Published by Chatto Poetry, 2017, 52 pages. I’ve discovered new poets as part of the reading challenge, and two of them have blown me away. One is Kendall Hippolyte from St. Lucia, and the second is Kayo Chingonyi from Zambia. In north-western Zambia, tribes have an initiation ritual for young boys called kumukunda. During the …
Author: suroor alikhan
I have always been an avid reader. I read across genres and try and find books by writers from countries around the world. One of the things I love is talking to fellow readers about books!
The Rosie Project: Graeme Simsion
Published by Simon & Schuster / Penguin, 2013, 368 pages. Don Tillman, a geneticist at an Australian university, is not only intelligent and good-looking but a decent cook to boot. He decides that he needs a wife, which you would think shouldn’t be hard. But Don’s manner tends to put women off. He tends to …
The Man Who Loved Dogs: Leonardo Padura
Translated from Spanish by Anna KushnerPublished by Bitter Lemon Press / Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 2014, 592 pages. Original version published in 2009. “If the social dream and economic utopia supporting it had become corrupt to the core, what remained of the greatest experiment man had ever dreamed of?” It is easy to forget today …
The Long Way Home: Louise Penny
Published by Minotaur Books / Thorndike Press, 2014, 400 pages. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Heaven to cure a sin-sick soul.” On the surface, this seems like a regular whodunit. But it is more than that—a story about losing and finding yourself, about art and …
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree: Chris Stewart
Published by Sort of Books, 2003, 240 pages. Many of us dream of giving up the rat race and living the simple life in a community far removed from the hustle of cities. These remain dreams for most of us, but not for Chris Stewart and his wife Ana. In 1988, they moved to Alpujarras …
Saying goodbye to an iconic bookshop: Imran Ali Khan
The Strand Book Stall in Mumbai has been an icon for readers. Books of all sorts piled everywhere, where readers were encouraged to browse and get into conversations with like-minded people. It was one of my favourite places: a trip to Bombay (as it was called then) was incomplete unless I had been to Strand. …
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Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet, drawn by Clément Oubrerie
Translated from French by Drawn & QuarterlyPublished by Jonathan Cape, 2009, 128 pages. Original version published in 2005. The three young women in Aya of Yop City, the first in a series of graphic novels, have boys, parties, marriage and future careers on their mind. They rebel against their parents, pick unsuitable boyfriends and try …
Continue reading Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet, drawn by Clément Oubrerie
Of Human Freedom: Epictetus
Translated from Greek by Robert DobbinPublished by Penguin, 2010, 112 pages. The original Discourses of Epictetus were written down in 108 AD.Review by Thomas Peak This magical little book comes from a time and place far, far away. It is adapted from the Discourses written by Epictetus, an emancipated Greek slave living in the Roman …
Winter: Ali Smith
Published by Penguin and Anchor Books In 2017, two very different writers—Karl Ove Knausgård and Ali Smith—published books around the seasons, starting with Autumn and ending with Summer. However, while Knausgård’s books are more memoirs/missives to his young daughter, Smith’s books are novels that look at “the state of the nation” (ie, the UK). I’ve …
The Eye of Jade: Diane Wei Liang
Published by Picador, 2007, 240 pages. This is a detective story set in Beijing that provides a glimpse into life in modern China with all its contradictions. The central character, Mei, is a private detective. She is approached by a family friend, Uncle Chen, to look for a Han dynasty jade seal. The seal had …
Talking About Books 