Monsieur fascinates, is full of many interesting possibilities, yet does not quite succeed. Durrell, sadly, does not develop more fully the many curious, inter-linked themes that he interjects along the tortuous way of this novel within a novel. In fact, one often gets the feeling that Durrell himself—-like most of his characters—was never quite sure what shape this novel would take and literally improvised as he went along.
It is not a ‘scholarly’ book. It is not a ‘profound’ book. But it is a book which makes you want to meet the writer and talk to him. It has a pleasant, straight-from-the-shoulder manner, and the rat-tat-tat of the sentences, without nagging you, holds your interest. What is more, the down-to-earth locales which are the several contexts to the problems discussed, along with the accompanying individual names (fanciful coinages, I am sure), invests every little essay with pragmatic value.
1975
It is the usual impression that oriental knowledge essentially consists of speculation concerning the ultimate nature of things beyond what is available by pure observation. The elucidations of these problems are entirely philosophical in nature and concern the Supreme Brahman as the ultimate goal for the purpose of knowing what we are. At least, this is what an ordinary student, whether he be trained in Indian philosophy or not, is led to believe.
2015
Jella, a Jellopus, is the rightful ruler of Zypher but the evil Chiro has taken over Zypher. Jella goes on an interesting journey to win her kingdom back. Jella and a scientist called Marina somehow join bodies to become Merjella. Jella with her friends Qwerty and Bingo go to the surface and interact with humans. They meet a person called Ryan Catchmore who catches fish and finds other ways of catching fish.
It takes just spilt second for things to go from good to awful or from awful to good’ The line captures it all. The book by Rupa Gulab is about deeper realities, fraught with memories and emotions. But a beautiful lesson it tries to give ‘amidst all the chaos lay a placid calm’. Anu’s life is all chaotic, as the book says her life sucks! A teenager’s mid life crisis when one is worried about body image, boyfriend issues and yes, academics! Anu’s story starts from the school where she is in detention (as always!) and ends with a sweet note where she finally embraces reality. Anu is a cry baby. She wants attention! The story revolves around her frustrations towards her teachers, crushes and most importantly her sister: Diya. Diya is better, smarter and attractive. She is always the one to get appreciated and loved.
Just as earthly time stops when the characters unfurl their journey across the magical land of Catriona, so does the reader’s sense of time as one rapidly navigates one’s way through the silvery forest of ivory trees, mysterious caves with mythical gods, through lakes containing lotus embedded with emeralds and through a landscape lighting up with a multitude of characters. It’s a place ‘where one grows faster and lives longer’. It’s a place where earthy metaphors are conjured but the limits of their earthy meanings are challenges. The story centers around two young women Sara and Cristina, two young women.
2016
The other book being reviewed is very different in its genre and appeal: no endearing canine warms the pages of this dark thriller. Indeed, the very cover of Lucy Whitehouse’s Keep You Close has a burning matchstick that might as well be a metaphor for the reading experience on offer: incandescent, thrilling, terrifying. Those readers who liked Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl will definitely enjoy this well-crafted whodunit. Marianne Glass, an artist, falls to her death from the upstairs window of the family home in Oxford, in what is assumed to be a tragic accident. Her estranged friend, Rowan Winter, is not convinced, though, knowing very well that Marianne has always had acute vertigo, and would never have gone so close to the roof’s edge.
If you know a dog-person, or a human owned entirely by dogs, this is a book you want to share with them straight away. While I was reading Jonathan Unleashed by the luminously witty Meg Rosoff, that peerless writer about children, young folk and dogs, I was casting sidelong glances at my sons, hoping that by some magic, they’d transform into dogs, just for a week or so. Just for a bit, I should love to be in the company of canines like the super-intelligent ‘city’ collie Dante and the sweet-natured spaniel Sissy who light up this book with the ‘Byzantine quality of their inner lives’.
We meet our hero Subroto Bandhopadhyay, Stoob to you and I, on a holiday in Thailand with his friend Ishani and their families. While we expect the sun, sand and surf to keep the twelve-year-old occupied, it isn’t turning out to be as relaxing as Stoob would like—he has an embarrassing story to narrate, an incident, which involves a girl, Mala Kapoor. Stoob is turning out to be a fun and engaging series. Stoob, Ishani and Rehan are such well chalked out characters, with lots in common, yet plenty to set apart one from another. Rehan is your typical nerd who googles everything and seems to know way lot more than what everyone else around does.
The stories in Gumrah come from a TV show of the same name hosted by Channel V, owned by Star India. The foreword by Chetan Bhagat seeks to provide a context for the narratives. It also outlines the purpose of the book, which is to warn of the dangers of the teenage years, and therefore the importance of being aware and responsible. The first story, ‘Soulmate’, is the narrative of sibling rivalry turned tragic. A case of unrequited teenage love, insecurity at home and in school, and subconscious resentment of a younger sibling, lead a girl to murder her younger sister in a fit of rage.
