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What Am I ReadingWhat Am I ReadingQuality book reviews, critiques and insights into the world of literature, both classic and contemporary. Articles
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh
2008-09-29 07:46:00 In his essay on the anti Sikh riots of Delhi (The Ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi), this is what Amitav Ghosh has to say about “The Shadow Lines ”: a book that led me backward in time to earlier memories of riots, ones witnessed in childhood. It became a book not about any one event but about ... More About: Book Reviews
Incendiary Circumstances by Amitav Ghosh
2008-09-22 01:17:00 Incendiary Circumstances is a collection of seventeen essays, written over two decades, on the many social and political crises besotting our world. Here, our world is mostly confined to South Asia, parts of South East Asia (Burma/Myanmar and Cambodia), and Middle East(Egypt, Kuwait), “Half-made worlds”, in the words of V.S. Naipaul, which Ghosh refers to ... More About: India , Travel , Book Reviews
Fury by Salman Rushdie
2008-09-16 07:53:00 Professor Malik Solanka, a man in his mid fifties, scholar and dollmaker extraordinaire, is having a rather belated mid life crisis. ?Fury ?, which he sees around him, in the rage of destruction, or the fire of creation, overwhelms him suddenly, when he leaves his wife and three year old son in London. He travels to ... More About: Book Reviews , Salman , Salman Rushdie
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
2008-09-06 18:33:00 Michael, a brilliant but temperamental violinist, finds that the love of his life happens to be living in the same city he calls home: London. Julia, a pianist, his first and only love, is someone he cannot forget, though they had parted on unfavorable terms ten years ago. He clings on to her memories, from ... More About: Music , Book Reviews , Equal
Train To Pakistan by Khushwant Singh
2008-08-24 05:34:00 After the prolix of Love in the Time of Cholera, Train to Pakistan was a refreshing change. Not merely for its brevity and directness, but also for a context with which I could very much relate. Although fiction, the background events are real. Thousands of refugees perished during the exodus, when a Pakistan was split from ... More About: Book Reviews , Singh
Love In the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2008-08-12 15:53:00 Love in the time of Cholera did not impress me. It is, of course, a translation. Thus, I do not know how much of its original essence was lost. But surely, the story would be the same, which, I found quite uninspiring, even boring and inane at times. There is very little dialog in the ... More About: Love , Time , Gabriel , Garcia , Marquez
The Leopard by Ruskin Bond
2008-07-27 02:40:00 I am presently perusing a collection of short stories titled ?Best Indian Short Stories - Volume I, selected (not edited?) by Khushwant Singh. Many of the stories are translations. So it is not necessarily a collection of best Indian stories written in English, but claiming to encompass the entire literary gamut of the subcontinent. This ... More About: Bond , Book Reviews , Leopard
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
2008-06-05 07:51:00 J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace is a relatively short work. It is also quite unputdownable. This was my second reading of it, having first read it about four years ago. And it was a far more vivid experience this time. Professor David Lurie is a University English professor with a penchant for Romantics, whose ?disgraceful? sexual liaison with ... More About: Book Reviews
A distant world, Part III : Siliguri
2008-03-06 16:35:00 Read Part II I am at last headed for Bengal. North Bengal, where I was born. Where I spent my growing up years. In Delhi, the plane sits on the runway, delaying our departure for almost an hour. Who cares about the North East? Backward, dilapidated, a laggard in the economic growth seizing the whole ... More About: India , Travel , World , Muse
A distant world, Part II : Delhi
2008-03-04 16:51:00 Read Part I I travel up north, to Delhi . Crowded city bursting at its seams. An excess of traffic and humans jostling for space in roads frequently interrupted with construction work. New roads, wider roads, flyovers, hotels. To accommodate more and more. People, motors, business. To claim more and more. Open spaces, green vistas to gray. ... More About: India , Travel , World , Muse
A distant world - Part I : Mumbai, Pune
2008-03-01 12:03:00 More than four years later. Closer to five than four. The very words I use to describe the gap after which I return to India , for a vacation. It is a long journey, from where I reside, nestled in the temperate forests of the Pacific Northwest of America, to the subcontinent. How many thousand miles? I ... More About: Travel , World , Mumbai , Muse
The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
2008-02-18 00:38:00 After plodding through the last few books, ?The God of Small Things ? was a refreshing change. It drew me in, into the lives of Estha and Rahel, into Kerala, Ayemenem, onto love and its fragile boundaries, easily crushed by blind traditions, by selfish, hypocritical motives. What Arundhati Roy achieves in her debut novel, her only ... More About: Book Reviews
