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)
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 Association of Small Bombs by Karan MahajanMy Rating: 4 of 5 Stars “Sometimes, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” – A A Milne It is, in many ways, both a comforting and disturbing thought that events of negligible weight, often elevate to gargantuan heights, lighting and dimming our lives from the … More Book Review: The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan (2016)
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here (with edits): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/li…] Ah! What have I read here? A delightful take on life? A sensitive take on grief? A wise take on relationships? Perhaps all of it. And more. At the centre of this book, is … More Book Review: My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman (2013)
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Confession , as a word, has a strong connotation – prelude to its utterance is a hesitation, and that hesitation alone, is sufficient to engulf the confession-maker with an odour that reeks of both delay and guilt. But Mishima’s protagonist can take … More Book Review: Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1958)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Words. This book is all about words – words written, words unwritten, words spoken, words unspoken, words imagined, words deleted, words carried, words discarded, words believed, words treasured. And why wouldn’t it be? At the heart of this book, is the book … More Book Review: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (2005)
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Forgetfulness was a gift, a talent to be nurtured. In the war of remembering and forgetting, what side do we choose? Or do we choose at all? Isn’t life that, which happens when we are busy planning it? In the seductively opiated heavens of narrow-alleyed … More Book Review: Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (2012)
In Custody by Anita Desai My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars ‘The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” It is befitting to quote Rumi to introduce the middle-aged protagonist of this book who sends swirls of a bruised dream into the air even while chugging along life with a rusted body. Deven, … More Book Review: In Custody by Anita Desai (2007)
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