Bookish

Author: Michelle Cohen Corasanti
Publisher: Finger Prints Publishing
Year: 2013
ISBN: 9788172344870
Rating:
Click for latest prices

He looked me directly in the eye. ‘So you live in America?’
‘We do.’ I smiled.
He stopped, opened his backpack, pulled out an empty tear gas grenade and handed it to me.
‘I believe it was a present from your country.’ Majid smiled. ‘Tell your friends thanks. We got their grenade.”
― Michelle Cohen Corasanti, The Almond Tree

This is what Vrushali Telang’s website has to say about her: ‘From reporting for CNBC-TV18 & NDTV, to producing shows for MTV India, from freelancing as a screenwriter on films, television and events to writing columns for Marie Claire India, to now writing novels- Vrushali Telang is on one helluva joyride!’ We couldn’t agree more! Read on as Vrushali answers a few questions we had for her.

Author: Gaurav Punj
Publisher: Tranquebar by Westland
Year: 2013
ISBN: 97889383260522
Rating:
Click for latest prices

Consisting of the real travel and trekking experiences of author Gaurav Punj, The Land of Flying Lamas works more as a travelogue describing the beauty and magic of the Indian Himalayas than a compilation of travel stories.

Author: Sebastian Faulks
Publisher: Hutchinson
Year: 2013
ISBN: 9780091954048
Rating:
Click for latest prices

Author Sebastian Faulks pays tribute to P.G. Wodehouse with this book, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. However, questions abound- will it match up to the original? Or will it be doomed to live in Wodehouse’s enormous shadow? Will we see the same loveable idiot and cunning mastermind? Read on for the answers.

Author: Ravinder Singh
Publisher: Metro Reads
Year: 2011
ISBN: 9780143417231
Rating:
Click for latest prices

Ravinder Singh’s sequel to I Too Had A Love Story follows up on Ravin’s life after a tragic event. However, the story’s progression does not go down well with our reviewer.

Author: John Green
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 2012
ISBN: 9780141345659
Rating:
Click for latest prices

One of our reviewers read one of John Green’s YA stories and loved it! Here, she talks about a very well-written story of two teenagers whose lives and loves fall under the shadow of cancer. 

The Jaipur Literature Festival 2014 concluded on January 21st, after 5 days of non-stop literary fun. Neha Yadav is already experiencing withdrawal symptoms! The last day of Jaipur Literature Festival 2014 dawned cold, wet and grey- perfect backdrop for a Bronte novel but a real nuisance for event organisers. My two friends and I, in the pink of health despite ill-advised consumption of frozen yogurt and chilled Cokes, arrived at the venue fully expecting chaos and mayhem. We were however, very pleasantly surprised at the efficiency and good humour with which the organisers and the guests dealt with the whimsical weather. A number of earnest looking youth with wind-whipped pink cheeks were stationed at all the venues to inform guests about the various location and session changes. The first session of the day was Jim Crace in conversation with Chandrahas Choudhry about his book Harvest, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2013. The interview took place in the toasty warm and consequently packed British Airways Baithak where Crace joked about feeling right at home (England) because of the weather. This was the third Crace session that I attended and in me, he has found another devoted reader. He spoke…

Neha Yadav tells us about Jaipur Literature Festival Day Four activities.

The third day at the Jaipur Literature Festival featured several interesting panels; the difficulty being which ones to choose! Neha Yadav reports. The third instalment of my Jaipur Literature Festival chronicles begins at 10:00 am in the morning with yours truly and two trusted sidekicks huddled shivering in the Mahindra Durbar hall, poring over our very helpful (and very colourful) Festival Schedule. The talk titled ‘Love and War: Literature, Danger and Passion in the Second World War Readings’ featured authors Alison McLeod and Lara Feigel reading from their books, Unexploded and The Love Charm of Bombs respectively. Both books deal with the “abnormal lucidity” of the war through the experiences of private individuals- exhilaration, terror, illicit love affairs, compassion, cruelty, hope and waiting. Next stop was ‘Casualties of Love and Sex: The New Gender Fluidity’ at Front Lawns where Margaret Mascarenhas, Mahesh Dattani, Sachin Kundalkar, Neelima Bajpai and Bachi Karkaria discussed the tyranny of a society where supposedly personal matters of love and sex are in fact deeply regulated by public structures of law and social morality. They inevitably brought up the recent Supreme Court ruling on Section 377, citing it as unconstitutional and discriminatory. Other speakers of note during…

Neha Yadav from the IndiaBookStore team is reporting live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2014. Read on to see what happened on the second day. The second day of Jaipur Literature Festival began like most of my days usually do- existential despair at having to get out of warm bed and into the cruel cold world that harbours horrors like lizards, overpopulation and Chetan Bhagat. The prospect of six hours of literary awesomeness finally got me out and we reached Diggi Palace just in time for the first event. Held in the Front Lawns at 10:00 am, ‘The Global Novel’ was a conversation about private identity and writing in an increasingly cosmopolitan world. The talk featured literary heavyweights like Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen, Jim Crace, Maaza Mengiste and Xiaolu Guo. The authors debated the importance and economics of the translation industry and the threat posed to indigenous languages by the mainstream literary market. Jim Crace’s unflinching faith in narrative was for me the highlight of the talk and I couldn’t help but nod earnestly when he said that storytelling is too deeply entrenched in the human consciousness and it will survive whatever the form. Next was ‘Burdens of Identity’ with…