Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Sepia Leaves and Interview with author Amandeep Sandhu

Sepia Leaves by Amandeep Sandhu. Rupa Publications. This book was written in 2008 but the topic, sadly, is one that never really goes out of date or loses its relevance. I say `sadly` because the subject matter here is one weighted with sorrow. Sandhu`s book is the account of an eight-year-old boy in Rourkela who…

Book review: Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks

An easy read Two by Two is the twentieth novel of bestselling author Sparks, and that`s no mean feat. As everyone on Planet Earth knows, Sparks made his name and fame with that romantic tear-jerker, The Notebook, and followed that up with many international bestsellers in the same genre, playing to strength, as it were….

Book review: Askew, a Short Biography of Bangalore by TJS George

Cry, the beloved city It is neither compulsory nor mandatory but I feel the need to make this admission: I am not an outsider. Though not of Kannada origin, I have been a resident of Bangalore/Bengaluru since the start of the 80s. That`s been over three decades, during which I have lived, worked, married, learned…

Feature: The Padma Lakshmi Interview

PHOTOGRAPHS: INEZ AND VINOODH Her debut cookbook Easy Exotic won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best First Book, and her recently released memoir Love, Loss And What We Ate is garnering both critical acclaim and bestseller status across the world. Padma Lakshmi talks to Sheila Kumar about her new book There is a faint note…

Book review: Bridget Jones`s Baby by Helen Fielding

This is more a brief take than review. Bridget Jones`s Baby The Diaries by Helen Fielding More of stir-crazy Bridge and her pals Shazzer, Tom, Miranda, Magda. More of the craziness. More of the longing. More of the torn betwixt still-the- cad Daniel Cleaver and the rod-up-his-arse Mark Darcy. A chucklesome read. There is, but…

Book review: Show Me A Mountain by Kerry Young

At the crossroads Show Me A Mountain is the final book in a trilogy written by Kerry Young over a period of thirteen years, but perfectly readable as a standalone story. Set in the Jamaica of the mid 1930-60s, it is a portrait in words of the life of Fay Wong, a portrait that takes…

Book review: The Book of Shiva by Ravi Shankar Etteth

The Book of Shiva by Ravi Shankar Etteth. A Harper Element publication. This then is a spiritual travelogue. You can, if you wish, make comparisons to Phaedrus` journey in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Or, at a long stretch, Alex Garland`s revelations in The Beach. Be that as it may, here we have…

Feature: Hallyu Bol! The Korean Wave

Food to language, India goes on a K-trip! Indians — especially the youth — are learning Korean, eating kimchi and travelling to Seoul to sample the life shown on their favourite TV dramas, and films. W-Two Worlds. BigBang. 2 PM. DOTS. EXO. BTS. I’m sorry to have to break this to you but if you…

Travel: Lake District, UK

PS: where are you? Blame it on the movies! Don’t blame me, blame Hollywood and the British film industry. In film after film ( The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Miss Potter, Snow White and the Huntsman, Star Wars: The Force Awakens ) they have shown me vistas of the Lake District (LD), with its impossibly green downs,…

Feature: Food and the Man

Food and the Man “Mealtimes,“ pronounces the man with the air of an oracle, “should be Sybaritic.“ I reflect that Arundhati Roy would love this gent, He Who Speaks in Capitals. I am in the august company of The Man Who Can Cook Anything, the Garden City’s Epicure Number One, henceforth to be delineated as…