I finally found my Rosy

It was a book that captured my heart and imagination during my school days. But I have no idea how it came into my hands. Read here.

Chetan Bhagat’s 3-point something

I bothered to stay with Chetan for the first few chapters because the media hype the author got had raised reader expectations. I plodded through page after unhappening page of pedestrian text, hoping something would happen. Nothing much does...More...

PG comes to the resue...

With the Maoists on their prowl and when it seems that even the "only saviour of the poor and downtrodden" Arundhati Roy is not able to offer a solution :) , it is time for a break...


When our PM has yet again gone to praise Obama and hopes to get nothing in return, it is time to take a break....

It is when I remembered that I had a good collection of PG Wodehouse to be enjoyed. Just finished "A Damsel in Distress" and I am now enjoying "Love among Chickens".

PG rocks any day!

Discovering Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Have read Love in the Time of Cholera... and must say that overall, I liked the book. More than the story, which I thought is marred by incidents of passion used as a stop-gap arrangement, I loved reading Garcia's description of places and people.

The chapters on the Paramaribo parrot and Fermima's varied pets are entertaining. That the parrot got excited seeing the pretty maids amused me no end. Dr. Juvenal Urbino's patient lessons to teach the bird Latin and French were also impressive, given my personal indulgence with all things animal. Marquez writes in a splendid style, extremely detailed and full of the darker sides of human character.

Sculptress by Minette Walters

...the wealthy can afford to be law abiding, generous and kind. The very poor cannot. even kindness is a struggle when you don’t know where your next penny is coming from...Poverty is only uplifting when you can choose it...More...

Dick Francis - Under Orders

Its very sad and disconcerting when you go 'off' an author you've enjoyed for years. Dick Francis has been a prime favorite for years. I would walk for miles to get one.
But now his latest, Under Orders seems so so-so...More...

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The link between the first two parts of the book is a blue Benz car that is once seen before Mariam’s house for a few hours. The thread wears thin as the pages are turned but still holds. Here Hosseini takes the risk of the readers loosing interest, but survives...More...

Khalid Hosseini’s Kite runner

I started on this audio book for the first time, complaining all the time that I could listen to the book only when I was in the car, that I could not go back & check things now & then, that I could not feel the pages and all that (or drift away into my own world between words)...More...

Of Shelfari and the Library Thing

Over the coming days and weeks I hope to catologue them online in ‘My Shelf’. And my e-contacts could count on finding in their Inbox a Selfari invite. Hopefully, we could put in place a network to access one another’s book-shelf online...More...

King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan

. . found Chopra's account of Shah Rukh's early acting career particularly interesting. . . started work on a Master's in Economics, but his real energy was spent working on his acting with a high-brow theater group in Delhi called the Theater Action Group. . . was based at the prestigious Lady Shri Ram College, and led by a British hippie named Barry John. . .More. . .

Elizabeth on Baker

The achievements of Laurie Baker in the field of architecture, particularly low cost housing, are well known. But there was much more to the man. This book presents so touchingly the long journey of Laurence Wilfred Baker (1917-2007) from Birmingham, UK where he was born, to Trivandrum. . .More. . .

Pottermania

JK Rowling has entered history books, broken records, and the world is queuing up for the last book. After we grow too old for Fantasy, I’m sure we’ll forget the spell Potter cast on us as children. I know all good things should come to an end, and it is time to bid adieu to the famous series. . .More. . .

India will overcome, says who?

The Edward Luce prescription:Improve education, strengthen liberal democracy, develop a coherent energy strategy and radically revise the transport system before the country’s car population swells from 40 million today to an expected 200 million by 2030 and brings the entire country to a chocking standstill...More...

Hacks and Headlines

Rashme Sehgal's first novel is not just a heady mixture of political and sexual power games, It is an insider view of the way the fourth estate operates in India, ideally placed in New Delhi where all the power broking goes on behind closed doors...Read on...