The Powerful and the Damned—Private Diaries in Turbulent Times: Lionel Barber

Published by WH Allen, 2020, 480 pages. From 2005 to 2020, Lionel Barber had what he called “the best job in the world”: editor of the London Financial Times. This is Barber’s account of those years and his close encounters with the great and the not-so-great (or good!). As editor of a major newspaper, Barber …

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The Good Girls: Sonia Faleiro

Published by ‎Bloomsbury Circus, 2021, 352 pages. Sonia Faleiro’s new book, The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing, investigates the death of two young girls in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh. The book offers Faleiro, an accomplished journalist, an opportunity to spend four years following up on a hot-button news story. It lets her, and her readers, to look …

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The Circle of Karma: Kunzang Choden

Published by Zubaan, 2005, 316 pages. This is the story of Pema Tsomo, who grows up in a village in Bhutan. When she is born, the astrologer tells her mother that the child will be restless, always wanting to travel. But, her mother thinks, where can a girl go? Women didn’t leave their homes; they …

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WE (a story about us): Susan T. Landry

Illustrated by Benedetta C. VialliPublished by Ebb Tide Press, 2020, 26 pages. It feels like so many people all over the world have become polarized, divided into opposing factions who do not talk to or listen to each other. The recent lockdown has not helped; it has only exacerbated isolation and forced us into our …

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The Assassin’s Song: M.G. Vassanji

Published by Vintage Books, 2007, 339 pages. “I often wished my distinction would simply go away, that I would wake up one morning and it wouldn’t be there. I did not want to be God, or His trustee, or His avatar—the distinctions often blurred in the realm of the mystical that was my inheritance. Growing …

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