Just as I thought I was done with the ash-berries tossed at me by the departing year, suturing up my tattered ego with a ghazal in the reigning obscurity, Mr D. P. Dash ruffled the quiet of my languid existence.…
Category: Book Reviews
A Passing Shower by Bruce Goodman — A Review
My student life ended abruptly, or shall I say, comic-apocalyptically, with the postmodernist classic by Joseph Heller, Catch-22. It happened when I wrote a chapter for my doctoral thesis, which would soon be abandoned, on the anti-war anti-novel with an…
The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan
“Those who can really represent China are digging dirt and paving roads with their bare hands." — Mo Yan Sidestepping the polemic surrounding the Nobel citation of Mo Yan, and the seeming incompatibility of the Chinese tongue with English hoes…
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi — A Review
Somewhere in the pages of his unforgettable memoir, Paul Kalanithi invokes the Greek concept of areté, the fulfilment of human faculties at their highest, to describe neurosurgery's unforgiving demand for perfection. Here, the journey of a scalpel a millimetre up…
Read More When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi — A Review
The Palace of Illusions —A Review
‘Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you’ll spend your life yearning for a man you can’t have.’ —Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni It has been raining stories set in…
A Scientist and a Philatelist
Indian Antarctic Expedition —Philatelist’s Guide : A Review ‘When I saw the first iceberg, draped in the evening sun and glittering like gold on the vast expanse of water, I decided I will definitely write a memoir of my journey…
Sorting Out Sid –A Review
A man may put his foot in his mouth once in a while and then a man may stick it there forever. Can it get weirder than that? What if that lean, clean-cut, boyish man of 36, with carefully gelled…
The Cuckoo’s Calling -A Review
“The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them.” ‘J. K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith’, proclaims a round, black sticker on the volume of The Cuckoo’s Calling,…
The Blind Man’s Garden –A Review
Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden is a dark story of a devout Muslim, proud and penitent of the lost glory of Islam, set against the turbulent aftermath of 9/11 massacre. Afghanistan is smoldering in the grisly conflict between Al…
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
Mo Yan is not quite the toast of the literary community west of China. When the Nobel Prize for Literature went his way in 2012, it was deemed a ‘catastrophe’, a ‘betrayal’ and an ‘ominous signal’ by the fraternity, including…
The Box by Günter Grass
Günter Grass is a versatile artist, a colossal literary, cultural and political figure of Germany. He has been a recipient of several high prizes for his works, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. More than that, he has…
Beloved by Toni Morrison — A Review
'I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness.' — Toni Morrison Man is not God, yet he has played God not only with other animals but with his fellow humans too. And what a God he…
One Grain Amongst the Storm 