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. …
Category: Autobiography / Biography / Memoir / Autofiction
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 …
My Father’s Zoo: Esther David
Published by Rupa Publications, 2007, 100 pages.Review by Sadhana Ramchander How many people you know grew up in a zoo? How many people you know have a father who started a zoo? This is the stuff of my own childhood dreams (before zoos became bad places), and I became very excited when I saw this …
Turner—A Life: James Hamilton
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1997, 374 pages. My fascination with Turner’s paintings began in the late 1970s. I was in my late teens, and we had just moved to Delhi. Instead of buying me new clothes for an upcoming festival, my mother, very sensibly, took me to a bookshop. The first thing I saw …
Koestler’s Kafkaesque Nightmare: Parallels Beyond Perception
The Scum of the Earth by Arthur Koestler Published by Eland, London, 2006, 253 pages. Originally published in 1941 by the Left Book Club.Review by Tom Peak Arthur Koestler was a curiosity. So often spent rowing against the tide, his life personifies the experience and aura of the twentieth century intellectual more than any other. So …
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In Other Words: Jhumpa Lahiri
Translated from Italian by Ann GoldsteinPublished by Alfred A. Knopf, 2016, 233 pages. Original version published in 2016.Review by Imran Ali Khan In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri is a beautiful read that explores the relationship between a writer, language and the nature of the self. The book explores the writer's relationship with Italian, a …
H is for Hawk: Helen McDonald
Published by Grove Press / Vintage, 2014, 320 pages. A hawk stares out from the cover of this book: it is hard to turn away from the fierce intensity of its gaze. And intense, too, is how I would describe this book, which is about grief, trauma and the relationship between humans and goshawks. When …
The Riches of Al-Fahim’s Autobiography
From Rags to Riches—A Story of Abu Dhabi: Mohammed Al-FahimPublished by CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 1995, 192 pages. Review by Lesley O’DowdMohammed Al-Fahim’s autobiography, From Rags to Riches was first published in 1995. By the time he wrote this illuminating story, Al-Fahim was an eminent, highly respected Emirati businessman in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. As he …
Adiós muchachos: Una memoria de la revolución sandinista—Sergio Ramírez
Translated from Spanish by Stacey Alba D. SkarPublished by Alfaguara, 2007, 320 pages. Published in English by Duke University Press Books, 2011, 264 pages. This is the story of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, written by someone who—in the late 1980s—became the country’s vice-president in the Frente Sandinista de la Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government of Daniel …
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