Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Byculla to Bangkok by S Hussain Zaidi

S Hussain Zaidi is back with yet another unputdownable account of the Mumbai gang world. A sequel to his `Dongri to Dubai,` Byculla to Bangkok traces the rise and fall of homegrown mafia capos like Arun Gawli, Amar Naik, his well educated younger sibling Ashwin Naik, Santosh Shetty, et al. The book gets off to a great start with a…

Book review: Le Road Trip by Vivian Swift

This is more a brief take than review. Le Road Trip by Vivian Swift. Because of its simply irresistible title. Because I have been hopelessly, helplessly, totally in love with Paris, with France, since forever (or since I first visited). Because this is a picture book: every page carries exquisitely detailed drawings of windows, cafes, streets, fields,…

Book review: The Red Sari by Javier Moro

With all the hoopla surrounding the book, I picked up Javier Moro`s The Red Sari (Lotus Collection/Roli Books) with some trepidation. However, it turned out to be quite readable . Moro calls it a dramatized biography of his subject, and boy, is it dramatized! There is nothing in there that any Indian with half a…

Feature: Straight from Seoul: the uber-popular Kdramas

Straight from Seoul Glossy production values and crisp stories keep fans glued to Korean dramas. Seen here is a still from Korean serial IRIS, aired on Tamil channel ‘Puthuyugam’ In a new cultural takeover, Korean dramas are slowly invading Indian hearts, minds and TV sets. For a while now, just under a decade to…

Book review: A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

I finally got around to reading Kamila Shamsie’s A God In Every Stone. This is the kind of book you read slowly, savouring a certain turn of phrase, stopping to appreciate a certain twist to the story, and generally absorbing it all at a measured pace. That feels right, too, because the story moves at…

Books: Excerpts from History in a Glass : Wine Writing Edited by Ruth Reichl

From History in a Glass/Six Years of Wine Writing. Edited by Ruth Reichl. In a less topsy-turvy world than the one in which we happen to be living at present, the money which is now being spent on deadly armaments could be far better used on free champagne at 11 am for everybody every morning;…

Book review: Englishhh by Altaf Tyrewala/ Passion Flower: Seven Stories of Derangement by Cyrus Mistry

Read a brace of short stories by a couple of acclaimed authors virtually back- to- back, and emerged shaking my head ruefully. Engglishhh by Altaf Tyrewala , published by Fourth Estate. I can’t even say that I was taken in by the hype because I have read both authors before; I quite liked `Mumbai Noir,`…

Book review: Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulk

Sebastian Faulk’s tribute to Plum, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. Every time my eye fell on the book, I would go, `Oh, I don’t know.` Which is why a whole year has passed before I finally picked it up for a read. And now that I have read it, I’m still going, `Oh, I don’t…

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…