Manu Moudgil Earth remains an ever-evolving entity, sculpted by the forces of nature over millennia. Among these forces, seismic activity stands out as a natural phenomenon we know the least about. The mysterious nature of earthquakes makes them the most...
Neera Chandhoke This is a charming and readable memoir of the remarkable Brinda Karat, who successfully made the transition from an upper-class, English-speaking, charismatic young woman to a full-time activist of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In working class...
River Prince: Ponniyin Selvan-3by Kalki. Translated by Nandini Krishnan.Westland. Pages 328. Rs 399 Why is Arulmozhi Varman, the dazzling prince of the Chozha dynasty, called ‘Ponniyin Selvan’? Can he unravel the web of conspiracies and betrayals within his own family...
Translated from Assamese, ‘Yatra: An Unfinished Novel’ by Harekrishna Deka follows a writer’s experience of living under state surveillance, where nothing is as it seems and the stark distinction of your distance from the heartland is palpable with every step...
Aunindyo Chakravarty Karthik Muralidharan has an impressive CV. He studied at Harvard and Cambridge, and is a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego. What makes him different is the experience he has gathered by collaborating with...
Aradhika Sharma THE Arabic word ‘maktub’ means ‘it is written’. It is also the title of Paulo Coelho’s book, a compilation of his columns published in Folha de São Paulo during 1993-1994, along with selected passages from his 1997 book...
Jupinderjit Singh The beginning of terrorism in any region is usually considered the time when the first shot was fired or the first bomb was planted. In Punjab, the Baisakhi Sikh-Nirankari clash in 1978 is often termed the beginning of...
Ranbir Singh Ajourney into the life and intellectual legacy of Upendra Baxi, ‘Of Law and Life…’ departs from conventional biographical narratives, opting instead for an introspective exploration of Baxi’s life through his own reflections. This distinctive approach transports us to...
Publishing house Aleph’s latest bouquet of books for the young ones has four very different offerings. One is the classic tale of ‘Kabuliwala’ by Rabindranath Tagore, the other is ‘The Hoopoe on the Lawn’ by children’s favourite author Ruskin Bond....
Rajnish Wattas It’s mostly the rebel who transforms the established canons of art in any era. He challenges the existing norms to pursue his own inner calling, notwithstanding the opposition and suffering that come along with the new unsettling...
Maninder Sidhu Anjali Deshpande’s translation of her Hindi novella, ‘Hatya’ (2019), evocatively titled ‘Nobody Lights a Candle’, is a pacy ‘touchable tale’ of deep-rooted structural prejudices in Indian society. It is a crime story that boldly delves into biases...
Salil Misra INdian people’s struggle against the British was truly multi-faceted. Indians fought through non-cooperation, open defiance, underground violence and by courting imprisonment. There are also some notable examples where people fought the British by challenging their might in...
Rakesh Kochhar Dr Soumya Swaminathan, a respected figure in the field of medical research in the country, had headed the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for over two years before she became a household name as the chief...
Aradhika Sharma IF the Indian village perishes, India will too.” These words by Mahatma Gandhi hold great significance. As per the 2011 census, India has 6,49,481 villages, with 70 per cent of the country’s population residing in them. Villages are...
Vivek Katju Nayanima Basu’s ‘The Fall of Kabul: Despatches From Chaos’ falls into two distinct categories. The first is an engrossing account of the collapse of the Afghan Republic and the takeover of the country by the Taliban, signalled by...
Ways of Being IndianEdited by Manoj Kumar Jena.Speaking Tiger. Pages 313. Rs 499 This compilation of essays is a festschrift for Prof Renuka Singh, who retired from the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The writings discuss different...
Shane Watson played more than 300 matches for Australia. There came a time when it was becoming hard to get runs. A chance meeting with a racing driver led to Watson discovering mental skills guru Dr Jacques Dallaire and that...
Rekha Chowdhary This is the third and final part of the trilogy on the modern history of Jammu and Kashmir by Harbans Singh. The first volume sought to give an alternative interpretation of the times of Maharaja Hari Singh, presenting...
In the autumn of 2018, a wave of arrests of intellectuals, authors and activists sent the country into a tizzy. Eighteen of them had been arrested for inciting violence at the 200th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon...
Manisha Gangahar Only a few people were aware that mere walking could be one’s calling till Bill Bryson published his bestseller, ‘A Walk in the Woods’; even today, many continue to wonder ‘why’ and ‘how’. But then, achievers and champions...
Debashish Mukerji Unlike many western countries, or even some non-western ones such as China or Morocco — think Hieun Tsang or Ibn Batuta — India has no tradition of travel writing. We learnt it only in the 19th century, from...
Sandeep Dikshit Prof SD Muni wears his erudition lightly, making it hard for someone with passing acquaintance with his scholarship to fathom the depth of his understanding about all important turning points in India’s relations with Nepal, Bhutan, Sri...
Nonika Singh Shankar Mahadevan is a musical genius — in a way, the opening line of the ‘Foreword’ written by celebrated lyricist Javed Akhtar sets the tone. Not that those who have been following the musical graph of this...
Salil Misra Lala Lajpat Rai, the doyen of India’s freedom struggle, had many lives. One was his actual lived life which ended tragically in 1928, when he was struck down by a lathi blow of a policeman, while protesting...
In the midst of the viral rampage and global devastation and lockdown in 2020, the Book Review Literary Trust announced a short story competition. More than 50 entries were received from across India. This volume presents the best 19 stories....
Aunindyo Chakravarty Subimal Misra is difficult to read. But he can be addictive. Like the first time you smoke to be cool, and then cough, and feel sick. It has been a year since Misra died. This collection of ‘anti-stories’...
Simmi Waraich When Jean Twenge wrote her book ‘iGen’ on the current generation of kids who have grown up literally hooked to smartphones, she panned the ubiquitous technology for deleterious effects on the mental health of youth. Her book received...
Vivek Katju Shastri Ramachandaran’s ‘Beyond Binaries: The World of India and China’ is a compilation of his writings from 2008 to 2022 on China and India-China relations. He has done stints as a journalist with the Chinese state-owned media between...
The Solitude of a Shadowby Devibharathi. Translated from Tamil by A Kalyan Raman. HarperCollins. Pages 201. Rs 399 This is a story about revenge, and how treacherous and illusory the hunger for revenge can become with unavoidable tragic consequences. The...
R Umamaheshwari Padma Shri awardee Romulus Whitaker is much celebrated, documented and awarded, but much of his hitherto unknown human side comes alive unapologetically in the book (co-authored with his wife, Janaki Lenin) ‘Snakes, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll’....