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2008-02-09 23:58:00 It is not a badly written book. But not one that well written to deserve an award, and least of all one as prestigious as the Booker. So why did The Inheritance of Loss win the Booker award? Answer: a) The rest of the books in running were no better b) The judges made a blunder c) My perceptions ... More About: Book Reviews
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
2008-02-02 23:05:00 Mehring, a shrewd, successful business tycoon based in South Africa and a sexually prolific if slightly depraved man, buys a farm, somewhat on a whim. It becomes a sanctuary for him, where he escapes on weekends to get away from his stereotyped world and also supervise its functioning, Jacobus and the rest of the black ... More About: Book Reviews
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
2008-01-04 06:18:00 Hari Kunzru makes a fair impression with his debut novel, which begins in the early twentieth century.Young Pran Nath Razdan, suddenly realizes that he is no longer the pampered son of a wealthy household, which upon the discovery of his dubious origins casts him out. The timing coincides with the death of Amar Nath Razdan, ... More About: Book Reviews , Hari , Impressionist
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
2007-12-23 02:47:00 Paddy Clar ke is not a funny story. The overwhelming feeling is one of palpable sadness, despite several humourous episodes, especially towards the earlier parts of the book. Ten year old Paddy, the eldest son of a large Irish family in fictitious(?) Barrytown of the sixties, thoroughly enjoys the company of his friends ? Kevin, Liam, ... More About: Book Reviews , Paddy
A Beneficiary by Nadine Gordimer
2007-12-18 20:48:00 Charlotte, an attractive twenty something woman, is confronted by a secret upon her mother?s death. In unraveling what is and what is not, the mystery surrounding her own origin, her doubts are resolved in the clarity of a father?s love. Gordimer?s style is succinct and incisive, frequently interrogative in this piece, probing inwards for answers. ...
Book Awards Reading Challenge
2007-12-13 06:25:00 Here’s motivation for the coming days. The ones finished have links to review pages. Commonwealth Writers’ 1992 - Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey 1994 - Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy 1996 - Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance Book er 1974 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer 1981 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie 1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 1993 ... More About: Reading , Awards , Book Reviews , Challenge
Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
2007-12-11 21:54:00 Gustad Noble, indeed a noble man, struggles through the crises besotting his life. His eldest son spurns IIT, leaves home to avoid the bitter squabbles with him. His best friend disappears, then entwines him in a mysterious scheme with suspicious money. His daughter falls sick. Another good friend has cancer, dies. War breaks out ... More About: Journey , Book Reviews , Authors , Long , Rohinton Mistry
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
2007-12-04 01:36:00 There is an unnamable mysterious quality to Ishiguro?s novel. Words like sly, minimal and simple come to mind, but none describes the work completely. Yet those are some of its discernible qualities. It does not feel the author is ... More About: Book Reviews , Kazuo , Mains
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
2007-12-02 08:13:00 A tale of the pains of old age and disease, Family Matters is also a reflection on ties that bind us in joy yet enmesh us in misery at the same time. It’s a statement on the pitfalls of succumbing to blind tradition disregarding love and logic, both in the matters of the family and ... More About: Book Reviews , Authors , Family Matters
On Writing by Stephen King
2007-11-29 22:11:00 I’ve never read a Stephen King story, having little interest in the genre that he typically caters to. But I must say that this book has some excellent tips and inspiration for anyone interested in writing. And why just that? It’s a good read in itself ? part memoir and part instructional, it manages to ... More About: Writing , Book Reviews , On Writing
East West by Salman Rushdie
2007-11-12 07:10:00 East West is a short story collection. The nine tales are grouped in three, by the flavour of their origins, the third being the mixed one of book’s title. That also happened to be the one I liked the most, with ?The Courter? beating the ... More About: Book Reviews , East , Authors , Salman
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
2007-11-05 05:44:00 The book is a close examination of Mrs. Dalloway, a wealthy London socialite widely admired for her grace and finesse in social circles, and Peter Walsh, her unrequited lover who has just returned from his lacklustre stint in India. Parallely, the book also portrays Septimus Warren Smith, a young war hero ... More About: Virginia , Virginia Woolf , Allo
Shame by Salman Rushdie
2007-10-22 06:26:00 Though the characters and events are cast in a fable like fashion, ?Shame ? is clearly a portrayal of post independence Pakistan, with some of its main characters replicating prominent political figures in real life, albeit loosely. Iskander (notice the wordplay: an interchange of the first two alphabets producing a name that means king) ... More About: Book Reviews , Salman , Salman Rushdie |
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