Comfortably Numb - Page 3 of 76 - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Azadi by Arundhati Roy

This is more a brief take than a review. AZADI by Arundhati Roy. Penguin Books. This one`s a keeper. Roy touches on all the old familiar topics: Kashmir; communal rioting; lynchings including lynchings-by-TV; the manipulation of the populace for electoral gains; rape and other attacks on the weak, the marginalised, the ghettoised; the less than…

Book review: Around The World In 80 Trains

Around The World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh. Bloomsbury Books. Straight off the bat, let me say it: This book is such a delightful, easy read. I read Rajesh`s debut Around India in 80 Trains some years ago, and quite enjoyed it but this one I positively relished. It combines strands of a love…

Book review: The Women who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories by Nisha Susan

Snark Attack In her debut collection of short stories, Nisha Susan oscillates between the savage and the gentle, but never lets go of her trademark sarcasm It`s that expectations thing. It can`t be easy to be Nisha Susan debuting her book of short stories. That’s because Susan, co-founder of The Ladies Finger and Grist Media,…

Book review: Beast by Krishna Udayasankar

Beast by Krishna Udayasankar. Penguin Ebury Books. I think I speak for all readers — and reviewers — when I state that the two basic tenets of a good book rests on the author’s ability to create/conjure up a story that will immediately catch their target audience`s attention, as well as the author`s capability to…

Guest Column: To Mask or Not to Mask, That Is NOT the Question

Let`s face it, masks R us, for now and the foreseeable future. A fresh slew of reports have come to the consensus that masks do a first-rate job of protecting us, as well as curbing the spread of Covid. This does not, of course, mean we can jettison the other safeguards like hand hygiene, physical…

Book review: Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer

So, I read Stephenie Meyer`s latest, the bulky tome titled MIDNIGHT SUN, (Hachette India) which tells the Bella–Edward story all over again, this time from Edward`s pov. Fun Fact: The book has sold a million copies in the first week of its release. Well, it reads like a Barbara Cartland story on steroids, what with…

Photo Feature: Doors Across The World

And this festive door adorns the entrance to a restaurant in Bangalore! Related Links: Photo feature: A Yearning Look Back at Parks Visited in the Pre-Covid Age Photo Feature: Picture Postcards Photo Feature: Paths in the Kumaon foothills Photo Feature: Jaipur`s jharokas and more! Photo Feature: The Lake District Photo Feature: Views from a…

Book review: Bombay Balchao by Jane Borges

BOMBAY BALCHAO by JANE BORGES, Tranquebar Books. Bombay Balchao is rather akin to that tangy relish Goans are so justifiably proud of, the balchao. The interlinked shorts in the book are slice- of- life stories of a section of society with surnames like D`Lima, da Cunha, Crasto, Ferreira, Coutinho, Mascarenhas, Pinto, Gomes; a mix of…

Guest column: Worrywarts or neurotics?

Worrywarts or neurotics, the jury is still out There is absolutely no shame in admitting that the pestiferous pestilence has brought us to our knees, felled some of us, left us bewildered, flailing and crushed under the weight of our helplessness. One side effect is this state of mind the experts are calling `worried wellness.`…

Book review: Cari Mora by Thomas Harris

Thomas Harris might have risen to cult figure status with his maniacal creation Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs, and fallen low when giving Dr Lector a noble backstory in Hannibal, but that`s another story. It was Harris` Red Dragon that I found a terrifying but compelling read. I recall my hands…