel-writer Zac O`Yeah has travelled the length and breadth of India, stopping for double breakfasts, a handful of lunches, many a bottle of stuff that ranges from grog to branded liquor at many a pub or what passes for a pub in the hinterlands, as well as several dinners, all…