Book Reviews - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

This girl`s life The Man International Booker-winner for 2020 puts grief under the microscope It is an unescapable fact that some books draw you into the story gently while others take hold of you and plunge you into its pages in one deep dunk. The Discomfort of Evening, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld`s coming-of-age story of a…

Book review: False Allies by Manu S. Pillai

FALSE ALLIES India`s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma by Manu Pillai (Juggernaut Books). The book is something of an eye- opener for those whose opinion of Indian princes of the past was less than favourable, who placed them all in one velvet-lined drawer of history, labelling them degenerates/despots/dissolute beings. So yes, some of…

Book review: China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

The consequences of certitudes A moment of misidentification and its dreadful aftermath China Room tells of three young Punjabi girls contracted in marriage to three brothers, all of them controlled by the mother Mai, a woman who does not bother to cloak her iron fist in any kind of velvet glove. The family dynamics between…

Book review: The Oracle of Karuthupuzha by Manu Bhattathiri

Of human nature Over the course of three books, Savithri’s Special Room and Other Stories, The Town That Laughed, and now The Oracle of Karuthupuzha, Manu Bhattathiri has spun into being the little hamlet of Karuthupuzha somewhere in Kerala, peopled it with a fair share of average and eccentric denizens, and regularly stirred up little storms in…

Book review: The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Karuna Ezara Parikh

In her remarkable debut work THE HEART ASKS PLEASURE FIRST, (Picador India Books) Karuna Ezara Parikh takes the reader gently by the hand and leads them to a circular house in `Lalabad` where they meet the wonderful Gyan and Asha and their daughter Daya; then across the border to Pakistan where they meet Aaftab preparing…

Book review: Anti-Clock by VJ James

The coffin-maker`s tale Hendri the coffin-maker is consumed by hatred for his Nemesis, Satan Loppo. He yearns to see Loppo lowered into the coffin he has personally prepared for him. Taking off from this peg, ‘Anti- Clock’ by V. J. James has a sweeping arc touching on many subjects, and the philosophical ruminations that Hendri…

Book review: The Forest I Know, a gathering of tanka verses by Kala Ramesh

the forest i know, a gathering of tanka verses by Kala Ramesh. HarperCollins Books. Tanka is a five-line lyrical form of poetry which originated in Japan, and Kala Ramesh peppers the pages of this book…

Book review: A Beginner`s Guide to Japan by Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer, that consummate Japanophile, is back to doing what seems to be a labour of love: parsing his adopted land, the Land of the Rising Sun. But don`t be fooled. A BEGINNER`S GUIDE TO JAPAN is no breezy read. You will pore over each line, trying to decipher the unwritten meaning as much as…

Book review: Rumours of Spring by Farah Bashir

A life of loss Farah Bashir’s poignant memoir is set in the Kashmir of the nineties. It`s a coming-of-age novel, only, in that particular period, coming of age meant navigating the challenges of living in the lethal shadow of conflict. The memoir examines a combat zone, the survival skills and state of mind that needs…

Book review: My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

`We must talk about Jerry` MY SALINGER YEAR by Joanna Rakoff. Bloomsbury Books, 2014 release. Obviously, the author will have Salinger fans at the second word in the book`s title, but it really is a lovely read, all of it. The peg is irresistible: a young New Yorker freshly graduated having majored in literature, goes…