Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Anjali Chandran, Authors, Book review, Fiction, Indian authors, Indian Fiction, Indian Novel, Indian Novels, Indian Writers, Indian writing in English, The River Has No Camera on June 16, 2009 | 5 Comments »
If one went by the title or the packaging, one could have easily missed this book. If you took a little trouble and pulled it off the shelf and read the blurb, you may take a chance. That’s what I did. Anjali Chandran launched this book in 2001 and I dont remember reading about it, [...]
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Posted in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Highly recommended, tagged Anu Jayanth, Authors, Book review, Books, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Fiction, Indian authors, Indian Fiction, Indian Novels, Indian Writers, Indian writing in English, Purple Hibiscus, The Finger Puppet on March 17, 2009 | 14 Comments »
Reading The Finger Puppet on the heels of Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, was very reassuring - all is not lost with Indian writing. Which brings me to my pet peeve - that authentic and deserving writers rarely get nominated for those awards. Shashi Deshpande’s In the Country of Deceit was the Indian nominee for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize recently and Siddharth Shangvi’s book has also been nominated for [...]
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Posted in Disappointing, tagged Book review, Books, Indian authors, Indian Fiction, Indian Novels, Indian Writers, Indian Writing, Indian writing in English, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, Review, Siddharth Dhanvanth Shanghvi, The Last Song of Dusk, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay on March 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
If the ’Last Song of Dusk’ was bizarre, this one is bizarre too; less but bizarre all the same. Siddarth hid behind the facade of magic realism in his last book, this one however exposes him. ‘The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay’ is disappointing and does not stand up to all the hype created by the spin doctors. Even the [...]
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Posted in Best sellers, Recommended, tagged Amitav Ghosh, Aravind Adiga, Arundhati Roy, Book review, Indian authors, Indian writing in English, Jonathan Livinsgston Seagull, Kiran Desai, Richard Bach, Salman Rushdie, Sea of Poppies, Spencer Johnson, The White Tiger, Who Moved My Cheese on October 27, 2008 | 35 Comments »
The whole world is talking about Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize but I got to read it only now. The write-ups before the Booker were uninspiring and I stayed away. Come to think of it, I think only Arundhati Roy deserved her Booker, Kiran Desai’s book was lame and Rushdie’s book convoluted. The White Tiger [...]
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Posted in Recommended, tagged Anglo Indians, Bangalore, Book review, Brinda Charry, Indian authors, Indian Novels, Indian writing in English, Life in Bangalore, Naked in the Wind, Nostalgia on September 7, 2008 | 6 Comments »
It almost seems eerie that I read this book given the recent religious strife in Orissa. It also received the Golden Quill Awards this year. An interesting book, I liked it. Scout’s honour, I was definitely not intrigued by the fact that as a boy I stayed on Campbell Road. It had nothing to do with my [...]
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Posted in Disappointing, tagged Abha Dawesar, Babyji, Book review, Books, Indian authors, Indian Writers, Indian writing in English, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, You Are Here on September 4, 2008 | 40 Comments »
She was on ‘We the People’ a while ago, awkwardly warding questions about how much of her blog is fact and how much was fiction. Meenakshi also talked about how the popularity of her blog resulted in her being approached by publishers to write a book. Ever since I was intrigued about her book and was looking [...]
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Posted in Disappointing, tagged Book review, Books, Fiction, Indian authors, Indian Fiction, Indian Novels, Indian Writing, Indian writing in English, Novels, Timeri N Murari on August 13, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Timeri N Murari is a name that you will see tucked away among the likes of Rohinton Mistry, Anita Desai, Anita Nair, etc in the Indian Fiction section of libraries and book shops. I had never tried reading Murari before and if this book is any reflection of his skill I won’t be reading anymore.
The novel is based on the [...]
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Posted in Disappointing, tagged Anna K Chacko, Book review, Books, Chitra Divakaruni, Fiction, Hyderabad, Indian authors, Indian writing in English, Kerala, Malayalis, Mistress of Spices, Syrian Christians on August 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am thoroughly confused about this book, I searched the book for clues, I trawled the Internet and yet I am not sure - some say this book is a memoir, some say fictionalised autobiography and some others say it is a novel. And what exactly is a fictionalised autobiography? It can only be one of the two – fiction [...]
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Posted in Highly recommended, tagged Book review, Books, Chandani Lokuge, Fiction, Indian Writing in, Novel, Pakistani Authors, Pakistani Fiction, Pakistani Novel, Review, Romesh Gunesekera, Saadat Hasan Manto, Shandana Minhas, Taslima Nasreen, The Match, Tunnel Vision, Turtle Nest on July 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I have started to widen my reading just to keep myself aware of what is else is out there. I looked at books coming out of our neighbours including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. I read ‘Shodh’ by Taslima, ‘The Match’ by Romesh Gunesekera and ‘Turtle Nest’ by Chandani Lokuge. Amidst all the clamour about Taslima and her being bundled [...]
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Posted in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Recommended, tagged African Literature, Book review, Books, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Fiction, Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus, The God of Small Things, Writings on July 21, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The Evening Standard said the ‘Purple Hibiscus’ is as revealing as Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’, which I did not really believe. To my amusement I found that the likeness grew stronger as the novel progressed. There are so many striking similarities that at times you wonder if Chimamanda had read Ms. Roy’s book. The sibling attachment, the abusive fathers – [...]
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