Published by Picador / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Bantam Press, 2014, 320 pages. “Shaving is tricky with an owl on your right shoulder.” Especially when the owl sees it as a game, pecking at the razor at the end of each stroke and trying to eat the shaving cream. Meet Mumble, the Tawny Owl …
Category: Autobiography / Biography / Memoir / Autofiction
Winter Journal: Paul Auster
Published by Henry Holt & Co / Picador, 2012, 240 pages. Memories are not linear; they have a chronology all their own. In Winter Journal, Paul Auster looks back at his life, meandering back and forth in time. He is the 63-year-old man climbing out of bed to look at the snow turning the trees …
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 …
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 …
An evening (or two, or many) with the Bloomsbury Group: Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar
Published by Bloomsbury, 2015, 368 pages.Review by Usha Raman E M Forster, Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell, and most importantly, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf... a bunch of undeniably privileged, smart social and cultural radicals who gathered over pastries and coffee most evenings in [what is now] Central London to discuss art, …
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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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 …
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. …
On Writing—A Memoir of the Craft: Stephen King
Published by Scribner, 2000, 320 pages. This book on writing starts with two contradictory epigraphs: “Honesty is the best policy” and “Liars prosper”. Good fiction is a mix of the two. Writers invent, but also draw upon what they know. This book is far more than a primer on writing well. Stephen King starts and …
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Born to Run: Bruce Springsteen
Published by Simon & Schuster, 2016, 528 pages. It was in the early 80s that I first heard Bruce Springsteen. Looking for new music, I raided the tiny music shop in Secunderabad (India) and picked up Born to Run. I was hooked. The music spoke to me, although I was from a different culture and …
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