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.
Memoirs of a Dalit Communist: RB More's writings offer critique of untouchability, Savarna communism
Memoirs of a Dalit Communist should be read for the explanations it offers for the failure of communism in India, in particular the ideology's unsuitability to the social reality of Indian politics. The book is also a critical read because it lays bare how Savarna leaders used caste to their advantage within the communist groups.
Mind Master review: Viswanathan Anand's autobiography is an unflinching look at the career of India's greatest chess superstar
Having been a poster boy for India at chess, Viswanathan Anand still remains somewhat of an enigma for many Indians who cannot grasp the complexities of the sport he played. With Mind Master, the 50-year-old takes you behind the scenes into the sport and his life.
New memoir of Balraj Sahni by his son is heartfelt — and revealing of contradictions in actor's well-intentioned life
The Non-Conformist: Memories of My Father Balraj Sahni is a heartfelt memoir by Parikshat Sahni, who was an actor himself but stayed in the shadow of his famous dad. Though affection and respect are the dominant tones of this book, there is also a real sense of the missteps, delusions and contradictions that can mark even the most sincere and well-intentioned life | Jai Arjun Singh writes in 'My Bookshelves'
The hitman as philosopher: The strange and compelling narrative of Agni Sreedhar’s The Gangster’s Gita
Sacred Games’s depiction of the stoicism and banality of underworld lives (Ganesh Gaitonde casually mentions hacking an informer to pieces, returning home, eating “a little sabudane ki khichdi” and going to bed), came back to me while reading Agni Sreedhar’s The Gangster’s Gita | Jai Arjun Singh writes
The Making of Star India: Vanita Kohli-Khandekar's book on Rupert Murdoch’s Indian TV foray is a must-read
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar’s The Making of Star India is a detailed treatise of the news baron Rupert Murdoch’s greatest adventure as well as the tale of India’s tryst with television
Girl, Woman, Other review: Bernardine Evaristo's novel is a boisterous, life-affirming storytelling experiment
Bernardine Evaristo has said that her theatre writing and poetry background have seeped into her novel, and Girl, Woman, Other is written in a style that she calls 'fusion fiction': free-flowing, unpunctuated, with a cadence that — in the best portions — approaches lyricism
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World review: Arresting premise, hobbled potential in Elif Shafak's latest
Elif Shafak is undoubtedly a gifted writer, and you're constantly reminded of this while reading 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World. Unfortunately, what begins as a gripping premise with much potential, soon breaks down, tripping over its own traps of clichés and predictability.
Of Devapriya Roy’s Friends from College, bridges to the past, and second-hand nostalgia
The writing of Devapriya Roy's Friends From College is reminiscent in some ways to a particularly observant series of journal entries, the sort that the more “writerly” of us might have maintained in our college days, creating narratives about ourselves and our friends
In The Cousins Thackeray, Dhaval Kulkarni pieces together Raj-Uddhav equation, legacy of the Shiv Sena
The most important point that emerges from Dhaval Kulkarni's book, The Cousins Thackeray, is that the Shiv Sena’s brand of identity politics has come to stay, despite its ups and downs, and found a warm home in Maharashtra.
The Testaments review: Margaret Atwood's sequel to Handmaid's Tale is a 101 on how patriarchy works
The Gilead that we encounter in The Testaments is no less menacing than the one from The Handmaid's Tale, but its seams are fraying.
William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy offers a vivid reconstruction of Indian history under East India Company
William Dalrymple's new book The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of an Empire deals primarily with the East India Company, its history and doings in India, concluding with its final triumph when it defeated the Marathas and directly or indirectly controlled all of India under Richard Wellesley
The Musician and His Art: Deepak Raja's essays on Hindustani music deserve serious consideration
Deepak Raja's book, The Musician and His Art, is a collection of essays and lectures published and delivered at various forums over the past seven years.
Three Classic Films by Gulzar: New book serves as an initiation into filmmaker's universe, and his cinematic journey
The recently released Three Classic Films by Gulzar (HarperCollins, 2019) manages to pick up three films — Aandhi, Angoor, and Ijaazat — which on their own might not be at the very top of any ‘best of Gulzar’ lists, but stand out as great singular examples of the legendary artist’s oeuvre and also encapsulate Gulzar’s cinema, in more ways than one.
A new book on the Great Himalayan National Park offers compelling insights into the quest to save the region
Sanjeeva Pandey and Anthony J Gaston's book underscores the underlying theme at the Great Himalayan National Park — that of placing people at the centre of conservation
Mayank Gandhi's AAP & Down is an insider's account of the rise and unravelling of Arvind Kejriwal's party
Mayank Gandhi's book is an absorbing, objective story of the meteoric rise of AAP, the loss of its moorings and speedy unravelling
Dhiraj Nayyar’s new book shows Narendra Modi's understanding of markets is in no way inferior to that of his critics
Unlike his peers in academia or financial journalism who run down the Modi government’s demonetisation drive and GST roll out, Nayyar categorises these moves as “radical reforms” intended to benefit the economy in long run