Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Of Mothers and Other Perishables – review

The nature of loss and grief Much like the young girl in Alice Sebold’s book ‘The Lovely Bones’ who observes her family after she passes, the mother in this book does the same. On her untimely death, she leaves behind her husband and two daughters, yet she is very much around, an unseen, unfelt presence….

Book review: Mad about Cuba by Ullekh NP

Notes from contemporary Cuba The only thing quirky about this book is the title. In actual fact, Mad about Cuba is a compact report from the field. The tagline informs you that the author is a Malayali revisiting the revolution. And the first pic on the front jacket is one familiar to most Malayalis: that…

Book review: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver, Faber Books. I came late to the winner of last year`s Women`s Prize for Fiction and co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. But migawd, I just devoured the book, all 548 pages of the contemporised retelling of Dickens` tale of institutionalised poverty and its impact on children, David…

Book review: Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan

BROTHERLESS NIGHT by V V Ganeshananthan, Penguin Books. So, here is another `bearing witness` story from Sri Lanka, a wrenching tale that will stay with the reader a long, long time after they have turned the last page. The tale, narrated by young Sashikala Kulenthiran takes us year on year through the terrible conflict that…

Book review: The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota

Working class hero We are back in Sahotaland, in this his fourth book, The Spoiled Heart. His Booker shortlisted second book, The Year of the Runaways was about three migrants, the horrors that force them to leave their homeland and their struggles in the UK. In his next book, China Room, longlisted for the Booker,…

Book review: The Golden Road by William Dalrymple

THE GOLDEN ROAD by William Dalrymple, Bloomsbury Publishers. If I call this a real feelgood book and you ask why, I shall offer you the subtitle: How ancient India transformed the world, it says. And before you raise that skeptical eyebrow, let me remind you that this author could write the manual for the innards…

Book review: The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi By Sidharth Singh

Rock and rollercoaster This book will hold instant appeal for those who grew up listening to Elvis, The Beatles, Santana, then graduated to The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. Who did drugs like tomorrow would never come. Who read JS…except, in this book it`s not the iconic Junior Statesman but a popular magazine called the…

Opinion: Do You Have A Special Friend?

I`m a big believer in that special friendship between a man and a woman who might or might not be connected to each other by ties of blood but are very definitely connected by ties of the emotional kind. This is a relationship forged over time, where they`ve seen each other through times thick and…

Book review: The Many Lives of Syeda X by Neha Dixit

Living under the radar Veteran journalist, prize-winning `shoe-leather` writer of many articles which have caught the startled attention of the authorities and the public alike, Neha Dixit`s first book is everything one would expect from her: an excellent piece of reportage. There is no soft immersion involved here. We are almost immediately introduced to the…

Book review: There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

One drop of water to bind them all One single drop of water. It falls from the sky onto Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king. From then on, it alters its structure but not its DNA, and enters the system of the other main characters: King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums, that self-taught genius who grows…