Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: This Divided Island by Samanth Subramanian

This Divided Island by Samanth Subramanian. I have to come at this from left field. Midway through the book, I shut it for a while and as I was doing so, my eye fell on the blurb at the back. `A hugely enjoyable book…` it said. Which stopped me in my tracks for a full…

Book review: The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

Layered betrayals The Man Booker hype surrounding this book almost overwhelms it. Almost but not quite. Because in The Lives of Others (Vintage/Random House India, distributed by Rupa Publications), Neel Mukherjee has taken an old canvas and painted atop it; the story is by no means new, the telling is not really unique, yet it…

Book review: Quantum of Solace, James Bond Stories by Ian Fleming

Quantum of Solace, the complete James Bond stories As a precocious pre-teen, I used to devour each and every James Bond book I came across in my grandmother’s large library. To my delight, most of the fourteen in the series were there, in fairly good condition for well-thumbed paperbacks. Then I growed up like Topsy,…

Book review: Moving To Goa by Katharina Kakar

In Moving to Goa (Penguin/Viking), Katharina Kakar takes a long, hard but affectionate look at what has been her home in India for over a decade. Having lived in the southern part of the state for a while now, she decides she is fairly well equipped to write about the place; the book is less…

Book review: The Sleepwalker`s Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob

Family matters The Indian reader should be forgiven for rolling her eyes soon after she starts to read The Sleepwalker`s Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob (Bloomsbury India). Because the story seems to faithfully check all the little boxes that serve as bullet points for the Diaspora novel. Immigrants transitioning awkwardly, check. Father, white collar…

Book review: The Scatter Here Is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer

The Scatter Here is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer (Random House India). The book has a jacket that instantly compels you to pick it up, to take a closer look at the sepia-tinged picture of some kind of debris on a tarred road. But you have read the back cover and you know that the…

Book review: Noon Tide Toll by Romesh Gunasekera

Noon Tide Toll by Romesh Gunasekera (Penguin Books). If it`s Romesh Gunasekera, you know you are in for a dashed good read, a moving read, and this book is no exception. Using the driver of an old Toyota vanVasantha as his mouthpiece, Gunasekera crafts 14 short stories of Sri Lanka as it is today. Vasantha…

Book review: Being Mortal by Atul Gaiwande

Intimations of mortality Atul Gawande`s Being Mortal (Penguin Books) cuts rather too close to the family bone, so an impersonal review is difficult. To rage or not to rage against the dying light? That is what the author asks in this book. Dr Gawande, author of a set of very thought-provoking books like Complications, Better…

Book review: Stellar Signs by Manjari Prabhu

Stellar Signs byManjiri Prabhu (Jaico Books). I must admit I picked up the book with some amount of trepidation; me, I`m no fan of whodunits and I don`t repose too much confidence in astrology, either. And this is a book about Sonia Samarth, our desi Nancy Drew, who mixes sound common sense and sharp detection…

Book review: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel`s new collection of shorts is provocatively titled The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, (HarperCollins UK) and arguably the story by that name is the best read. There are ten stories, all of them full of what we know as Mantelisms…furniture is described as wilful, someone`s virginity is a wan one, someone leaving Jeddah is…