The Story of Beautiful Girl: Rachel Simon Review by Usha RamanPublished by Random House, 2011, 252 pages. One of the things about travel is that it affords the opportunity to read—especially when one is on a plane without a personal video screen and movies on demand! A couple of weeks ago on one such flight …
Category: Fiction
Various Pets Alive and Dead: Marina Lewycka
Review by Joannah CabornPublished by Penguin, 2012, 367 pages One of the best things about this book are the dedications. The first one:“To quietly flowing Don”. The second is a Gogol quote, from Dead Souls (1842):“We live in new times – the age of the hero is past – now is the time of the …
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The Black Sheep: Honoré de Balzac
Review by Kamakshi Balasubramanian Translated from the French by Donald AdamsonPublished by Penguin, this edition published in 1976, 202 pages. Original version published in 1842. More than forty-five years have passed between my first acquaintance with Balzac and this renewal. Of that first work I read (Pere Goriot) I carry a strong impression, mainly of the …
With no shadows, Noon: Aatish Taseer
Review by Imran Ali Khan Published by Faber & Faber / Harper Colllins India, 2011, 297 pages. At 7am when your eyes are still adjusting unwillingly to the sun, and you have just stood in a queue to have your bags scanned and your person felt up at the Pune airport, to find the shutters …
Snake Ropes: Jess Richards
Published by Sceptre, 2012 This is a strange and beautifully written tale told by two young women, Mary and Morgan. Mary lives in a community on an island where the islanders trade with the “tall men” who come from the mainland. Boys on the island start to disappear, and Mary suspects the tall men. One …
Atwood, again and again
Review by Usha Raman Publishing details: The Handmaid's Tale, published by Everyman / Virago, 1985, 392 pages. The Robber Bride, published by DoubleDay / Virago, 1993, 576 pages. Wilderness Tips, published by Nan A. Talese / Virago, 288 pages. Moral Disorder, published by Bloomsbury Publishing / Virago, 2006, 272 pages. I encountered Margaret Atwood first …
Ultimatum: Matthew Glass
Published by Atlantic Books, 2009, 448 pages. This is in response to Lulu’s review of The Twelfth Imam, which she said was her first political thriller and seems to have been quite disappointing. Try this one. The book is set in the near future. Because global warming has made sea levels rise, several countries are …
One Shot: Lee Child
Review by Kamakshi BalasubramanianPublished by Bantam Press, 2005, 368 pages. Does it matter what the title of a Lee Child’s novel happens to be? One Shot is a pretty good read, even if you think you are about to get tired of Child and his brand of writing. The entire thing from start to finish …
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar: Suzanne Joinson
Review by Joannah CabornPublished by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, 384 pages. I wrote this review for a distance course in journalism that I'm taking, so just sit back and enjoy the style! There is a fine history of novels that start with a map, promising travel to distant places following outlandish characters and exotic plotlines. But …
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The Fall of Giants: Ken Follet
Review by Kamakshi BalasubramanianPublished by Viking, 2010, 985 pages. Didn't know about the Taxi Armada until I read Ken Follet's integration of that episode in his novel The Fall of Giants. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gallieni.) If you enjoy fat novels, really fat novels, then this one is for you. It's got love, war, sex, infidelity, unrequited love, …
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