Bookish

Editor: David Davidar
Publisher: Aleph
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9789382277361
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A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces is an anthology containing 39 Indian short stories, edited by David Davidar. The editor of this book has been very straightforward about the rule he used to create this anthology: each of the stories had to have an Indian essence, and each of them had to have appealed to him on a personal level. So I’m going to review it using the same rule!

Hope springs eternal; and so, despite the disappointments and missed opportunities of 2014, I take a deep breath and resolve to do better in 2015. (Heck, don’t I always?) Here are some of my bookish resolutions. What are yours?

Author: Roopa Pai
Publisher: Red Turtle
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9788129131225
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Roopa Pai, author of the Taranauts series for 8-12 year olds, is back with a book containing fun and easy-to-understand answers to 25 exciting scientific mysteries.

Booker fever has started! On October 14, a panel of judges will choose the best of English language fiction.This year marks the first time that American authors have been allowed on the list and also, unlike last year, focuses on novels that are ‘contemporary, not historical’, with two novels flirting with the theme of social media.

Author: Richard Flanagan
Publisher: Chatto and Windus
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9780701189051
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The Narrow Road to The Deep North is about a group of Australian POWs during World War II who were used as disposable labour by the Japanese army and forced to construct the Thailand-Burma Death Railway. A third of them died of hardship, disease and malnutrition.

Author: Ali Smith
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9780241146828
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How to be Both is not just a book. It is an art form by itself. Depending on your luck, you might get one version of the book, or the other. Your understanding of the story could change, depending on which version you happen to read.

Author: Karen Joy Fowler
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Year: 2014
ISBN: 9781846689666
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This is the story of the Cooke family. A father, a mother, a son and two daughters. One day, one of the daughters disappears, and is never heard from. But the parents, who are involved in her disappearance, act as though nothing were wrong. The missing daughter is, quite simply, never mentioned in their family again.

The Lives of Others is a novel of sweeping scope. It showcases 3 generations of a Kolkata upper-middle-class business family as they struggle against the winds of radical Communism sweeping across Bengal in the late sixties. Their plight is juxtaposed against the lives of others; the struggling, starving, poorest-of-the-poor landless labourers of Bengal.

“The best thing about collaborating is the fact that one can pool ideas and expertise. The problem, however, is that it is far more difficult to write in a coordinated fashion as part of a team effort than to write solo. Collaboration requires method and discipline.” – Ashwin Sanghi

We thought we’d compile a list of friendship-themed books to enter into the spirit of this day. Not all of these books have friendship as the dominant theme, but each of them celebrate, in some form or the other, the thrills, joys, the bitter-sweet pains and the enduring pleasures of friendship. Read on!