The Midnight Library by Matt HaigMy Rating: 4 of 5 Stars This book. Especially in these times. This book. Like a little cocoon of warmth in the stormy evening. Akin to a genuine hug amid the phoney social circles. A love story with self. A cascade of calm. The Midnight Library, at its core, is … More Book Review: The Midnight Library (2020)
A Burning by Megha MajumdarMy Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Words. I know they are potent; they can bind and heal, rejuvenate and transform. But, I also know, in equal measure, they can kill. In ‘A Burning’, just a pale black string of words on a social media page makes a young Muslim girl, an … More Book Review: A Burning by Megha Majumdar (2020)
A perfect tequila shot. An apt teaser. A pitch perfect click. That’s just how the new short story from the Murakami land feels like. Capturing our attention, upping the stakes, leaving us thinking, never closing the possibilities. The short story is about a chance encounter of a traveller (who is also a writer) with a … More Short Story Review: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey by Haruki Murakami (2020)
Truck de India by Rajat UbhaykarMy Rating: 4 of 5 Stars When I was young, I used to look forward to my summer vacations and the trip to my hometown – this trip was such a big deal not just because it would take me to my grandma (aaie) and allow me to binge and … More Book Review: Truck de India by Rajat Ubhaykar (2019)
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie My Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars Stories beget stories. And amid nauseating realities, they are probably our only vehicle to a meaningful sail. There are people who need to impose a shape upon the shapelessness of life. And so, a Quichotte upon a Sam DuChamp, a Sancho over a Marcel DuChamp, … More Book Review: Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (2019)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean VuongMy Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Memory. A twig to hang our old ages on, a current to charge our failed youth from; a blanket to hush our demons from the black, a spring to nourish our wounded dreams underneath. A whole. A hollow. And everything suspended in between is … More Book Review: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)
Autumn Light by Pico IyerMy Rating: 4 of 5 Stars It is good to meet life sometimes; not by seeing it in the eye but by interlocking fingers and walking by its side. In this book, Pico Iyer finds himself undertaking such a walk, under the light-heavy shadows of autumn. Twenty-five years after he first … More Book Review: Autumn Light by Pico Iyer (2019)
Days of My China Dragon by Chandrahas Choudhury My Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Universally, very few things bind people the way food does. And endorsing this view emphatically, Jigar Pala opens a Chinese restaurant in Prabha Devi, Mumbai, taking a detour from his family’s legacy of well-established Udipi restaurant. Enter the ‘China Dragon’. He … More Book Review: Days of My China Dragon by Chandrahas Choudhury (2019)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars When I turned the final page, I was relieved and sad at the same instant; relieved to have finally let the fates of POWs take wings to better skies and sad to not be living an alternate life, altogether. … More Book Review: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Hag-Seed by Margaret AtwoodMy Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/li…] The Shakespearean scent is high in the air in his 400th anniversary year and a handful of reputed authors are capturing it to present it anew in the Hogarth Shakespeareseries. A task so stimulating, so enchanting that it is bound to throw aromas of … More Book Review: Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (2016)
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