A weekly column on what celebrities are reading and planning to read. This week it is carnatic vocalist C.R. Kesavan and Shashi Deshpande. In this week's column, C.R.Kesavan writes about The Collected What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been by Robert Cowley while Shashi Deshpande writes about Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson and Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement .
C.R. Kesavan
I am reading The Collected What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been by Robert Cowley. Historians and philosophers alike have pondered the crucial turning points that have altered the course of world history. In this book some of the most respected minds of our time ask the question, ‘What If?’
Before this, I read Red herrings & White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Everyday by Albert Jack. It is an engaging read, giving one phenomenal insights into the provenance of simple words and phrases that are so ubiquitous. I never knew that a white elephant was given as a purported gift by the royals of Siam to the people they disliked, so that these people would incur a huge expense on maintaining the gift — and hence the name! Next I plan to read Confucius: And The World He Created by Michael Schuman.
C.R. Kesavan is spokesperson of the Congress
Shashi Deshpande
I am reading two books right now: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson and Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement . Out Stealing is quite good, I am enjoying it. Amy Tan’s book is superficial. In fact, it’s quite terrible; I just want to finish it. I read one book at a go if it absorbs me completely, else I can read more than one at a time. I read print during the day; at night, I read from my Kindle. Next I will read whatever comes to my hand. I'll browse through my Kindle and see what it throws up.
Shashi Deshpande is a novelist.
