Review: 12 Years A Slave
Review / July 11, 2014

Author: Solomon Northup
Publisher: Pirates
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9788192681023
Rating: ★★★★☆
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12 Years A Slave started filling the bestseller line in almost all bookstores, having gained widespread acclaim due to the award winning success of its movie adaption. Movies based on books inadvertently bring out the need for comparison where, almost unfailingly, the books gain the upper hand. Amazingly enough, this time the movie topped the book!

Review: Tigers of Taboo Valley
Review / July 9, 2014

Author: Ranjit Lal Publisher: Rupa/Red Turtle Publications Year: 2014 ISBN: 9788129130044 Rating: Read book reviews from other readers   In a simplistic story written about complex issues, Tigers of Taboo Valley by Ranjit Lal is simply one of his finest. A prolific writer, Lal has written for both adults and children in the past, interweaving issues of environmental concern in mundane everyday activities. Tigers of Taboo Valley is a story about Rana Shaan-Bahadur, the alpha-male tiger of Sher-Kila National Park. With his masculine features and looks that kill, Rana Shaan-Bahadur is used to a constant media frenzy around him and this attention has made him immune to the feelings of others. Father to four adorable cubs, Hasti, Masti, Phasti and Zafraan, Shaan-Bahadur is more concerned with wildlife photographers trailing him than with his children, who he’s abandoned. When his cubs’ mother, the beauteous Raat-ki-Rani falls to a poachers bullets, Shaan-Bahadur suddenly finds himself a single parent, a matter of great shame for a male tiger. To escape the taunts of the other tigers, he moves to the dreaded Taboo Valley, an abandoned area with a dark history inside the national park to raise his juvenile cubs in peace. Little does…

What’s the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood?
Article / July 8, 2014

Going with the recent wave of adaptations, the year 2014 witnessed two bestseller love stories coming alive. While Bollywood adapted 2 States by Chetan Bhagat, Hollywood made The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Each book featured a young couple whose love was threatened by factors outside their control. The Indian couple suffered from the age-old problem facing Indian couples – parents who don’t ‘accept’ their love. The American couple faced a different, life-threatening challenge – cancer.

The Devadasi stigma: Servants of the Goddess
Review / July 8, 2014

Author: Catherine Rubin Kermorgant
Publisher: Random House India
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9788184004625
Rating: ★★★½☆
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In Servants of the Goddess, Catherine Rubin Kermorgant takes us into the world of ‘Devadasis’ or women turned into prostitutes, so they can sexually serve men to please the gods.

The Darker Side of a Family – Review of Family Life by Akhil Sharma
Review / July 7, 2014

Author: Akhil Sharma Publisher: Penguin Books India Year: 2014 ISBN: 9780670087457 Rating: Read book reviews from other readers An Indian family of four – a country hating Father, a typical Indian mom with endless worries and two brothers, immigrate to America in search for a life that India could not provide. But then, tragedy strikes and leaves every member of the family scarred for the rest of their lives. In his second installment, the critically acclaimed Akhil Sharma weaves a dark story that illustrates the irremediable consequences a familial misfortune can bring upon it’s survivors. Ajay’s family relocate to the US when he is quite young. His strict father, who he believes is government appointed to take care of his family, works with a government agency and is a brooding man of few words. His mother is a typical Indian doting mother who values her Indian traditions even in a foreign land. Birju, Ajay’s elder brother is an outstanding student, on his way to achieve great success when a sad (and rather silly for someone so intelligent) accident leaves him brain damaged and bed ridden for the rest of his life. As they say, Disasters and tragedies bring out the…

Mysore Today: The Smoke Is Rising
Review / July 3, 2014

Author: Mahesh Rao
Publisher: Random House India
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9788184005189
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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Set in Mysore, this book has parallel stories running together in today’s world where this city is undergoing a transformation. While the quiet Mysore is expected to get Heritage Land, Asia’s largest theme park, somewhere nearer, a group of farmers are feeling discontent and betrayed as their lands have been taken away. The clash between the farmers and the developers is taken to court, where the farmers lose. On D-day, there is a huge showdown, leaving behind bloodied clothes, mutilated bodies and smoke from the burning buildings.

Who’s the Suspect? The Devotion of Suspect X
Review / July 2, 2014

Author: Keigo Higashino
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Year: 2011
ISBN: 9780312375065
Rating: ★★★★½
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Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino is an incredible book, in the best sense of the word. With exceptionally well-built characters to an even more exceptionally framed plot, this book has all the ingredients to get you hooked.

Who will have The Last Word?
Review / July 1, 2014

Author: Hanif Kureishi
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9780571277520
Rating: ★★★½☆
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Hanif Kureishi, in his seventh novel, writes the tale of Harry Johnson, a young writer, who is commissioned to write a biography to revitalize the career and bank balance of Mamoon Azam, a giant of post-colonial literature, who has slowly and with age shrunken into irrelevance.