A middle aged farming couple lose their farm & home at the hands of an unscrupulous businessman - leaving them penniless and literally on the streets. This, they find out only day after the husband is diagnosed with a terminal illness. All in all, the life they have built over 32 years of marriage collapses … Continue reading The Salt Path – Raynor Winn
This is Lisa Halliday's first novel and the first thing that came to my mind when I started reading it is how well the language flows. The key characters are well developed and memorable - particularly the Nobel prize winning writer. It has been written beautifully and in a much more self-assured style than that … Continue reading Asymmetry – Lisa Halliday
This is probably going to be one of my shortest reviews. This book has been lying on my shelf for more than a year before I got myself to pick it up. Like many books of this kind, it picks up a single idea and presents it from multiple angles. This often leads to repetitive … Continue reading The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
The Spanish Civil War has inspired a whole body of work in art and literature. I am not much of an art historian, but I remember being awe struck standing in front of Picasso's Guernica in Madrid's Museo Reina Sofia. I had not known much about the civil war then but I had vaguely heard … Continue reading For Whom The Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
This is a delightful little book, chronicling the daily life of an octogenarian dutch man living in an old age home on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The ageing population in the West (and Japan) has been widely commented upon. More often than not, it is seen as a problem that needs to be solved. You … Continue reading The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old – Hendrik Groen
I spent two winters in Michigan. It was cold; I felt it all the more coming straight from the tropical heat of Mumbai. All my previous experiences of snow were those of tourists: artificial, designed to thrill and time-bound. Michigan was my first experience of a snow-bound way of living. I know many who really … Continue reading History of Wolves – Emily Fridlund
East West Street defies categorization. It is part memoir, part history, part biography and part a commentary on International Law. Whatever the category, it is deeply researched, very well written and tightly edited. While it is a non-fiction book, it has the pacing of a thriller. Who would have thought you can build so much … Continue reading East West Street – Philippe Sands
I read the first part of this two part history nearly 5 years back and remember being completely mesmerized by Simon Schama’s story-telling. I vowed to read the second part as soon as it is available but somehow missed its 2017 release, only to pick up the book at the very end of 2018. This … Continue reading Belonging, The Story of the Jews 1492-1900 – Simon Schama
Following in the footsteps of a successful first book(s), authors are often tempted to quickly publish a new (typically much shorter) book, either to now finally talk about ideas that found no place in the original, or to just harvest their new found popularity. And so, we had Yuval Noah Hariri's 21st Lessons for 21st … Continue reading The New Silks Roads – Peter Frankopan
Winter by Ali Smith is one of those books which suddenly gain popularity and then you can't escape it. Its everywhere. People are reading it on your commute, there are reviews in all kinds of newspapers and somebody is referencing it on the TV. It is the second in a quartet - each named after … Continue reading Winter – Ali Smith
The Books On Our Shelf 