Bookish

Living with Tigers is a book by Valmik Thapar, the well-known conservationist who is mostly associated with the famous Ranthambore tigress Machhli. The book is divided into chapters, each dealing with Thapar’s experiences with well-known tigers – Padmini, Ustad, Genghis, Broken Tooth and others.

‘Tis the season to be jolly… and to decorate using red, green and white! Check out these Christmas trees made using books. Who would have thought there could be so many innovative ways of using books to create trees?

Book cover design is an interesting art form, if you think about it. The cover is an expression, a description, of the contents of the book, but it should be neither too obvious nor too obscure – it has to reveal the book’s soul using a single image.

Shilpa Shetty sent the Twitterati into a tizzy today with her claim that Animal Farm by George Orwell is a great children’s book that encourages kids to be kind to animals. The hashtag #ShilpaShettyReviews soon started trending at the top.

An Era of Darkness : The British Empire in India is the latest by Shashi Tharoor, and as the title makes clear, is all about the iniquities of the British rule in India. Its measured, non-jingoistic tone is precisely what makes this book a worthy and readable one.

Listen, O King is a retelling of the Baital Pachisi, or Vikram Vetal stories, for children. It consists of a frame story, within which there are 25 short tales. Each of these ends with a question being asked. The answer to that question is not an easy one.

Book Deals for Broke Bibliophiles – India, a popular FB group, invited book-lovers to draw a book cover, or anything bookish, with rangoli. Many booklovers took up the challenge to create their own book rangoli. We bring you some of the best rangolis amongst the lot! Harry Potter makes an appearance… naturally! Notice the tiny detail… a diya placed in the centre of the moon! Kudos to Bhagyashree Ganatra, the creator. In fact, more than once! Anyone could have guessed that Harry Potter would be most popular! This one is by Devika Datta. A rangoli which copies the book cover almost verbatim! Clearly a most accomplished rangoli artist! Bravo Chitra Kotian! Book rangolis can include children’s books too! Soumya Inavilli does a great job with Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid. A feminist book rangoli… Damini Ray chose some feminist literature to recreate in rangoli form. And a Young Adult one! Pooja Upadhyay drew a rangoli for a young adult favourite. This one is superbly executed. Notice the colour shading? Nikhil Baisane went all out to recreate the Animal Farm book cover! Getting creative with To Kill A Mockingbird… The placing of the diya by Trupti Karjinni makes this picture even prettier….

The name Malgudi evokes a nostalgic response in almost anyone you meet. Somehow it seems to bring about memories of a simpler, less complicated era in our lives, so much so that even Indians who've never experienced village life firsthand feel as though 'Malgudi' might be their 'native village'! Advertisers for quite a few products now use 'Malgudi' and its associations to help brand their products – fruit juice, restaurants, home-stays for tourists… Just why do we all collectively love Malgudi so much? Could be any or all of these reasons. 1. The travails of the common man. Most of R.K.Narayan's stories were extremely simple, and had simple plots – an ordinary person, most often a young boy or man, would be jolted out of his peaceful existence through no fault of his own, and be forced to grapple with problems that were obviously too complex for him. Somehow, he would emerge from the experience, not gloriously successful but not a complete failure either. There were no heroic characters. These could well be tales about the author's brother's equally popular creation, the Common Man. 2. The wry sense of humour. Feeling nostalgic? Here's the famous Malgudi Days theme song: While…

Funniest quotes by P.G.Wodehouse. These funny Wodehouse quotes on marriage, life, women, men, and more will have you rolling in the aisles!

Catch these intriguing factoids about Inferno the movie starring Tom Hanks and Irrfan Khan, which hits theatres this Friday.