Russian Writers Probe Existential Depths
In Wonder Confronts Certainty, Gary Saul Morson, one of the most eminent Slavic scholars in the US, suggests that Russian writers were a distinct breed.
… Continue reading “Celebrating the Wonders of Russian Literature”
Amma’s Daughters: Evoking Nostalgia
Reading Amma’s Daughters by Meenal Shrivastava evokes the bittersweetness of listening to Kishore Kumar’s hit songs. It’s a book that yanks you – like the legendary singer’s tenor and baritone – into earlier times,
… Continue reading “Struggles, Choices and Wisdom Across Generations”
Flipping Pans and Pages
Suraj Moraje cooks every day. Sometimes, pasta made from scratch, the flour and salt combined with eggs, the dough kneaded and patted aside, partitioned, thinned out, and scissored into strips.
… Continue reading “Cooking, Consulting and Change-Making: A Life Story”
Remember Shankar Mahadevan’s Breathless? The Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other has that quality of indefatigability to it. It’s like the author has all these tales packed into her, and she narrates them in a gush,
… Continue reading “Contemporary Britain Through the Lens of Twelve Black Women”
When it feels like we’re flailing in briny tides of content – to use that much-bandied, landscape-flattening term – it’s unsurprising to encounter self-help material to cultivate our eroding capacities for attention. So when I spotted Mindwandering at a local bookstore,
Globally, rising numbers of people are choosing to stay single. So much so, that Bella DePaulo, currently an academic affiliate with U.C., Santa Barbara, advocates for a “single studies discipline.” At a time when many long-held human beliefs are being rightfully questioned,
In earlier eras, those who crossed oceans to ‘discover’ new continents or forge trade linkages were exalted as adventurers and risk-takers. It takes, however, a different kind of courage to journey into one’s own consciousness,
Occupying the Last Bench
Sriram recalls growing up with a strong, independent streak. Even as a toddler in Bhopal, where he lived for the first six years of his life, he was fetched from school by an auto driver,
… Continue reading “Journeying to One’s Ikigai: A Founder’s Story”
Yellowface might represent a striving author’s fantasy. Especially in the contemporary era, when there seem to be more writers than readers; when only a lucky few climb to bestselling lists or are feted at literary festivals,
… Continue reading “Satirizing Publishing and American Race Relations”
A recent Instagram post claimed that many writers or readers have, at some point or the other, harbored a certain dream: of running a bookstore-cum-cafe. After all, the enterprise is imbued with a romantic whimsy,
Many readers might be understandably turned off by any book title that contains words like “existential” or “post-modern” or “post-structural.” After all these terms summon certain stereotypical images: of smoky cafes filled with garrulous intellectuals,
Kirti Poonia is a new mom. Teer, her five-month-old son, occasionally pops into our Zoom conversation. Understandably, she worries about his future. With climate change already sweeping into our shores in various forms – more intense wildfires in Canada,
A Journey Around My Room was first published in French, in 1794. Its author introduced a world – that was then taken in by the fantastical accounts of sea voyagers like Ferdinand Magellan or Captain James Cook – to a new form of exploration: room travel.
As we’re nearing the end of Pride Month, I thought I would feature a book that I read awhile back and was enchanted by for many reasons. To be honest, I was looking for any Young Adult Romance – not necessarily LGBT-centered – but one that resonated with current teenage readers.
I’ve always been curious about how the Obamas tided over the Trump years when many of their attempts to change the social and political landscape were overturned. The Light We Carry offers some glimpses.
Angela Saini approaches the past with an engineer’s precision: foraging inside historical, archeological, and anthropological records for real glimmers of how things were. This is unsurprising. After all, she holds two Master’s degrees. One in Engineering from Oxford University and another in Science and Security from the Department of War Studies at King’s College,
The Drona Ekalavya story is familiar to many Indians. To reiterate the most commonly shared version, Ekalavya, who belongs to what was then considered a low-caste tribe, desperately wants to learn archery from Drona. The Guru however is forbidden from teaching him,
… Continue reading “A Modern Retelling of The Drona Ekalavya Story”
The Immortal King Rao is many things. It’s a bildungsroman for sure, graphing its narrator’s life, from her strange birth to her present predicament, where she claims to be unjustly imprisoned for a crime she did not commit.
Let’s start with what one might call a ‘fun fact.’ Or for the more ponderous folks, an origin story. Why is Mysore called Mysore? In the Netflix show on royal Indian kitchens, Raja, Rasoi aur Anya Kahaniyan,
… Continue reading “Founding an Inventive Travel Enterprise”
The Economists Turn To Hope
Across the globe, hope maybe a tricky emotion to summon. After all, we’re inundated with warnings about impending disasters: accelerating climate change, layoffs triggered by AI, new pandemics,
… Continue reading “Rekindling Hope With Economic and Social Policies”
Brinda S. Narayan
