The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars I finished reading this book at precisely 0205 hours a week ago. The night still lay majestically over the impending dawn, and in its blackened stillness, swayed the echoes of this imperious book. The walls of my room, at once, turned into a … More Book Review – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
Turn of the Screw by Henry James My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars I often embrace the notion of writing being superior than plot to the extent of salvaging a lackluster body of the latter, very close to my heart. And it is stories like these that realign my reading meter in that direction. Henry … More Book Review: Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898)
Cry, Heart But Never Break by Glenn Ringtved My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Even to the most-learned men and women, few things are as scary, swamping and tearing as death. Like an end, that ultimate exit, beyond which everything becomes void and nothing remains to return, it hovers over us like a spying cloud, … More Book Review: Cry, Heart But Never Break by Glenn Ringtved (2001)
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here] Of all the fiction in this world, I find the ones rooted in mythology the most enticing; not because there is an element of otherworldly magic in them but because somewhere deep down, a bewitching veil of truth hovers above them. … More Book Review: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (2017)
The Vegetarian by Han Kang My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here (with edits)] Many of us, if stretch a little, can recall the question that appeared in our science textbooks in primary schools: choose the living and non-living thing from the following options. While we conveniently tagged all humans, animals and plants to … More Book Review: The Vegetarian by Han Kang (2007)
A Heart So White by Javier Marías My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars What do I wish to hear? About the present? The past, may be? Or a little tune on the waiting future? Do I wish to eavesdrop on my best friend to find out what she thinks of me when I am not … More Book Review: A Heart So White by Javier Marías (1992)
A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Borges and I I: Borges: I: Borges: I: Do you like silence? Borges: What silence? I: The one you are filling up this space with right now? Borges: This, is my ground. Contemplation, not Silence, my weapon. Thought, my battle. I: A … More Book Review: A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges (1961)
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars ‘Those who love from a distance are not seduced by lust.’ Thus crooned a honeyed, longing voice I happened to hear two days back. Perhaps the essence was expressed before; in manifold arrangement of words, in wavy placement of multiple strings. But sometimes, something … More Book Review: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956)
Autumn by Ali Smith My Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars [Originally appeared here.] She has done it in the past; and she does it again here. Ali Smith’s fixation on, and a visible mastery of, story-telling across timeline, in no particular order, shines in this experimental, breezy novel as well. Centred around the 30-something Elisabeth … More Book Review: Autumn by Ali Smith (2016)
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Somewhere in the midst of this book, Bolaño spells out in explicit words what I suspected to be the undercurrents from the word go: ….a novel about order and disorder, justice and injustice, God and the Void. So there I was … More Book Review: Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño (1996)
SEEMITA DAS 