I did not read Ashok Bankers 'Ramayana'. I do not know why, however, I did not. Moreover, I prefer The Mahabharata over Ramayana, so maybe that is why. Having said that, when Harper Collins India sent me an installment of 'The Krishna Coriolis Series', I was only too glad to read and review it. The third installment in this series is called, 'Flute of Vrindavan' focuses on the infant Krishna...
03:06:19 PM Dec 15, 2011
A book about Indian men is not easy to write. We come with our own traits and mind sets and perceptions. men in general are difficult to gauge (just like women) and more so are Indian men, who are considered very unique. But obviously, have you met, 'The Average Indian Male'? He is the apple of his mothers eye, thinks no end of himself, wants to dominate the world and...
12:13:37 PM Dec 15, 2011
Arthur Conan Doyle could kill Sherlock Holmes neither in his lifetime, nor after his death. Many writers " including Conan Doyles son Adrian " have resurrected the detective and his trusty assistant Dr Watson, either as protagonists or as peripheral characters. But it really needed Anthony Horowitzs The House of Silk to make the duo come alive in the darkest greys of London in the late 19th Century. Horowitz, who...
04:09:01 PM Dec 13, 2011
Those who personally know Vinod Mehta, editor extraordinaire, are aware of his penchant for expletives. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that he sets the tone for linguistic candour as early as page 2 of his memoirs, titled Lucknow Boy in a tip of the hat to the origins of a journalist whom readers associate closely with either Mumbai or Delhi, depending on which generation they belong to. As expected...
06:27:03 PM Dec 08, 2011
Here's a three-time former Pakistani minister trying to help Indian readers better understand his country. The intent is laudable, but the book meanders through too many reasons to justify why Pakistan is Pakistan. Launched by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani earlier this year, it says in a specially written preface for India that this is "a small step towards getting to know each other a bit better". The author...
03:45:19 PM Dec 06, 2011
I couldn't decide if I wanted to read this book or not, and then it landed in my lap, and that seemed pretty decisive, right there. The fates were looking up. It had been a drab and dreary sort of month, after all. What better way to transition out of that?! And yet, the stakes were high. After all, 'Pride and Prejudice' is one book that I read pretty much...
02:15:42 PM Dec 05, 2011
'Instant City' chronicles the life of Karachi - of a city in Pakistan that seems to be the only metropolis and yet the dichotomy lies in it being so backward at times, that even its people fail to recognize it. Karachi has been transformed a lot since the India-Pakistan partition and in many ways that most people fail to see. Steve Inskeep brilliantly writes and captures the essence of the...
05:07:34 PM Nov 30, 2011
New Delhi: Rafa My Story, the biography by John Carlin of one of the greatest players in the history of professional tennis, is a true lesson of the benefits that can be derived, if the will to dig deep and get the best out of oneself is taken to the ultimate limit. It provides an amazing account as to how the Spanish bull, Rafael Nadal portrayed as a phenomenon on...
06:37:16 PM Nov 24, 2011
In 254 crisp and scholarly pages (including a rich bibliography), this may well be the ultimate work on Indian Leftists covering a tumultuous period - from when Lenin seized power in Russia in 1917 to when India gained freedom in 1947. These were the decades when Indian Communists could have made all the difference to Indian history; instead they failed, and miserably at that. It was in the 1920s that...
07:52:33 PM Nov 23, 2011
This is a book unlike any other, a fictional cocktail of economics and ethics, religion and spirituality, success and failure. Authors Durgadoss and Raju, with decades of exposure to business and industry, use timeless wisdom from ancient India to weave a great story. Harvard-educated Arjun is once rated one of the most successful CEOs in the world of banking business. In the race to be a billionaire, he embraces a...
11:32:06 AM Nov 19, 2011
When Mark Tully co-authored his first book on India, I'm told he was tempted to sign off after every 200 words. Not because he did not have enough to say, but electronic media drills into you the idea of economy of words. And it's not such a handicap when the subject you choose is a humongous country of over a billion people. Mark Tully has skillfully told the story of...
06:12:53 PM Nov 17, 2011
The 'Sly Company of People Who Care' is a book that lives up to its evocative title. Published earlier this year, it's recently won The Hindu Prize for best fiction. A disclaimer at the start -- I've known Rahul Bhattacharya for a few years, meeting him after his first book 'Pundits from Pakistan' was published. But there's a difference between knowing someone socially, and knowing them through their writing, and...
06:09:30 PM Nov 16, 2011
How often is a cricket team described as the sum of its parts? The power of the collective over-rides that of the individual. It is an enduring cliche that Aakash Chopra bravely turns on its head in his second book Out of the Blue. While writing about Rajasthan's incredible run to their first ever Ranji Trophy title in the season of 2010-11, Aakash paints a vivid picture of the many...
09:11:07 AM Nov 15, 2011
New York: A personal assistant-turned-personal manager to Michael Jackson said the King of Pop had been taking propofol as early as 1999, and that the singer was drugged up ahead of his 2001 30th anniversary concerts. Frank Cascio, who became a family friend to Jackson at age 5 and eventually one of the singer's closest friends and employees, writes in a new book that he first noticed Jackson taking the...
11:32:30 AM Nov 14, 2011