Janta Store Naveen Chaudhary 2018 Radhakrishnan Publication pp. 300 Janta Store is a story of three friends written in first person narrative of one of the three protagonists. The story revolves around the three friends’ experiences in college, hostels, and coffee shops. Much of the story revolves around university politics. A thinner, parallel strand revolves…
Foreign Body Robin Cook 2009 PanMacmillan pp.467 Foreign Body was an interesting read from the beginning. The story is located in India and that was an instant click. Unlike many other authors, Cook has stuck to the story and not spent much time in describing the locale. The little depiction of India indicates that the…
Ek Chithda Sukh Nirmal Verma 2017 (first published 1979) Vani Prakashan pp. 242 The book title, loosely translated as a patchwork of pleasure, is an exploration of pleasure, happiness and contentment. The life of each of the characters presents a struggle for finding meaning, purpose, and peace. These are ordinary people with not so ordinary…
Identity Milan Kundera 1998 Faber pp. 160 My first reading of Kundera (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) was not very appealing. I was probably not prepared for it or did not have the leisure to engage with it in the way it was meant to be read. I was quite sure I wouldn’t pick up…
What I Know for Sure Oprah Winfrey 2014 MacMillan pp. 239 ‘What I know for sure’ presents insights that Winfrey has gathered from her life. I used to watch Oprah’s show when I was growing up and this book seemed like a capsule of everything that I had gathered from that. The story of Oprah’s…
The Diary of a Mathematician Kaushik Chug 2019 Amazon pp. 50 The debut work of Chug is a novella that presents the story of a gifted mathematician who is able to apply his genius to set chain reactions to modify social events. The story is nice and keeps you engaged. You want to know what…
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking Susan Cain 2013 Penguin pp. 352 Susan Cain’s book is an excellent read, particularly for introverts who have for long wondered why they can’t seem to adjust to the world. While the introversion-extraversion debate continues in academic circles, the popular conception is to…
The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices Xinran 2003 Vintage Books pp. 229 This book presents stories of women in China in the last few decades of the twentieth century. As a document of what transpired in China, this is an important book for times to come. The writing is lucid and full of emotion…
How to Give up Plastic: Changing the World: One Plastic Bottle at a Time William McCallum 2019 Penguin pp. 224 The part self help, part planet help book focuses on exactly what the time tells you- changing the world one plastic bottle at a time. It is this idea, that it is not a big…
Before the Coffee Gets Cold Toshikazu Kawaguchi (trans. Geoffrey Trousselot) 2015/ 2019 Picador pp. 224 I chanced upon this book while looking for books by Japanese authors. Admittedly, it is the name of the book that caught my attention. Coffee and book together make a strong combination and I thought this must be written by…
