Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club fits so perfectly under the heading ‘unusual’. It’s unusual in every way. The language is unusual. The structure is unusual. The name is unusual. […]
On Two Feet and Wings
I’m a slow reader. Despite the fact that I love reading, I take my time over books. Sometimes, I take weeks to finish a book, even one I enjoy. On […]
Indian Summer
As I read Indian Summer by Pratima Mitchell, I kept oscillating between approval and disgust. There were parts that were so real that they reached out to me and made […]
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is the kind of book that I could read over and over again. It was written in just a few months and it’s less than a hundred pages long. […]
Chalkline
I recently read Neil Gaiman’s views on escapism: I hear the term bandied about as if it’s a bad thing. As if “escapist” fiction is a cheap opiate used by […]
The Children’s Hour
I picked up the DVD about nine years ago because I saw Audrey Hepburn’s picture on the cover. I like Hepburn. I knew I would like the film. I did […]
Running Wild
I don’t usually like thick hardbound books. They are daunting and, usually, boring. As soon as I make that statement, though, I realise how many exceptions there are. Running Wild is […]
Swarada Datar
Where does the beauty of dance lie? When it comes to Bharatanatyam, particularly the Pandanallur style, surely it’s in the lines, the perfect geometry and the crisp, precise body movements. […]
Sophie’s Lucky
The perfect children’s book is not one that you read and say, “Oh, I would have loved it so much if I had read it when I was seven!” The […]
The Prince and Other Modern Fables
Prose poetry at its most beautiful. I never thought I could enjoy stories like this so much. Every story is so rich, so intricate, so charming! It’s supposed to be […]
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Perhaps it was the right to time to reread this book and realise that Roald Dahl, genius beyond compare, never intended to be a writer. In the last-but-one story, he […]
Treason
The year is 1539. King Henry VIII is King of England. All three of his wives, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour are dead. He has three children: […]
How Green Was My Valley
I read the book when I was eleven or so. It was among the very few books that made me feel I was too young to tackle that kind of […]
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Perhaps Peppy created “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper corn.” Because Peppy, Mr. Popper’s personal assistant, takes particular pleasure in paraphrasing paragraphs to produce passages that permit plentiful […]
Dragonfly
Some pacy books are formulaic, and this one is one of them.Prince must marry Princess – it’s a political alliance. Prince and Princess hate each other; they have all kinds […]
Asylum
For once, the amount of time I’ve taken to read this says nothing about the book. I remember reading Bloom of Youth. I was faintly unhappy with it. I then somehow […]
The Pursuit of Happyness
Yes, I know I ought to have watched this long ago. Yes, I know that practically everyone has already watched this. But it moved me to tears, and I cannot […]
The Haunting of Hiram
Yesterday, when MJ Shubhra asked me to recommend books at the ‘Book Club’ show, I was tongue-tied, somehow. I could think of nothing. On my desk lay an Eva Ibbotson, […]
Surprise Interview
I never have call waiting turned on. Yesterday, somehow I did. An unknown number was calling me as I spoke to a very dear friend – a landline number. At […]
Monsters University
When humour, action, plot, story, character and setting are all rolled into one, how can I not leave the cinema hall smiling like I have a tummy full of food […]