Review - Comfortably Numb

Book review: Quichotte by Salman Rushdie

QUICHOTTE by Salman Rushdie. Penguin Books India. I never ever thought it`d come to this. That, after a complete and total infatuation with the works of S. Rushdie that has lasted many long years, I would actually find anything written by him tiresome. But the overly verbose Quichotte tired me out. Why, why, why should…

Book review: The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami`s The Strange Library (Harvill Secker, London). Translated from the Japanese by Ted Goossen. So. Is this a fable for children and adults alike? Maybe. Is this another The Little Prince, another Alice, another Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Not really. Is this a story with a moral? Well, the jury is out on that too….

Book review: The Seasons of Trouble by Rohini Mohan

The Seasons of Trouble by Rohini Mohan. HarperCollins Books. This is really of the lest- we- forget genre. We have had some competent, even accomplished wordsmiths chronicling the conflict and after in Sri lanka, the likes of Nirupama Subramanian (Voices From A War Zone), Samanth Subramanian (This Divided Island), Romesh Gunesekera (most recently Noontide Toll)…

Book review: Ten Kings by Ashok Banker

Ashok Banker`s Ten Kings (Amaryllis) takes a tale from the Rig Veda, a tale of what has to be one of the most unequal battles ever, breathes nuanced flesh and blood into it, infuses it with the right amount of colour, and presents it as yet another morality tale, of how puny good can sometimes…

Book review: In The Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman

In The Light Of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Basically, things the author knows. I can`t resist it. I just can`t resist it. In the light of what I (now) know, I rue the fact that I picked up this book so eagerly. Why, you ask. Well,…

Book review: The Patna Manual of Style by Siddharth Chowdhury

The Patna Manual of Style, Stories by Siddharth Chowdhury. Aleph Books. I read this slim book in a state of much mystification, and the mystification remained for a while after I finished it. What`s the buzz about? The nine short stories all deal with a Bengali- speaking Bihari called Hriday Thakur and his cohort of…