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

‘India and the Pandemic: The First Year’ review: A deadly pathogen and the difficult path to recovery

Expert minds from a diversity of fields weigh in on India’s COVID-19 story, and list the saving graces and the cracks in the system

‘B.R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Justice’ review: Scholar of global relevance

A five-volume study reappraises B.R. Ambedkar’s search for justice, his work on drawing up the Constitution, and his four-decade-long fight against caste

The begum and her beast: Anil Menon reviews ‘The Begum and the Dastan’ by Tarana Husain Khan

Cavils apart, this is an immersive novel, remarkable for the thoroughly Muslim world it creates

By the sweat of their brows: Sudipta Datta reviews ‘The Sickle’ by Anita Agnihotri, trs Arunava Sinha

Delving into social evils, Anita Agnihotri peels them off, layer by layer

In search of certainties: Review of ‘The Town Slowly Empties: On Life and Culture during Lockdown’ by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

A compelling examination of the self and the nation under lockdown

‘Polio: The Eradication Imbroglio: The Malady and its Remedy’ review: Shifting goalposts and the worldwide battle against polio

Two doctors on the fight to eradicate a deadly virus, the controversy around the vaccination platform and the crisis the programme faces

‘The Tale of the Horse: A History of India on Horseback’ review: Reimagining the horse and its unique place in Indian history

A writer explains the role of a fascinating animal in making communities, economies, identities, sport, and in challenging gender stereotypes

We are the hashtag gen: Percy Bharucha reviews ‘No One Is Talking About This’ by Patricia Lockwood

This Women’s Prize longlisted novel is fragmented, incisive, and designed to go viral

‘The Orders Were to Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle’ review: Surviving war

Meena Kandasamy records the gruesome first-person experiences of two women of the Tamil Eelam struggle

‘The Population Myth’ review: Not a ‘demographic’ battle

With logic, and data from unimpeachable sources, former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi’s book debunks the myth around exaggerated fears of Indian Muslim numbers

‘The Code Breaker’ review: The quest to rewrite DNA

Walter Isaacson profiles Chemistry Nobel winner Jennifer Doudna and other scientists for their revolutionary gene-editing tool, also taking into its sweep the ethical implications of the work

‘Till We Win: India’s Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic’ review: How to fight a terror virus

Health experts on India’s COVID-19 battle and lessons for the future

‘Listen to My Case! When Women Approach the Courts of Tamil Nadu’ review: Stories about women who fought against the system in court

From police excesses to the right to practise religion, Justice Chandru narrates 20 cases from law journals of the Tamil Nadu judiciary

Black earth and broken dreams: Review of ‘Along with the Sun: Stories from Tamil Nadu’s Black Soil Region’

The translation brings to English the rich voices of Tamil Nadu’s karisal country

‘India’s Power Elite: Class, Caste and a Cultural Revolution’ review: The dismantling of the old order and the birth of a new elite

Sanjaya Baru captures the churn brought about by the 2014 general election, the rise of the BJP and its impact on the social and cultural landscape

The man without a badge: Geeta Doctor reviews ‘The Unmarriageable Man’ by Ashok Ferrey

We are all immigrants at some point or the other, says this story of post-colonial turmoil

Detective Ghalib investigates: Ranjana Sengupta reviews ‘Murder at the Mushaira’ by Raza Mir

The book is filled with period detail, with the sights, sounds and smells of Shahjahanabad spilling out of every page of this historical thriller

Enemy of modernity: Gandhi’s ‘Hind Swaraj’

The early work Hind Swaraj contains some of Gandhi’s more eccentric thoughts

‘Unfinished’ by Priyanka Chopra Jonas on Audible: intrigue, tears and giggles on tap

While the written book ‘Unfinished’ entails much of Chopra Jonas’ career and personal successes, the audiobook experience adds an intimate layer of personability that does draw empathy.

‘Under a White Sky’ review: Marching towards extinction

Critical of technological interventions to bring nature back, an environment writer says human actions have brought ecosystems to the brink of an apocalypse

‘The Great Unravelling: India after 2014’ review: Rahul Gandhi and the loneliness of the long-distance runner

A former Congress spokesperson elaborates on the lack of an internal forum in the party to discuss leadership and other issues

‘The Inheritance of Words: Writings from Arunachal Pradesh’ review: Fading voices

Women of Arunachal Pradesh provide a glimpse of their culture and traditions, past and present

Despite pins and needles: K. Srilata reviews ‘A Sky Full of Bucket Lists’ by Shobhana Kumar

The invisible is nudged into half-light in this collection of haibun

So far so fluent: Latha Anantharaman reviews ‘Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends’ by Maithreyi Karnoor

Begins with concrete clarity but ends in a blur

‘Undercover: My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva’ review: From Gujarat to Delhi, the impact of militant Hindu nationalism

A journalist gathers all his undercover investigations in the Gujarat riots case, which are now a part of court evidence, into this book

‘Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story’ review: Black, white and shades of grey

A journalist puts together an accessible portrait of Guru Dutt who fought inner demons to make extraordinary films

‘The Shudras: Vision for a New Path’ review: The paradoxical status of OBCs

This anthology brings the spotlight on challenges facing a people who form not only the majority of India’s population but also the majority among Hindus

‘Wild and Wilful’ review: Reading nature

Stories of India’s wildlife species highlight their vulnerable beauty and the trauma that people inflict on the environment

‘Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization’ review: Modern day journeys into the past

Namit Arora explores how Indians lived, ate, loved, built, fought and made sense of the material, rational and spiritual world down the ages

‘The Cracks That Let the Light In: What I Learned from my Disabled Son’ review: A mother’s journey to understand her son’s complex world

Jessica Moxham’s memoir is about parenting a special needs child in a society which doesn’t quite understand the language of disability

Rama of Adam’s family: Arshia Sattar reviews ‘Hikayat Seri Rama: The Malay Ramayana’, Translated by Harry Aveling

The Indian epic’s Malay version comfortably holds other religious and cultural traditions within itself

A reformer’s childhood: Review of ‘Shyamchi Aai’ by Sane Guruji, trs Shanta Gokhale

How does Sane Guruji’s Marathi classic, now available in a new translation by Shanta Gokhale, fare in today’s context?

In a city by the sea

A writer profiles Karachi’s everyday citizens, highlighting their fears and hopes

‘A Road Well Travelled’ review: Bofors to match-fixing, a police officer recounts life in service

R.K. Raghavan, who was in the thick of action in several cases of national interest, gives an insight into the workings of the force

‘By Many a Happy Accident: Recollections of a Life’ review: Reflections of a nationalist

In his autobiography, Hamid Ansari, Vice-President for two terms, brings to the fore the predicament of Indian Muslims, who still live in the shadow of Partition

‘Ghalib: A Wilderness at my Doorstep’: Fresh insight into Ghalib’s world

A biography of the Urdu poet and writer also signposts the literary culture of the age

‘Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India’ review: A ‘museum’ of forgotten stories from the borderlands

Travelling 9000 miles over seven years, Suchitra Vijayan tries to understand India through her boundaries with Bangladesh, China, Myanmar and Pakistan

‘Keywords for India: A Conceptual Lexicon for the 21st Century’ review: Constellation of words

Drawn from multiple languages, both native and imported, the 259 words in this volume provide a fascinating linguistic entry into contemporary India

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