Hi!   These days, every time I sit down to write a new post on books that I have read, I learn anew the plight of columnists. They have to churn out articles on novel themes unceasingly, week after week. I take heart in the knowledge that for me this is a self-inflicted injury, in an attempt to sate the desire for written word. While, for many columnists it is perhaps a means of livelihood. But the moment I browse through the collection of my book reviews, I am charged with vigour. I experience once again the joys these books provided when I read them first. Ideas sprout spontaneously and the only task of carving these thoughts in words remains. This is arduous but fulfilling too, particularly if in the end I find that my words to some extent reflect the picture I had in min d.     It’s an enviable skill to be able to say in unambiguous and simple words what one wants to say. For long I harboured an ill-conception that a skilful writer can effortlessly produce a prose that read

                                                                                                                                                 Language   Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style Benjamin Dreyer     ‘Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand’. George Orwell wrote in his essay, Politics and the English Language.   ‘Writing is a dog’s life, but the only life worth living.’ Said Gustave Flaubert.   Writing is a tiring activity. Effort to transform a mental picture into words is severely draining. If you do not have formal training in a language, I mean specifically English in my case, but read obsessively, and hence feel in your guts how your writing should look on paper, the struggle to write is frustrating. The right word never occurs without fiercely sha

                                                                                                                                                            Science   Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: A Scientific Detective Story A.G. Cairns-Smith               Darwin, in the final paragraph of his iconic book 'On the Origin of Species' composed a few lines of ethereal beauty. In a book that is not, otherwise acclaimed for its lyrical quality and sublime prose, these words never fail to move me profoundly even after I have read them innumerable times. He wrote:               'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one ; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.' (Italics added)               With a stroke of genius a

                                                                                                                                                            History   The Anarchy-The East India Company, Corporate Violience, And the Pillage of An Empire William Dalrymple   William Dalrymple has written many books on recent Indian history. All are highly readable. They do not present history as a collection of dry-as-bone facts but read like a finely told story. These are meticulously researched and provide verifiable references. Thus, they present historical facts, but in a format that makes history accessible and joyful to a layperson.   Subtitle of Dalrymple’s latest book, rather long, makes the subject of the book amply clear. This is the story of East India Company. Company began in the last year of sixteenth century as a group of motley traders, some large, many inconsequential like haberdashers, leather sellers, clothworkers, etc. Each pledged an amount, not unlike st

                                                                                                                                                                      Memoir   Istanbul: Memories & The City Orhan Pamuk                         A city is built not only of bricks and mortar but also by its people and their lives, their aspirations and their character. At the same time, destiny of its people is not independent of the character of the city. These two are inseparably entwined. History of a city, its glorious chapters and its dark ages, its bright corners and its unlit streets; influence and make the denizens, the human being they are. Most of us do not recognise these inconspicuous links. Certain overly sentient people do and a book like this, results. In this book Orhan Pamuk explores his childhood memories and his experiences of Istanbul and how the city led him inescapably towards his future. This is an ingenious way to look at the past.             Istanbul

                                                                                                                                                                                                        Novel   Dark Circles Udayan Mukherjee   Udayan Mukherjee had a two-decade long career as a television anchor and editor. This is his first novel. I read a couple of good reviews of the book by his old colleagues, writers and columnists, whose writings I admire. This book was an abject disappointment. I do not want to suggest that seasoned writers gave inappropriately complementary reviews to the first book of their former colleague, in spite of it’s too obvious mediocrity. Perhaps it is very difficult to be unbiased in evaluating the work of your dear friend.   Plot of story, its twists, portrayal of characters; all is insufferably trite. Mala dies in an Ashram on the banks of Ganga. She has been living here for more than two decades, after she walked out of her home. She lea