Reviews of Fiction and Non-Fiction Books by The Hindu seo.section.displayname=Book Reviews - The Hindu

Challenging: A scene from ‘Reality’, a theatrical adaptation of five monologues.

Difficult dramas: Arshia Sattar reviews Manjula Padmanabhan’s ‘Blood and Laughter’ & ‘Laughter and Blood’

Arshia Sattar These two volumes of plays and performance pieces are testimony to Manjula Padmanabhan’s power as dramatist. Her commentaries on each piece are an added takeaway

‘This Is What America Looks Like’ review: A rare political memoir that does not read like public relations

Aditya Mani Jha The working class of America may need someone like Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to fight strongly on its behalf

‘My Son’s Inheritance’ review: A culture of violence

Suparna Banerjee In a disturbing inquiry into the history of lynching, Aparna Vaidik finds an intolerant past and explains why it is up to the people to change this legacy

environment ‘Every Creature Has a Story: What Science Reveals about Animal Behaviour’ review: Beastly tales

From rats to bees, elephants to spiders, Janaki Lenin on discoveries in the wild

Noir The power and the glory: Review of Benyamin’s ‘Body and Blood’

Benyamin’s latest novel promises big but fails to deliver

Disturbing glimpse The former national security adviser critiques both Trump and himself. John Bolton with President Trump in 2018.

‘The Room Where It Happened’ review: The insider who didn’t testify

Narayan Lakshman The substance of this tell-all book could have changed the course of the impeachment inquiry against Trump but former National Security Adviser John Bolton refused to participate in it

‘Bad Money: Inside the NPA Mess and How it Threatens the Indian Banking System’ review: A hundred cuts

Rohit Chandra How did Indian banking get saddled with massive non-performing assets?

‘Asia’s Trouble Spots: The Leadership Question in Conflict Resolution’ review: The missing art of successful negotiations

Arvind Sivaramakrishnan In an increasingly disorderly world, do leaders in Asia lack political commitment to peace and a willingness to embrace compromise?

Flames: A scene from the upcoming BBC adaptation.

Reprise ‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth

Social Comedy Books

Social Comedy Lucy in the sky with bananas: Kevin Kwan’s ‘Sex and Vanity’ reviewed by Geeta Doctor

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profile Reviews

‘This Is What America Looks Like’ review: A rare political memoir that does not read like public relations

environment Reviews

‘Every Creature Has a Story: What Science Reveals about Animal Behaviour’ review: Beastly tales

society Reviews

‘My Son’s Inheritance’ review: A culture of violence

Difficult dramas: Arshia Sattar reviews Manjula Padmanabhan’s ‘Blood and Laughter’ & ‘Laughter and Blood’

politics Reviews

‘The Room Where It Happened’ review: The insider who didn’t testify

ECONOMY Reviews

‘Bad Money: Inside the NPA Mess and How it Threatens the Indian Banking System’ review: A hundred cuts

‘Asia’s Trouble Spots: The Leadership Question in Conflict Resolution’ review: The missing art of successful negotiations

In an increasingly disorderly world, do leaders in Asia lack political commitment to peace and a willingness to embrace compromise?

The power and the glory: Review of Benyamin’s ‘Body and Blood’

Benyamin’s latest novel promises big but fails to deliver

‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth

When poet and writer Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy was first published in 1993, with a gorgeous Varanasi silk sari on the cover and gossamer pages, the

‘The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today’ review: The past spells the future

A political scientist explores the transition from early to modern democracy and points out that it is an experiment whose transformation is ongoing amid a fresh wave of technological progress

‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’ review: The goodness of being

A historian argues that even in tough situations, the decent side of humanity shows up

‘Love, Loss, and Longing in Kashmir’ review: Armed conflict and the bitter inheritance of trauma

Spiralling violence in Kashmir through the years has left deep psychological scars among the State’s people

A game in black and white: Review of Nihshanka Debroy’s ‘Checkmate’

Nihshanka Debroy’s tedious debut novel is all tell and no show

Lucy in the sky with bananas: Kevin Kwan’s ‘Sex and Vanity’ reviewed by Geeta Doctor

Kevin Kwan’s latest romp is a snob’s guide to privilege and position that’s just the right antidote for these stressful times

Red is the cruellest colour: Review of ‘A Drop of Blood’ by Joginder Paul, trs Snehal Shingavi

Blood is an extended metaphor for class exploitation in this scathing satire

‘Half a Day for Caste? Education and Politics in Tamil Nadu, 1952–55’ review: The caste paradox and its echoes in modern education

A book on Tamil Nadu’s policies reflects on the period after Independence, the emergence of Dravidian politics, and elitism in schools

‘Dadding It! Landmark Moments in Your Life as a Father... and How to Survive Them’ review: Fathers and children

What role does a dad play and why is parenting a job for life?

