Book Reviews

The author paints a canvas of post-Independence Delhi by tracing the everyday life of a large Punjabi family

Eschewing the usual biographical guardrails of timelines, author Rachna Singh narrates the conversations she had with the photographer and her observations and ruminations in 10 chapters

The book ends up throwing punches at the ‘moral’ Indian middle class

The book also maps the history of alternative cinema and theatre in India

Artworks produced at Nalanda had features of both Mathura and Sarnath with some local touch, Abhay K writes in ‘Nalanda: How It Changed the World’

‘The Elephant Book’ by Sowmya Rajendran is a captivating exploration of the profound relationship between humans and elephants

‘Thorns and Roses’ commands compulsive reading

Gyan Chaturvedi’s mastery over absurd situations sets the tone — where was the govt when the Bazaar was taking over everything?

‘The Grudges of Gajanan Godbole’ by Salil Desai is an unusual book which blends crime and comedy with apparent ease

‘The Story of Eve: Selected Poems’ is the first-ever collection of Zehra Nigah’s poems in English in a book form

Satya Mohanty objectively dissects the GST structure, banking and MSMEs, and state finances, to predict that far from being an Asian Tiger, the economy could be heading for a sustained slowdown

Coming after a gap of 16 years, Jeet Thayil’s new poetry book, ‘I’ll Have It Here’, is like looking into an abyss that sniggers back, shakes your conscience and asks uncomfortable questions

The author makes a case for reclaiming the cultural, religious and medicinal heritage of cannabis as our own, before it is expropriated by other countries

Mahatma Gandhi felt that if the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy hand. As we commemorate his 76th death anniversary this month, here is revisiting what he wrote in ‘Hind Swaraj’

The book explores several important aspects of understanding natural and social phenomena and the decision-making process of the brain, where principles of physics developed in very different contexts can be gainfully used

The poet, editor, journalist and anthologist Manohar Shetty returns this time with a book of short stories. ‘Mr Secondhand and Other Stories’ is a vibrant canvas of Goan life, with patches of Bombay, and reminiscent of RK Narayan’s Malgudi. Shetty’s...

Debdas Banerjee’s book ‘India’s Education Paradox: National Policies and Regional Insights’ critiques the state of education in view of the regional imbalances and the intent of national educational policies

Story of an extraordinary woman from Bombay who acquired the courage to defy the tyranny of Hindu orthodoxy, went to England, came back as a ‘rebel-doctor’, and dedicated her life to the service of people

The book highlights the patient’s fear of death and the caregiver’s anticipation of loss

Silence and slowness are two such familiar measures which Gopal Lahiri as a poet often re-lapses into to offer new unheralded spectral possibilities of space and sound