2016
Have you ever had a dream that’s left you amazed, baffled, terrified, elated, confused, sweating, or feeling any other adjective in abundance?! The dream world is a truly happening place. Funny dreams, weird dreams, scary dreams, lucid dreams, sad dreams, lonely dreams, sometimes even lifechanging dreams. If you’ve ever had the experience of waking up from an incredibly vivid dream, or one that is only hazily etched in memory, you know partly what this book is about! Shobha—the epicenter of Sandhya Rao’s Dream Writer—is a dreamy girl. She sees many dreams, but…
There are few things as mysterious as the idea of Fate. In his collection of short stories, The Line Reader, Agni Tripathi appears to pay tribute to this idea. The stories are steeped in irony and present characters from different walks of life and their unique relationship with fate— we have those who try to predict it, those who could have prevented it, and those who couldn’t. They bring us a series of ‘what if ’s and ‘if only’s. The stories bring forth the idea of unpredictability by introducing unexpected endings.
What better way to impart an environmental mes sage to children but not sound too preachy than by recounting an imaginative tale of an alien visiting Earth in search of a magical substance to save his own planet! Jamuna Rangachari creatively weaves a story around a dark cloud endangering Planet Zylake to awaken the conscience of readers to the environmental dangers faced by Earth. She is an author of children’s books and a software professional who espouses positive values, spirituality and holistic living and is associated with the Life Positive magazine, a part of the Life Positive Foundation that focuses on promoting and disseminating holistic information, techniques and wisdom to the general public.
The Stranger And Other Curious Stories is a collection of short stories by AWIC for young children. The 14 stories all deal with very unusual unexplainable happenings which children will find very interesting, captivating and will certainly tickle their imagination. The stories deal with a wide range of episodes—meeting interesting strangers on a hillside during a holiday, acquiring a secret friend while in hospital, befriending a ferocious dog who otherwise hated strangers—all dealing with differing nature of experiences and happenings, but all very gripping. The stories, besides being interesting, are descriptive and informative.
Rumer and Jon Godden were prolific writers, especially the former. The sisters spent their childhood and then a few years of their adult lives in India, even remaining in the country after Independence. Indian Dust Stories, a collection of short stories, a Ruskin Bond collection, features two poems and thirteen short stories. The two poems are by Rumer Godden, while three of the short stories are by Jon Godden and the rest by Rumer Godden. The poems talk about the harsh reality of life even if it is in the midst of what may seem as great beauty to the eye—the river in Bengal and the winter in Kashmir.
Asking somebody who picked up the first Harry Potter book when he was 11—the age Harry himself was when his world was turned upside down with the revelation that he was a wizard—to review the final instalment of JK Rowling’s hugely successful series is quite a gamble. As I type this, it is only my consideration for you, dear reader, that is holding me back from GOING ALL CAPS and screaming my praise for Harry Potter And The Cursed Child to the high heavens. But that would be me as a fan. Let me try it as just a reader. Cursed Child is different from all the previous Harry Potter books for several reasons. The most obvious, of course, is the format. This is not a book. It is the script for a play. The fact is obvious from the get go, with the book starting with italicized stage directions.
Sulajhti Kadiyaan is a collection of four novellas in Hindi. All the novels are for young teenagers and deal with the protagonists solving a mystery in each story. It reminds me of the Hardy Boys series in English, though these are not about the same boys, as the authors are different and the locales in which the stories are set are also different. What is worth mentioning about these four books is that, in each story history has been woven in deftly, so that the reader gets a flavour of the local history, without it reading like a boring history lesson. There is just the right mix of information and imagination in each novel to hold the readers’ interest.
2016
A breath of fresh air in the stale world of Indian detective fiction, this book is the third of the Reema Ray Mystery series, the first two being The Masala Murder and Dead in a Mumbai Minute. Titanium is a top security agency of India, founded by young Shayak Gupta. Reema Ray is one of its employees. She is tall, young, attractive, and also in love with Shayak who has earlier turned her down. The love angle is an essential part of the narrative, making Reema take all sorts of risks in tracking down a conspirator defaming Titanium and its founder. Reema shaves off her head and, with colleague Terrence, goes undercover to the ashram of guru George Santos.
The fascination with Sherlock Holmes has endured across time and generations. Fans cannot have enough of this great fictional detective and his associate, John Watson. More recently, their adventures have been adapted and recreated for television and cinema, sometimes with a very modern upgrade. Every spin-off has worked remarkably well, a testimony to the genius of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original creation. So it is that Holmes has been dragged into even more adventures, four of which have been penned by the authors of The Sherlock Holmes Connection, created specially for the reading pleasure of teens. The adventures in this book are set in two countries, India and Sweden, and span a period of over a century. Martin Widmark’s story is set in Stockholm towards the end of the First World War.
The book traces the history of education in Pakistan with par-ticular reference to policy documents from the time of the creation of the country in 1947, to the most recent educational policy in 2009. Although the focus is on educational policies, these have been understood within the specific historical and political context of the country. Using his experience and expertise in the area of educational administration in Pakistan, the author has discussed extensively educational policies and critically analysed them with his vision of universal access to education across Pakistan. In tracing the recommendations of various committees and commissions, Siddiqui has presented a historical backdrop of education in Pakistan since the time of Independence to contemporary times.