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Tag: Book Review
17 Results
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Neel Mukherjee deals with displacement, migration in new book
Man Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Neel Mukherjee touches upon the subjects of displacement and migration in his new book which will hit bookstores on July 6. "A State of Freedom", published by Penguin Random House, is a novel of multiple narratives and explores the urge to escape the life we are given for something better....
June 12, 2017 -
Chikankari: Of legendary elegance
Laced with the beauty of delicacy, femininity and fine elegance, pretty patterns of flowers, petals and leaves work their way intricately on fine crispy muslin in summery hues… "Chikankari is reputed to be among the finest traditional embroideries from India, typical of Lucknow, once the capital of the vast and rich dominions of the state of...
June 12, 2017 -
The straight dope about the Fuehrer and the Nazi war machine
His vegetarianism, teetotalism, non-smoking and concern for animals (his regime had stringent laws for their protection and mulled closing slaughterhouses) didn't prevent Adolf Hitler's megalomania, psychopathic racism and callous disregard for human suffering. But did these or a string of erratic decisions that lost him the war stem only from his strange mind or some...
June 12, 2017 -
A woman’s snapshots of Egypt’s simmering discontent and revolt
Volcanic emotions contribute to, and are further generated, during turbulent times in human affairs as manifested in revolutions or other such instances of rapid change. But how dis these grow to the critical levels necessary to trigger such upheavals, say, in stagnant, repressive societies like Middle East's long-established autocracies, during the Arab Spring? And what...
June 8, 2017 -
The sub-atomic forces and processes enabling our hi-tech lives
Oscillatory motion, capacitors, potential difference, disordered semiconductors, destructive interference and so on may seem, for many of us, terms only fit for a physics textbook — but do we have any idea what they do in our daily lives? Mobile alarms, ATMs, digital cameras, photocopiers, noise-cancelling headphones, to say the least. The laws and processes...
June 5, 2017 -
How a once shy girl became Tamil Nadu’s ‘Amma’
How did a beautiful, doe-eyed woman of the 1970s become one of India's most charismatic politicians? What made a once-shy girl to take to the male-dominated world of politics? And just how did a single woman overcome deaths of people close to her, loneliness, humiliation and salacious rumour-mongering to emerge as the undisputed leader of...
June 4, 2017 -
Audacious patriots who sabotaged the Nazi nuclear project
Would the Second World War have ended the same way if Hitler's Germany had developed an atomic bomb? At one point, the Nazis were tied with the Allies, even after driving away many gifted brains by their racial policies, but lost the race. A crucial reason was denial of a vital ingredient in a campaign...
June 3, 2017 -
A Life Like No Other
Book: Sonal Mansingh – A Life Like No Other; Author: Sujata Prasad; Publisher: Penguin; Pages: 220; Price: Rs 599 Few Indian classical dancers have risen to such fame and glory as the widely-adored Sonal Mansingh. A recent biography attempts to capture the life and times of this classical dancer and lives to tell the many...
June 3, 2017 -
Life is hell for all the slaves
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood, where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to...
June 2, 2017 -
Debutante writer captures apathy towards maids
Do you have a domestic help at home to assist your family with household chores? When was the last time you stopped to take a close look at all that she goes through? Perhaps, never. This rare gem of scholarship brings their stories — of migration, pain and constant deprivation — to the fore, while...
June 2, 2017 -
Smuggling knowledge past jihadis
Title: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; Author: Joshua Hammer; Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Pages: 280; Price: Rs 399 After nature, what some sections of humans get most satisfaction in seeking to destroy is knowledge, in its physical manifestations, irrespective of whether it opposes their view of "truth" or merely presents an alternative. Fortunately, offering hope...
June 1, 2017 -
Horrors of domestic violence!
A scathing portrait of traditional wedlock in modern India, the many horrors of domestic violence forms the background of this novel. The author has weaved her personal experiences of an abusive marriage in the haunting fictional account and has now contended that the depth of perils women face in domestic violence can destroy them. "In...
June 1, 2017 -
Strange and dangerous: Mars’ mysteries revealed!
Title: 4th Rock from the Sun – The Story of Mars; Author: Nicky Jenner; Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma; Pages: 272; Price: Rs 599 Beyond a prominent astrological "influence", an idea of masculinity (and even men's origin) and a cryptic utterance in the first Harry Potter book among its varied cultural expressions, the Red Planet, easily seen...
May 31, 2017 -
Crime-solving lessons from the Great Detective himself
Even nine decades after his original creator penned his last tale, the solver of mysteries, scourge of criminals, and saviour of the wrongly-accused is still busy at work. But in the thousands of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, there is one glaring omission for a detective whose swore by the "science of deduction and analysis". For a...
May 26, 2017 -
Anger is good and other lessons from Gandhi to his grandson
Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi is widely thought to have been a calm and composed personality but this highly anecdotal book by one of his grandsons suggests otherwise. Gandhi, the author says, lost his cool all the time and believed that "anger is good". The much revered leader's fifth grandson Arun Gandhi's latest book...
May 26, 2017 -
A wealth of wisdom on human issues expected and unexpected
Our perversity can sometimes be extreme. We look for guidance from every quarter — leaders temporal and spiritual, self-help gurus, agony aunts, et al — but ignore those who have selflessly devoted themselves to probing threadbare all facets of the human condition. And unlike perceptions, philosophers were not always ivory-tower residents engaged with abstract issues....
May 22, 2017 -
Why Steve Jobs didn’t let his kids use iPads
Human reactions can be inconsistent. There was a time, if you were found reading a book in company, you could be shouted at by your parents or even have it snatched and flung away, but now if you are eagerly checking your smartphone, no one is likely to say anything — for they might be...
May 16, 2017
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