From Panipat to the Podium: Arjun Singh Kadian's Neeraj Chopra biography documents the athlete's astronomical rise
Written by a policy professional from Haryana, the book seeks to understand Neeraj Chopra’s journey in the wider context of what Haryanvis have accomplished in sports.
Book review: Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh is an account more of SRK's (female) fans than the star himself
Shrayana Bhattacharya pieces together a story of what made Indian women love SRK, and what that love can tell us about the women themselves.
Actually... I Met Them book review: In new memoir, Gulzar doesn't hold back his awe and fondness for those who've shaped him
Gulzar looks back at his encounters with the likes of Bimal Roy, Sharmila Tagore, Kishore Kumar, Satyajit Ray, Sanjeev Kumar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Basu Bhattacharya, Ritwik Ghatak, and Suchitra Sen with a lack of artifice that feels refreshing at a time when people speak in measured tones, concealing how they truly feel.
Totem Pole and the will to survive: How Paul Pritchard recovered from a deadly accident to get back in the mountains
“I do realise there is a paradox here — why keep going back to somewhere that has hurt you so much? But the injuries and hardships that one endures on the mountain can teach you so much": Paul Pritchard details the account of his life-threatening fall and subsequent rise in the book The Mountain Path.
Book review: Alka Pande's Pha(bu)llus is a keen and insightful examination around cultural history of phallic imagery
Having a sense of humour might come in handy if you plan to lay your hands on this book. It will introduce you to practices and rituals that might seem outlandish to you but happen to be significant in other cultures. Judging them will ruin your enjoyment of the book.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: A peek into lesser known facets in the glorious life of Aligarh Muslim University founder
Eminent scholar and critic Shafey Kidwai's painstakingly researched and illuminating new book, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation, breaks new ground in the studies around Sir Syed’s life and work, as well as his contributions to the making of modern India.
In Hawking Hawking, author Charles Seife presents a humanising portrait of the celebrated physicist, his love of the limelight
In the book, Seife explains how Hawking was very keen on becoming a public figure. He loved the idea of communicating his work not merely to his colleagues but to the widest possible audience. And he loved being the centre of attention.
Alan Maimon, in his latest book Twilight in Hazard, paints a nuanced picture of Appalachia, a region where beauty and tragedy coexist
In the book, Maimon's takes on poverty, drug addiction and the decline of the coal industry don’t ignore the region’s history of exploitation, not to mention the indifference of its political leaders.
This Life At Play: Even with its declared omissions, Girish Karnad's 'half-tale' memoir is a complex, nuanced narration
While This Life At Play is far from what one might call a contemplative work, blithely letting its roll-call of occurrences speak for itself, its descriptive linearity ultimately settles into a sharply individualistic if unsentimental account.
In Four Lost Cities, a historical analysis of growth and decline of civilisations on different continents over millennia
Newitz tells fascinating stories about the people in these metropolises and how researchers came to understand how they lived their lives. Many of the discoveries are not just a result of traditional archaeological investigations, but also of new technologies and analytical methods.
In Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches the literary form of 'novel' and offers something literally new, fresh
Some literary critics will love this novel novel even as some readers scratch their heads.
Sooley: John Grisham's latest is a fictional thriller set in the factual world of American basketball
Sooley follows the familiar Grisham playbook — short chapters, plenty of foreshadowing, and a rapid-fire prose that’s easy to read and hard to put down.
Every Vow You Break: An indiscretion, a stalker and a wedding fuel Peter Swanson's latest thriller
The book title, Every Vow You Break, which calls to mind a famous stalker song by The Police — sets readers up for what the publisher’s hype has promised. A thriller.
In Fierce Poise, author Alexander Nemerov paints a vibrant new portrait of artist Helen Frankenthaler
Nemerov focuses on 11 consequential days in the 1950s, the decade when Helen Frankenthaler came of age as one of the leading painters of her generation.
Enter Stage Right: A compelling, evanescent memoir of the Alkazi-Padamsee family, and their theatrical imprint
A marriage eventually frayed at the edges but robust in its critical mass of shared cultural persuasions irrevocably linked the Alkazi and Padamsee families in the artistic sphere.
In 'The Doctors Blackwell' Janice P Nimura goes beyond the myths surrounding a pioneering female physician
In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from an American medical school.
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin book review: Roseanne A Brown deftly weaves African mythology into classic YA Fantasy elements
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin retains the traditional elements that make YA Fantasy captivating, such as strong female characters, a sense of otherworldliness, and intrigue, while also stepping out of the norm by weaving in West African culture, to create an intricate background to this exquisite tapestry
In translating Chandrasekhara Kambar's Two Plays, Krishna Manavalli performs commendable service to Kannada writing
In her recent translation of Chandrasekhara Kambar’s Two Plays, Krishna Manavalli has carefully selected two representative works: Rishyshringa and Mahmoud Gawan.
To read Robert MacFarlane’s Underland is to reimagine what we might learn from the pursuit of the subterranean
In Robert MacFarlane’s Underland, he travels across the UK, Western Europe and Finland to enter and explore a multitude of landscapes beneath the surface — both geological and manmade
In Fearless, Amneh Shaikh-Farooqui offers an illustrated chronicle of Pakistan's women's rights movement
The timeline in Fearless, which begins in 1943 and goes on till 2018, is helpful in understanding the political context within which the Pakistani women featured in the book made their mark.