Book Reviews - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Bangalore Blue, An Anthology of Bangalore Tales

I was at my favourite treasure trove, the Eloor library, where the jacket of this book (artwork by Yusuf Arakkal) caught my eye. Bangalore Blue is its name and the lines at the bottom quaintly read: a bunch of nostalgic tales for and by true-blue Bangaloreans. Having been a townswoman since the Seventies, I consider myself a true-blue…

Book review: This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This is more a brief take than review. I had been wanting to get my hands on this book for a while now, especially after hearing Junot Diaz at the Jaipur Lit Festival in 2011. And when I finally picked up This Is How You Lose Her, I was not disappointed. Playing to the theme referred to…

Book review: Capital by Rana Dasgupta

Capital by Rana Dasgupta The book pushes the reader directly into the life of a typical Delhi elite on his turf: huge farmhouse, ornate tiling, Italian marble work, chlorinated pool. Massage rooms, a post-massage chill-out room. A teppenyaki restaurant. Everything so pristine that another farmhouse down the road (same owner, of course) is used for…

Book review: The Billionaire`s Apprentice by Anita Raghavan

The Billionaire’s Apprentice by Anita Raghavan It has to be said. The book’s jacket does gross disservice to its contents. A murky green background, awkward juxtaposition of the two `perps,` and loads of descriptive lines make for a crowded cover that hassles more than interests. However, in yet another instance of cover and book disparity, Anita Raghavan’s…

Book review: Journey into Cyprus by Colin Thubron

Six months after Colin Thubron signed this book for me, and discussed the (to him) surprising fact that one could find Sheilas in India, I read it. At one go. It’s that kind of book. When this master travelwriter goes anywhere (to Cyprus, in this case), the reader gets the kind of picture of the…

Book review: Zealot by Reza Aslan

Some books the regular reader needs to come to only after the brouhaha dies down. Zealot by Reza Aslan is one such book. The author says it is a historical study of Jesus the Nazarene, as opposed to Jesus the Christ. Reza Aslan sets the book in first-century Palestine and paints the backdrop in pointillist style, before…

Book review: Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss

I defy any reader, any book lover, to walk past a cover like this without picking up the book. I did more than pick it up, of course. I took it home. Cat out of Hell by that Custodian of Good English, Lynne Truss, is that old fashioned thing: a book sans pretensions. It’s a good read…

Book review: Family Life by Akhil Sharma

Akhil Sharma’s Family Life is so direct, so honest, it takes the reader aback. Straddling the thin line between fiction and memoir, Sharma gives us an unflinching account of how the Mishras, an ordinary family, migrate to the United States and even as things begin to look up for them, catastrophe strikes. The narrator’s older brother Birju…

Book review: The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris

The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris. That seasoned word-wielder turns her limpid gaze on the Norse (anti)god Loki here, and the result is a re-telling of the Asgard and Ragnarok legends as seen and experienced by the Liar of Liars, the Shapeshifter, the demon from Chaos with a decided penchant for stirring up huge cauldrons…

Book review: Byculla to Bangkok by S Hussain Zaidi

S Hussain Zaidi is back with yet another unputdownable account of the Mumbai gang world. A sequel to his `Dongri to Dubai,` Byculla to Bangkok traces the rise and fall of homegrown mafia capos like Arun Gawli, Amar Naik, his well educated younger sibling Ashwin Naik, Santosh Shetty, et al. The book gets off to a great start with a…