Book Reviews - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Like Being Alive Twice by Dharini Bhaskar

Love in dark times This inter-religious love story set in a dystopian unnamed nation packs quite a punch. It is an intense exploration of what it means to love in a fractured world. Priyamvada (Poppy) and Tariq are in love. When we meet them, Tariq intends to propose, and Poppy intends to say yes. In…

Book review: An Unholy Drought by Madhulika Liddle

Where history and embroidery come alive This story is as detailed, as intricate, as a naqsha for an elaborate tapestry. In a time of turbulence, drought and famine, a man nearing his end starts narrating the story of his family’s life. Through this narrative that spans generations, the sprawling saga of a family and the…

Book review: Butter by Asako Yuzuki

Meditations on murders Asako Yuzuki was inspired by the sensational real-life case of the `Konkatsu Killer` when she wrote up this study of a suspected killer, of the possible motive behind the killings if killings they were, and of several things that ail Japanese society in modern times, spreading disaffection and maybe violence, too. Manako…

Book review: Rosarita by Anita Desai

A journey within, a journey without The story opens on a cracker of a note. Our protagonist, Bonita, is sitting on a park bench in San Miguel, Mexico, absorbed in her own thoughts. She is approached by Victoria, a dramatically dressed Mexican woman of a certain age, who insists she must be the artist Rosarita`s…

Book review: The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon

Tales of the Korean diaspora A sense of sadness, loss and regret runs through the seven stories in this collection which grapple with the themes of identity, belonging and escape, and casts a light on the experiences of the Korean diaspora. We see their lives play out not only in different parts of the world…

Book review: The Long Strider by Dom Moraes and Sarayu Srivatsa

In the adventurer`s footsteps The late poet and novelist Dom Moraes was apparently much taken with the account of the adventures of a man named Thomas Coryate of Odcombe village in Somerset, an enthusiastic trekker known in those parts as the Long Strider. Coryate took a long walk from England to Jehangir`s court in India,…

Book review: The Cobra`s Gaze by Stephen Alter

Where the wild things are This is such an important work, a masterclass in ecological awareness for those of us who would read, absorb, learn. In an intense effort to show us the missing link between animals, birds and humans, how we perceive other species through our umwelt or sensory bubble, project human expectations on…

Book review: Bitter Gourd, poems by Anupama Raju

The skewering gaze In Anupama Raju`s second book of poems Bitter Gourd, she puts the everyday with all its attendant activities and emotions, under keen scrutiny, and what emerges is another angle to the quotidian. Some lines spin soft yet strong visual images, like the ones that go: …each time you call me mol I`m…

Book review: Knife by Salman Rushdie

A deconstruction of events The book`s tagline reads: meditations after an attempted murder. Which is as startling as it is dramatic. The text, though, is largely a matter-of-fact chronological record of events. While not entirely leached of emotions – this is Salman Rushdie, after all – there isn’t any maudlin self-pity in the narrative. When…