Tara Westover’s memoir starts with her life in the hills of Idaho in America until she turned 17 and left home for an access to formal education, not without murmurs of disquiet and disapproval from her family. Living life off the grid for the first seventeen years of her life, Tara goes through an entire […]
Tag: Book Reviews
‘Good research is vital’
This very interesting interview with Alpa Shah is a must-read for anyone aspiring to write narrative non-fiction. Shah, a professor of anthropology at my alma mater London School of Economics, speaks beautifully and honestly about her writing process while working on ‘Nightmarch’ and has great messages for both academics as well as writers of the […]
Mid-year Mini List of Favorite Non-fiction Reads
You know I am into non-fiction, writing and reading. A consistent trend in non-fiction writing has been the emergence of academics as non-fiction writers and as more and more do so, we can clearly see how some of them are gifted writers. I laid my hands on two super books of narrative non-fiction this year […]
Nightmarch: an intimate journey into India’s Naxal heartlands
Alpa Shah’s book is an insightful exploration of conflict and its origins, and how the understanding of both eludes politics and policies for tribals in India.
Bhicoo Manekshaw | Feast of love
On a December day in 1974, at a small dinner party to celebrate the wedding of then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay, the menu was appropriately sophisticated: a hot lobster soufflé, duck à la orange and a jardinière platter of vegetables. Dessert was a problem, though. A cold dessert was out of the […]
Holidays by Shatabdi | On a train, spotting birds, scaling mountains
Trains carry a nostalgic value, relics of a childhood when holidays began and ended with rail journeys. The Shatabdis, Indian Railways’ super-fast trains that connect the metros to tourist, pilgrimage and business centres, still retain that quintessential charm, says Lonely Planet’s latest travel guide. In a pocketbook format, Holidays by Shatabdi lists 30 possible great […]
Vanessa Able | Freewheeling around India
Vanessa Able travelled around India in a Tata Nano in 2010 and wrote her book ‘The Nanologues’
A disciple’s tribute to Pandit Birju Maharaj
Kathak exponent Saswati Sen on her memoir on Pandit Birju Maharaj and how the maestro gave the dance form a lyrical beauty
Book Review | Manoj and Babli: A Hate Story
chilling account of an ‘honour killing’ exposes some brutal truths about contemporary India
Omair Ahmad | ‘Objectivity is a dream’
The author balances myths, history and politics in his new book on Bhutan
Book Review | A Matter of Rats
Unruly rats, all-pervasive filth and old myths in an engaging biography of Patna