‘Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums’ review: On the margins of the city

With state presence elusive, forms of local leadership inside urban slums take control over dispute resolution, organising residents for collective action

Sowcarpet chronicle: Review of Dilip Kumar’s ‘Cat in the Agraharam and Other Stories’

You don’t need to have Tamil roots to appreciate these delightful stories set mostly in an old Chennai neighbourhood

‘History Men’ review: Unearthing facts of history without bias or discrimination

By sharing an extraordinary fellowship, Jadunath Sarkar, G.S. Sardesai and Raghubir Sinh created a benchmark for scholarship in writing about the Mughals, Marathas and the Rajputs

‘A Fragmented Feminism: The Life and Letters of Anandibai Joshee’ review: A voice all her own

A life in letters of Anandibai Joshee, who struggled against all odds to become the first trained woman doctor from India and achieved much in a short span

‘Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times’ review: The politics of book reviewing

Exploring the ways in which critics evaluate reading despite the inherent subjectivity involved

‘Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation’ review: About a place called home

Exploring the idea of belonging, Annie Zaidi reflects on burning contemporary social issues like citizenship rights

‘The Paradox of Populism: The Indira Gandhi Years, 1966-1977’ review: Looking back at Emergency and a turning point in the Congress

A historian argues that during the Indira Gandhi years, the party witnessed a downfall of the hegemony it had maintained after the formation of the Indian republic

‘Capital and Ideology’ review: Inequality and redistribution

In his new book, Thomas Piketty explains why human societies have always been unequal and points out that the need of the hour is a politics of social justice

Girl, abandoned: Megha Majumdar’s ‘A Burning’ reviewed by Tabish Khair

Carefully sculpted, emotionally resonant, and replete with telling detail, A Burningis the calling card of a significant new voice. But there’s a tiny problem

‘The Caste of Merit’ review: A disconnect between engineering studies and the profession

Ajantha Subramanian argues that the idea to shift technical education from the shop floor to the classroom came from British planners

‘Roads to Nowhere’ review: On the highway called life

Essays on history, ecology, nature and other subjects reflect on ties between man and his surroundings

‘Music, Modernity, and Publicness in India’ review: Sound of music – The rest is noise

Ten articles traverse Carnatic and Hindustani classical, film, political and Kabir songs, and the business of early recorded tunes to explore a diverse landscape

Let there be chaos: Review of Jenny Offill’s ‘Weather’

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, this novel has a splintered style as a response to both domestic disorder and the crumbling anthropocentric world

‘Burmese Days’ by George Orwell

Before he debuted as a writer, Eric Arthur Blair changed his name to George Orwell. This duality informed his life forever, as did the reality that he

‘The RSS and the making of the Deep Nation’ review: The ambiguity of the RSS and its complex worldview

In its march towards building a ‘Hindu’ nation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh struggles with ideological incoherence on Muslims and caste

‘Akbar The Great Mughal: The Definitive Biography’ review: Light from many faiths

In Ira Mukhoty’s narrative, Emperor Akbar is an able reformer, the earliest advocate of inter-religion dialogue, and marked for greatness because of his quality of empathy

‘Into the Heart of the Himalayas’ review: Walking the mountains in silence

To cope with his grief, a writer undertakes a personal journey across 2,700 km of the Himalayas

Joey and the guardians of the data galaxy: Review of Samit Basu’s ‘Chosen Spirits’

’Chosen Spirits’, set in a Delhi 10 years from now, is torn out of today’s headlines and channels the anxieties that vex the Indian liberal intelligentsia

‘Capital and Ideology’ review: Plotting the trajectory of inequality

French economist Thomas Piketty studies inequality regimes in different continents and ages, raising more probing questions

‘Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations during the Cold War’ review: Growing together: the Eagle, the Elephant and the Dragon

The book explains why the key to a sustainable partnership between the U.S, India and China is to manage expectations of each other better than before

‘Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History’ review: On a ghostly trail

Why apparitions still haunt storytelling and films, beginning with Shakespeare and Hamlet

‘The Nepal Nexus: An Inside Account of the Maoists, the Durbar and New Delhi’ review: Chill in the neighbourhood

A journalist argues that the role of India in Nepal’s political transition from monarchy to constitutional democracy has affected relations between the two countries

Where women dare: Aruna Chakravarti’s Suralakshmi Villa reviewed by Bhaskar Ghose

Chakravarti paints two worlds at opposite ends of the social divide with equal ease

‘Memoirs of a Dalit Communist: The Many Worlds of R.B. More’ review: The revolutionary is dead, long live the revolutionary

Will the Left and the Dalit movements finally warm up to the work of R.B. More, who tirelessly fought against the caste system?

‘The Right to Education in India: The Importance of Enforceability of a Fundamental Right’ review: Education for all

Before pushing children back to the classroom, this could be a time to rejig the infrastructure

‘Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent’ review: Striking back at the Empire

Tracing the history of anti-colonial struggles around the world, the author explores how ‘insurgents’ in the colonies, from India to Jamaica, moulded dissent in Britain itself

Review | Johannes in his burrow: Reading Christine Leunens’ ‘Caging Skies’

Were the novel to be reduced to an elevator pitch, it would be: Anne Frank meets The Room. It’s a fascinating premise. Naturally, there’s a movie version

‘The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance’ review: Image and reality of a conflict

Rashid Khalidi writes a sharp and insightful history of the region, explaining how and why Palestinians continue to pose a stiff challenge to Israel’s growing ambitions

From the road

Explaining how places get their names in India and the forces at work to get them changed

‘Bans and Bar Girls: Performing Caste in Mumbai’s Dance Bars’ review: How moral panic devastated lives in Maharashtra

The ban on bar dancers took away their right to work and affected expenditure on food, education and healthcare

Chats with the sky: Review of ‘The Play of Dolls’ by Kunwar Narain, trs John Vater, Apurva Narain

Narain asks the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?

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This picture taken on August 4, 2020 shows a general view of destruction at the port of Lebanon's capital Beirut following a massive explosion there.

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Aftermath of a massive explosion is seen in in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, August 4, 2020. Massive explosions rocked downtown Beirut on Tuesday, flattening much of the port, damaging buildings and blowing out windows and doors as a giant mushroom cloud rose above the capital. Witnesses saw many people injured by flying glass and debris.

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