It was a rainy evening about seven years ago when I entered a book store. It was the perfect refuge – warm lights, thin crowd, a tea bar and loads of books. I marched to the tea bar, ordered a ginger- mint tea, placed my bag on a chair in the seating area and hopped … More What I Talk About When I Talk About Murakami
Nutshell by Ian McEwan My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here (with edits): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/li…] Pessimism is too easy, even delicious, the badge and plume of intellectuals everywhere. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions. This wonderfully sapient insight springs somewhere in the middle of this book and almost gives away the rationale behind McEwan’s … More Book Review: Nutshell by Ian McEwan (2016)
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)
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)
Blindness by José Saramago My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. What an irony that a book which holds, loss, filth, loot, stomp, cruelty, disorientation, putrefaction, injustice, helplessness, murder, rape, misery, nakedness, abandonment, death and unimaginable suffering in its bosom, left me with a climactic emotion of … More Book Review: Blindness by José Saramago (1995)
Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag My Rating: 5 of 5 stars At my touch, the striking cover of this book leapt up and stood suspended at my eye-level. As if to escape this loggerhead-state, I bored through its skin amid a question – what does this image wish to convey? Unity? Mess? Greed? Asymmetry? Power? … More Book Review: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag (2015)
Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars “War is the father of all and king of all. Some he shows as gods, others as men. Some he makes slaves and others, free.” But how does one differentiate between The Slave and The Free? Is that Man … More Book Review: Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee (1983)
Happy Birthday, Mr. Zweig! I am so glad to have met you this year. Through your stupendously masterful Chess Story, you got into my book world like a summer rain; unexpected but alluring. Discovering multiple angles of psychological reflections in a slim novella of 80 pages was like hitting a jackpot; that sudden halt one … More HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEFAN ZWEIG!
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig My Rating: 5 of 5 stars “Wanting to play chess against yourself is a paradox, like jumping over your own shadow.” But what fun is life if words like manic, insanity, paradox and contradiction are not put to test once in a while? Even at the cost of years of discipline and rationality? … More Book Review: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig (1941)
SEEMITA DAS 