I Do What I Do
Raghuram G. Rajan
Raghuram Rajan’s book I Do What I Do is a collection of talks, lectures and papers, some of which have been in the public domain for a while. Between these articles, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India covers much territory.
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
David Lagercrantz
In 2015, armed with the stamp of approval from the estate of Stieg Larsson, the late author of the Millennium trilogy, a fourth book was released to continue the series. The Larsson family chose journalist and writer David Lagercrantz for The Girl in the Spider’s Web , spinning a new story around Larsson’s quirky creation, Lisbeth Salander, genius hacker with a troubled past who seeks justice, often by violent means, for herself and others.
Two years on, a fifth book is here, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye , which is already on the New York Times bestseller list. Read more
The Lovers
Amitava Kumar
The novel gets under your skin with remarkable ease in spite of having a narrator who is a bit of a twit
Kailash Biswas, the narrator-hero with his unremarkable name, is also known as Kalashnikov; and wouldn’t ya know it, when he gets to New York on a prestigious placement in academia, it’s shortened to AK-47 or even 47 or sometimes simply AK.
Read the review here .
Hinduising Democracy: The Vishva Hindu Parishad in Contemporary India
Manjari Katju
Pull and push: The VHP works in two ways, as the will of the ‘marginalised’ Hindus, and also as the voice of the dominant Hindu majority.
In Hinduising Democracy: The Vishva Hindu Parishad in Contemporary India , Manjari Katju, a professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad, tries to answer this question by breaking it down into smaller, sharper ones: What is the VHP’s understanding of democracy? What is its idea of freedom? What is its vision of citizenship? And what kind of influence does it wield over Indian politics and social life?
Bombay Fever
Sidin Vadukut
Hormazd Patel, a freelance journalist from India, is visiting a Swiss luxury watch expo in Geneva where he loses his iPad. It is returned to him by an immigrant cleaning lady, Sri Lankan-born Kanimozhi Balasingham, who is suffering from an irritating cough. While they chat amicably, her cough intensifies and she suddenly explodes in a gory mess, her body completely disintegrating in a fountain of blood before the journalist’s eyes. He runs away in shock.
A well-researched work, but where is the suspense?
Durand’s Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart
Rajiv Dogra
The Pashtun population falls like an overwhelming shadow over the map of present day Pakistan and Afghanistan, that shaped these two countries and the rest of modern South Asia. The homeland of the enterprising and brave Pashtuns, from the borders of the Punjab to parts of Balochistan and south-southeastern Afghanistan, is divided by the powerful destiny-shaping Durand line.
The Mahabharata Murders
Arnab Ray
The phrase ‘show, don’t tell’, does not seem to mean much to Arnab Ray, if his thriller, The Mahabharata Murders, is anything to go by. Ray is bent on enlightening the reader about his protagonists’ every little reaction and response, so much so that the reader is hardly given a chance to exercise her imagination.
Read the full review here .
Granta 140: State of Mind
Is there a way to map internal human weather? Turbulent or calm, sunny or rainy, hot or cold? Literary magazine Granta probes into the ‘state of mind’ in its summer edition, number 140, but can this fluid, shifting, moody inner space be defined or understood? As publisher and editor Sigrid Rausing writes in her introduction: “What’s in a state of mind? How do we describe emotions, or the complex relationship between individuals and the state?...”
Read the review here .
