Mixture as Before

Mixture as Before

Somerset Maugham was acutely mindful of the criticism his books received. Luke warm review of his short-story collection Cosmopolitan was published in Times under the title ‘The Mixture as Before’. He promptly adopted this as the title of his next short-story collection. Maugham, a hugely popular writer, could use this mildly disparaging term to highlight the variety in his collection. I shamelessly borrow these words, but only to apologise for the unvarying cocktail of books I have brought to your notice in all these weeks. My only excuse, ill-founded perhaps, is that these are the books I like and read. Consequently, I can write honestly only on them.

Need for free thought and fearless debate in human society is eternal. But it was never felt so deeply as in present times. I bring to your notice a collection of brilliant essays by Ramachandra Guha titled Democrats andDissenters.

Kashmir has been in news for long, it seems for ever. I was always aware of it, since the day I began bothering about current events. Beginning August this year, it has occupied unprecedented prominence. I was reminded of a small book I read some time back, War and Diplomacy in Kashmir. I am not a historian and cannot place this book in its rightful position amongst its contemporaries. But it helped me in knowing certain historical perspectives on Kashmir issue, that had eluded me for long. One book cannot be sufficient to illumine such intricate conundrum. But it might provide a toehold to leap on to a larger platform of knowledge.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene must be one of the great war stories in literature. Vietnam war is the background against which Greene weaves this mesmerising drama of essential human emotions. It’s a great work by one of the greatest of English novelists. Lovers of fiction will not miss it for as long as I did.

Road to Little Dribbling is Bill Bryson’s, third and the latest, travel book on Britain. It is as ravishing. The hilarious prose and the bewitching picture of English countryside cannot fail to captivate any reader.

Olivia Judson’s DrTatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation is an ingenious way of presenting scientific facts. Though the book has some glaring lacuna (I do not want to repeat ‘in my opinion’, ad nauseam. I hope I will be sincere to quote the source when I offer opinion of others), I liked the book for the newness if its theme and hilarity.