Published by Penguin, 1939, 528 pages.Review by Kamakshi Balasubramanian Rereading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath after a gap of nearly 50 years has left me with untold riches. The Grapes of Wrath is not an easy work to summarize, unless one sacrifices many of its uniquely brilliant and always affecting facets. It is a …
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!
Levels of Life: Julian Barnes
Published by Jonathan Cape / Vintage, 2013, 128 pages. “You put two things together that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.” This book is about coming together and moving apart, of soaring to the sky and slipping into the underworld. It begins with balloonists in the late 19th century, then …
Under Milk Wood: Dylan Thomas
Published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1954, 160 pages. “To begin at the beginning. It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.” Thus begins one of my favourite books, a book of …
Best books of 2017
I asked people what they enjoyed reading most in 2017. Their combined list is below, and the variety bears testament to their wide range of interests. The books listed under fiction are about refugees, women power, slavery, dictators, relationships between women and between families, and a take on Sherlock Holmes. The authors are from around …
Keeping company with ghosts
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories published by Penguin / Jonathan Cape, 1983, 308 pages. Today is Christmas Eve: the perfect time for pulling our chairs closer to the fire, virtually speaking, and telling stories about ghosts. Ghosts have fascinated me ever since I was a child and was on the lookout for beautiful churels …
Hack Attack—How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch: Nick Davies
Published by Chatto & Windus / Vintage, 2014, 448 pages. “If you shut up truth and bury it in the ground, it will grow and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through, it will blow up everything in its way.” Emile Zola Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. …
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The Sad Part Was: Prabda Yoon
Translated from Thai by Mui PoopoksakulPublished by Tilted Axis Press, 2017, 192 pages. Original version published in 2000. A man is intrigued by the spaces between the words a schoolgirl is writing in her diary, a couple discover a corpse on the roof crushed under the fallen letters from a neon sign, a group of …
Cloudstreet: Tim Winton
Published by Picador / Penguin, 1992, 448 pages. “The door opened. A dozen cramped smells blew in their faces: lilac water, rot, things they didn’t recognize. Sam found a switch and a long, wide hallway suddenly jumped at them.” Meet the central character in this book—the old house at 1, Cloud Street, in Perth. The …
Frantumaglia—A Writer’s Journey: Elena Ferrante
Translated from Italian by Ann GoldsteinPublished by Europa Editions, 2016, 386 pages. Original version published in 2014. How much do you need to know about the writer to be able to enjoy their books? Nothing at all, according to Elena Ferrante, author of the Nepolitan Quartet and other books. She writes under a pseudonym and …
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The Glass Palace: Amitav Ghosh
Published by Penguin India / The Borough Press, 2002, 560 pages.Review by Kamakshi Balasubramanian "The Glass Palace” is, for me, a beautiful title for a novel. I love the image it creates of fragility, beauty, brilliance, and utter vulnerability. For years I have reached for Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace, and until a few days …
Talking About Books 