There’s a bubble of contentment within me whenever I read Dick King-Smith, and All Because of Jackson is no different. Filled with delightful pictures and dreams, All Because of Jackson […]
Moon Pie
Every page of Simon Mason’s Moon Pie rang true. On the book-cover, I remember reading that someone called it an ‘ultra-modern’ story. I was not sure what to expect. I […]
A Mouse Called Wolf
Whenever I read Dick King-Smith, I think about C.S. Lewis’s oft-quoted “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” […]
Simon the Coldheart
What is it about Georgette Heyer that she can turn imagination into language so brilliantly? I reread another Georgette Heyer, before reading Simon the Coldheart, and found myself skipping large sections […]
The Worry Tree
I remember having a conversation with a friend about the challenges faced by each generation. “Our grandparents had to work hard – physically,” I said. “My grandmother has so many […]
Pegasus
What a mixed bag of emotions! Pegasus was wonderfully imagined. I loved the ideas of feather-tip fingers, strong human hands and flexible wrists, being bound to the pegasi of the […]
The Joy Luck Club
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 […]