Published by Vintage, 2014, 528 pages. Review by Usha Raman I picked up Neel Mukherjee's novel with much anticipation...well, perhaps it is wrong to use the term "picked up" because it was the first book I had downloaded on my Kindle Paperwhite and it may be more correct to say, "I swiped on to page …
How to be both…a creative not-quite conundrum
How to be Both: Ali SmithPublished by Hamish Hamilton, 2014, 384 pages. Review by Usha Raman The cover is deceptively like a book for young adults, a simple coming of age tale—two teenage girls from some time in the 1970s, walking on a street somewhere (possibly) in Paris. Ali Smith's novel, shortlisted for last year's …
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What is Literature For?
Literature is not just words, but can be visual too! Loved this imaginative video on what literature can do for us with Alain de Botton on voiceover. Thanks to Paola Cagna for sharing this!
S.: JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst
Published by Hachette Book Press, 2013, 456 pages. If you think of a book as words on a page, think again. S. is a novel with a difference, stretching the limits of what a book can be. You pull it out of a black slipcase with a paper seal that you have to break—a hardcover …
The Best of the Books I Read in 2014
Here's my selection of the best of the books I read this year. Links are to reviews on this site. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton—one of the most enjoyable books I read this year. Set in New Zealand in the 1860s with multiple narrators, the narrative keeps looping in on itself. A man arrives in …
One World, Many Stories: Sharing Books from the Challenge
We finally held our reading event at the ICV Arcade last Wednesday (19 November)—on the one day that the Geneva public transport system decided to go on strike! I was worried that people wouldn’t come, what with no buses or trams running, and traffic jams because more people were taking their cars. But we had …
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Half of a Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published by Fourth Estate, 2006, 448 pages.Review by Imran Ali Khan It took me a while to get to this book but when I finally did it consumed me. It kept me up all night and haunted me well after I was done with it. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun …
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The Goldfinch: Donna Tartt
Published by Abacus, 2013, 880 pages.Review by Karen Moir The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a captivating 800 page chronicle of the life of Theodore Decker. It begins when a young boy is rocked by suicide bomb in Metropolitan Museum of Art that takes his mother’s life and replaces her with a yearning for the …
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken: Tarquin Hall
Published by Simon & Schuster, 2012, 341 pages. How can anyone resist this title? I would have bought this book even if I hadn’t already known this series of detective novels set in Delhi. The book’s main character is Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator, who is often helped—against his wishes—by his mother (the formidable …
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The Riches of Al-Fahim’s Biography
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 biography, 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 …
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