Book Reviews - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS by Pip Williams. This was my Book Club`s pick for the month, and it turned out to be a most interesting story, as well as yet another sweet father-daughter story, that of young Esme whose father worked at Oxford on the OED. From the time Esme was a young girl,…

Book review: The Bellboy by Anees Salim

THE BELLBOY by Anees Salim. Penguin Hamish Hamilton Books. Anees Salim sets such a measured pace in unspooling the life and times of Latif the teenager, who is the bellboy of the book`s title, that the reader may well wonder where the author is going with this. That would be the regular reader; those familiar…

Book review: The Blue Women by Anukrti Upadhyay

Compartmentalised lives Anukrti Upadhyay is back with a fresh cache of short stories that effectively proves her earlier acclaimed work Kintsugi was no flash in the pan. There are a dozen short stories in this volume, all of them imbued with the characteristic quietude we have come to associate with this writer. When things —…

Book review: Not Quite a Disaster After All

Belonging and unbelonging Buku Sarkar`s intriguingly titled book Not Quite a Disaster After All traces the life path of a Bengali girl named Anjali from her childhood spent in a Kolkata manor to the NYC neighbourhood which eventually becomes home to her, some years later. The trail switches from an upper crust lifestyle to a…

Book review: What the Rains Foretold by N. Mohanan

When the past finally catches up Mohanan`s story What the Rains Foretold (Innalathe Mazha) is a retelling of a popular Kerala folklore, which involves the growth trajectory of a young Brahmin man named Vararuchi who turns his back on the position of king`s Royal Pundit and all the comfort that entails, to head off into…

Book review: Victory City by Salman Rushdie

Down Hampi way Salman Rushdie the story-teller, is back with a — to quickly borrow a term made famous recently by Deepika Padukone — banger of a book, Victory City. The story details the rise and fall of Bisnaga (Vijayanagara), as narrated by its creator-midwife Pampa Kampana, the woman who Will Not Age. It`s a…

Book review: Table for One by Sumaa Tekur

TABLE FOR ONE by Sumaa Tekur. Hay House. The tagline for this book reads: a solo living manual for the curious Indian woman. As manuals go, it is direct, (very) helpful and packed with information a woman about to live solo could parse to her benefit. The one outstanding quality of Tekur`s writing is her…

Book review: Bangalore Blues by Kirtana Kumar

BANGALORE BLUES by Kirtana Kumar. Little Jasmine Press. So, this delightful book is in a category of its own: it`s an IFYYK book. There are 32 short stories (and one poem) in here, along with a very moving essay, and all of them are guaranteed to strike a chord with ye olde Bangalorean (YOB). By…

Book review: Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

The good, bad and the ugly Deepti Kapoor blew readers away with her 2014 debut novel, A Bad Character. Nine years on, she`s back with Age of Vice and it would be no exaggeration whatsoever to say that this book too, is blowing readers away. Adopting an almost austere style in telling the old- old…

Book review: The Half Known Life by Pico Iyer

The Half-known Life, In Search of Paradise by Pico Iyer. Penguin Books. The gifted writer sets out in search of a paradise on earth as well as in the mind. No prizes for guessing where the true paradise is to be found, of course. Iyer gets in a deeply reflective state of mind as he…