book review - Comfortably Numb

Book review: Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya

Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya. HarperCollins Books. Whoever would have thought SRK would make an excellent — and effective — research vehicle to track the freedoms of women in middle class India? Shrayana Bhattacharya has pulled that experiment off wonderfully in this book. Putting the lives of six women with their stifling emotional…

Book review: The Blue Book by Amitava Kumar

Looking within, looking without Amitava Kumar`s writings are usually ruminative, thought-provoking. This one, The Blue Book, is both, as also something of an indulgence. It is a non-linear collection of his thoughts, interspersed with some striking colour sketches drawn by the author. The result is an introspective look at the writer`s convictions, motivations, inspirations. Journaling…

Book review: The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy by Kafeel Khan

Lessons From a Crisis Consider this: the disbursement of funds under any budget follows a sequence. In Uttar Pradesh, it was as follows. The Finance Minister allotted the budget to the Medical Education department. The Principal Secretary of Medical Education sent it to the Director General of Medical Education. It was then sent to the…

Book review: Fifth Avenue, 5 am by Sam Wasson

FIFTH AVENUE, 5 AM by Sam Wasson, (Harper Perennial Books) is a delightful peek at everything that went into the making of the iconic Breakfast at Tiffany`s, into the making of its director Blake Edwards as also its much acclaimed heroine Audrey Hepburn, Henry Mancini who provided the score, and last but certainly not the…

Book review: Lahore by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

When Loar went up in flames In this book, the first of Sodhi Someshwar`s ambitious Partition trilogy, intense focus is trained on the city that buzzed with commerce, industry, life and living. In the run-up to Partition, Lahore had a large presence of Sikhs, a sizeable population of Hindus, and a Muslim majority who went…

Book review: The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

`The most appalling quality of water is its strength. I love its flash and gleam, its music, its pliancy and grace, its slap against my body; but I fear its strength…the mysteries in its movement…(the way) it slips out of holes in the earth like the ancient snake.` To read THE LIVING MOUNTAIN (Canongate…

Book review: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

This girl`s life The Man International Booker-winner for 2020 puts grief under the microscope It is an unescapable fact that some books draw you into the story gently while others take hold of you and plunge you into its pages in one deep dunk. The Discomfort of Evening, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld`s coming-of-age story of a…

Book review: False Allies by Manu S. Pillai

FALSE ALLIES India`s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma by Manu Pillai (Juggernaut Books). The book is something of an eye- opener for those whose opinion of Indian princes of the past was less than favourable, who placed them all in one velvet-lined drawer of history, labelling them degenerates/despots/dissolute beings. So yes, some of…

Book review: The Oracle of Karuthupuzha by Manu Bhattathiri

Of human nature Over the course of three books, Savithri’s Special Room and Other Stories, The Town That Laughed, and now The Oracle of Karuthupuzha, Manu Bhattathiri has spun into being the little hamlet of Karuthupuzha somewhere in Kerala, peopled it with a fair share of average and eccentric denizens, and regularly stirred up little storms in…

Book review: Anti-Clock by VJ James

The coffin-maker`s tale Hendri the coffin-maker is consumed by hatred for his Nemesis, Satan Loppo. He yearns to see Loppo lowered into the coffin he has personally prepared for him. Taking off from this peg, ‘Anti- Clock’ by V. J. James has a sweeping arc touching on many subjects, and the philosophical ruminations that Hendri…