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 p...

                                                                                                                                                 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 neithe...

                                                                                                                                                            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 h...

                                                                                                                                                            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. Thu...

                                                                                                                                                                      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 independe...

                                                                                                                                                                                                        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 ...

Kishori In My Soul Passion of an Unlettered Fan -1-   It was my first posting in service, if one discounts a year of internship at Bangalore. Place was a godforsaken corner of rural Delhi, about forty-five kilometres from New Delhi Railway station - a dismal wasteland of cheerless shrubs and trees. It housed a surface-to-air missile unit. Missile had now gone senile and awaited its formal burial.   Station had lain barren for years before this unit moved here a few months back. All buildings were in an advanced stage of ruin.   Often a huge chunk of plaster would detach from the roof exposing the rusted network of dirty-green iron grid beneath. Ground water was unfit for any use but for flushing the loo. A water tank fetched drinking water from the city, thirty kilometres away. Officers of the unit were as washed-out.   There was no work at the dispensary. Ten to twenty patients came every day with vague, imaginary, uninspiring ailments; probably ou...

Hi!       I wrote about my Maugham mania in a previous post. To learn facts about the life of the author whose books you have adored for long must be a universal urge amongst book lovers. I have read many biographies of Somerset Maugham; perhaps all which have been published. Maugham’s life was as intriguing as his stories. He was an extremely successful playwright, novelists and a short-story writer in the first half of the twentieth century. He earned immense wealth from his writings. Rain, one of his most popular short stories, allegedly earned him one million dollars in royalties. But critical acclaim never came his way while he was alive. Though he affected to know his lowly place amongst exalted authors of his time-I know where I stand, in the very front row of the second rate; he was fond of saying-he nursed a deep hurt all his life for this neglect by the intelligentsia among critics. Some of this resentment he poured in his brilliant novel, Cakes and Ale. He...