books - Comfortably Numb

Book review: Soul Climate by Ines Baranay

A soul connection If, like this reviewer, you are not too familiar with the work of the late Turkish writer, activist and Member of Parliament Halide Edib Adivar, this book by Ines Baranay will make you seek Halide`s books out. At a time when the ties between India and Turkiye have frayed, Baranay has explored the connection between the two, through Halide’s visit…

Book review: This is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Dangerous aspirations The focal point of the story is deceptively simple in its linked concepts: greed, overarching ambition, not knowing `one`s place` in life (Pakistani society, in this particular case), the courage required to step out of line, and the inevitable nemesis that comes to those who do step out of line. The one major…

Book review: The Last days of Earth by Deepa Anappara

To map a sacred land The ethics of map-making and the invisibilisation of those who helped the British Empire in doing so, is at the heart of Deepa Anappara’s second book of fiction. Coming many years after Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, her first, well- received one, this book too, is meticulously researched and…

Book review: The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie

Intimations of mortality After an artful meld of history, imagination and some brilliant writing in `Victory City,` after a show of cold anger in `Knife,` Rushdie is the Elder Statesman or rather, the Elderly Litterateur here. This quintet of stories is quite self-indulgent, with many of the characters being vehicles through which the writer expresses…

Book review: Heartbreak Unfiltered by Milan Vohra

The heartbreak manifesto It is ironical that the latest book by India’s first Mills & Boon author, Milan Vohra, is about love… followed by loss and heartbreak. A sign of the times perhaps, when sweeping right on one of the many dating apps does not necessarily lead to happily- ever- after; when we are more…

Book review: Called by the Hills by Anuradha Roy

Over hill and dale First, it`s a memoir that takes us on a leisurely wander through the forests and dirt tracks of Ranikhet, where the author has lived for a quarter of a century now. Second, it has the most luscious illustrations ever, all done by the author, giving us a clear picture of just…

Book review: The Little Book of Goodbyes by Ravi Shankar Etteth

A wistful look back at life This slim volume of short stories delivers on the promise of its title: it really is a little book of nostalgic look-backs. The author digs deep into his personal cache of memories, mines it for sentiment and poignancy, takes us to a little town in south Malabar, then moves…

Book review: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

The Booker-25 shortlisted THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY by Kiran Desai, Penguin/Hamish Hamilton Books, is a veritable tome (almost 700 pages) dedicated almost single- mindedly to loneliness and its eviscerating effects, how to survive it, stay afloat, not go under… or get across if one does go under. Written in a melancholy manner, the…

Book review: The Scratch and Sniff Chronicles by Hemangini Dutt Majumder

A delicious twist of Bangla Goth This debut novel takes the old trope of Bengali Gothic literature, contemporizes it deftly, and serves up a whodunnit that is some parts funny, some parts macabre, all parts engaging. We are dropped without ceremony into the lives of the Chaterges (yes, you read that spelling right) a woman…

Book review: Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis

Between a rock and a hard place Let`s talk about the author first. Dr Nussaibah Younis who studied at Oxford, Durham and Harvard, and has a PhD in International Affairs, is a peacebuilding practitioner and an Iraq expert. At one time, she advised the Iraqi government on programmes to deradicalize women affiliated with the ISIS….