Published by Penguin, 2014, 304 pages. “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins a book about a family with an absence at its heart—that of the oldest daughter who dies just before her 16th birthday. Although there is a mystery to her death, this is not a whodunit. It’s a story …
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!
I’m Indian. Can I Write Black Characters? Thrity Umrigar in the New York Times
https://nyti.ms/2y1K8lS How do you get under the skin of someone else? Thrity Umrigar, an Indian-American writer, talks about the expectations that come with the hyphenated identity: write about what you know, that is, Indians. But that is the point of fiction, surely? That a writer can get inside the head of any character they create, …
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Meena Kumari: Vinod Mehta
Published by HarperCollins India, 2013, 252 pages. For many years, I’ve enjoyed the writing of Vinod Mehta, the editor of the Indian newsmagazine Outlook, so I was looking forward to reading his biography of Meena Kumari, an iconic Indian actress who died in 1972. But the biography was written on a commission soon after her …
Leaves of the Banyan Tree: Albert Wendt
Published by University of Hawaii Press, 1994, 426 pages. I didn’t know much about Samoa when I started reading this. I had come across parts of Margaret Mead’s 1928 anthropological study a long time ago, a study that was later proven to be inaccurate and misleading. And Robert Louis Stevenson spent his last years there. …
The House of Sleep: Jonathan Coe
Published by Viking / Penguin, 1997, 352 pages. Jonathan Coe’s novel about obsession, love, sleep and dreams follows a group of students, moving between their lives as students and 12 years later. We are told in the beginning that the odd-numbered chapters are set in 1983-84 and the even-numbered ones in 1996. But although it …
Terra Australis: Great Adventures in the Circumnavigation of Australia—Matthew Flinders, ed. Tim Flannery
Published by Text Publishing / Non Basic Stock Line, 2000, 312 pages. I first heard of Matthew Flinders in July 2014 when a friend, Heather Wicks, told me that she was going to London for the unveiling of his statue. Flinders was her fourth great-uncle, who had been the first European to sail around Australia. …
Deep South—Four Seasons on Back Roads: Paul Theroux
Published by Eamon Dolan / Mariner Books, 2015, 464 pages. Like Paul Theroux, travellers often go in search of adventure in other countries before exploring their own. Having travelled to remote corners throughout the world, he sets out to discover a part of his own country—the United States—that he knows mostly through its fiction. The …
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The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: Arundhati Roy
Published by Penguin / Hamish Hamilton, 2017, 464 pages.Review by Usha Raman and Suroor Alikhan Below is a review in two voices—much as the book is a story told through several. Differentiated less by opinion than typeface. I opened my pre-ordered copy of "The Ministry..." with a bit of trepidation mixed with skepticism. Like many …
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Set in Darkness: Ian Rankin
Published by Orion, 2000, 496 pages. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book in the Rebus series, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed them. The books are set in Edinburgh, which is a character in its own right. Ian Rankin knows the city well, from the posh part with the big houses …
The Professor and the Madman : A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary—Simon Winchester
Published by Harper, 1998, 256 pages. Dictionary: A book which explains usually in alphabetic order, the words of a language, giving for each word its typical spelling, an explanation of its meaning or meanings, and often other information, such as pronunciation, etymology, synonyms and illustrative examples. The Oxford English Dictionary is one of the most …
Talking About Books 