Saat Sau Bees Kadam (Hindi)Amrita Pritam 2014Bhartiya Gyanpithpp. 266 A collection of short stories by Amrita Pritam like much of Pritam’s work revolves around the undefined aspects of life. I love how she defies logic, social boundaries, norms, and embraces everyone and everything as part of the normal. In this time of conflict and strife, I…
Khauf Ka Saudagar (Hindi)Ibn E Safi2009Harper Collins pp. 132 Khauf ka Saudagar (Literally translated as Trader of Fear) is a 2009 thriller book by Ibn E Safi. It is a concise book both in terms of the story as well as the size of the paperback. It dawned on my why I used to often…
Ibnebatuti (Hindi) Divya Prakash Dubey 2020 Hind Yugm pp. 160 Ibnebatuti is a story of revolving around a mother son relationship. Like all of Dubey’s writings, this is contemporary, it is new age, and it is very refreshing. I picked up this book with a lot of expectations and it did not disappoint. The subtle…
Brain Robin Cook 1981 Signet pp. 320 This book reminded me why I started reading Robin Cook in the first place. Medical fiction, fast paced thriller, enough jargon to make me feel just the right amount of ignorant, and what I have come to believe is Cook’s forte even more than fiction- professional ethics. In…
The Last Lecture: Lessons in Living Randy Pausch (with Jeffrey Zaslow) 2008 Hachette pp. 267 The Last Lecture is a set of ideas that Pausch presented in his last address to students, colleagues and family. His resilience, sense of humour and spirit to live are undoubtedly admirable. He has quite deliberately, hidden pearls of wisdom…
Sphinx Robin Cook 1979 Signet pp. 320 This book came as a total surprise. I was so amazed by the first fifty pages that I checked the main plot online several times to see if I was reading some fake copy of the book. Goes to show how much I have categorised Cook’s writing in…
Toxin Robin Cook 1998 PanMacmillan pp. 437 Written in the late nineties, the book covers the important issue of food related diseases. Cook describes, in great detail, the process of preparing patties for hamburgers. The description of preparing ground meat and the way animals are taken and treated in slaughter houses is quite gory. It is…
Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll 1871 MacMillan pp. 130 The book is the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I had read that as a child, first the abridged version and then the unabridged versions when I was older. As a child, I used to find the story quite fascinating and the illustrations in books…
Yaad Shehar (Vol 1) (Hindi) Neelesh Misra 2013 Westland pp. 250 I picked up this book purely out of fascination for the author or rather his voice. I used to love listening to him narrating stories. It was quite natural for me to have high expectations from his writing. The book introduces him as a…
Hello, Bastar: The Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement Rahul Pandita 2011 Westland pp. 202 Pandita’s writing on the Maoist movement in various parts of India details out the history of the movement. The narrative is replete with episodes of various comrades’ initiation into the Naxal movement. In various episodes, lives of people involved in…
