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 …
Category: Fiction
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 …
Reflecting on The Grapes of Wrath
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Tales of the Tikongs: Epeli Hau’ofa
Published by University of Hawaii Press, 1994, 93 pages. If this book were to be summed up in one sentence, it would be: “‘Development’ comes to a small Pacific island”. Tales of the Tikongs is a collection of vignettes of what happens when foreign development experts try to impose development on a happy-go-lucky people. And …
Civil War, again
American War published by Penguin Random House / Knopf, 2017, 352 pages. One comes to books through many routes. I've been fortunate to have been surrounded by fellow bibliophiles who often come bearing wonderful gifts of books I may not have run into otherwise. Some of my favorite titles have been introduced to me thus. …
Talking About Books 