Reviews & Musings

About the Author The Book of Indian Kings comprises stories and essays about some of the greatest rulers and statesmen in the history of India. Beginning with an essay on one of the country’s iconic rulers, the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, by our greatest living historian, Romila Thapar, this volume brings together some of the finest writers of our time on a glittering array of monarchs, including Salman Rushdie on Emperor Akbar, Khushwant Singh on Maharaja Ranjit Singh, William Dalrymple on Bahadur Shah Zafar, Rajmohan Gandhi on Tipu Sultan, Jadunath Sarkar on Chhatrapati Shivaji, and Manu S. Pillai on Krishnadeva Raya.  Source: Amazon.in The Emergence of Empire: Mauryan India by Romila Thapar The First Hindu Empire by Abraham Eraly Raja Raja Chozhar by Kalki Krishnadeva Raya by Manu S. Pillai The Shelter of the World by Salman Rushdie Shivaji and His Times by Jadunath Sarkar Tipu Sultan by Rajmohan Gandhi The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the ...

Today we have in conversation with us a very interesting author. From winning awards to earning the title of 'Bestseller', he has done it all. Interestingly he also writes across two very contrasting genres and that too effortlessly. The success of his book is a proof enough for the love he garners amongst book lovers. He is none other than, Michaelbrent Collings. Source To give you a brief introduction about him before we start the interview-  Michaelbrent Collings is an American horror novelist. He wrote the screenplays for two horror films: Barricade (2012) and Darkroom (2013). He has self-published many novels, with two of his novels being finalists for the Bram Stoker Award in 2016, and two being finalists for the Whitney Awards in 2014 and 2017. ( Source ) Know more about him: Facebook | Twitter | Website

About the Book When the devilishly handsome, legendary Bollywood superstar Rajvir Kapoor is found dead in the thirtieth-floor study of his swanky new home, Xanadu, the entire country is aghast.  Barely hours before his death, Xanadu, had been teeming with the pick of the country's elite: hot-shot celebrities, business magnates and close friends and family of the iconic actor - all of whom had come together for the grandest party Mumbai had ever seen. Investigations reveal that Rajvir Kapoor was murdered, and now everyone is a suspect. Professor Shantanu Bose, eminent nano-expert and part-time sleuth, a house-guest at the time, is willy-nilly forced to join the investigation. He finds himself in an alien world of the glitterati and their idiosyncrasies, where murky secrets are revealed and facts muddled. As Shantanu struggles to piece together the puzzle amidst the confusing moral codes adopted by the people of this starry realm, glamorous Mumbai seduces him and h...

About the Book: A cleaning lady frustrated with the lack of manners of the occupants of the building sets out to teach them a lesson or two. Philandering ways and addiction to alcohol force a marriage to flounder and the wife to seek divorce. In Sakhalin, the land of opportunities, a girl from the Russian hinterland flits from one man to another before settling down. A group of friends becomes victim to street hooliganism in the capital city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, while a young British girl succumbs to the vile machinations of a local Russian, jealous of her success, leading to her deportation. Tragic fate awaits a Russian girl who leaves her boyfriend for a seaman. Globetrotting for Love and Other Stories from Sakhalin Island is a brutal, yet honest compilation of stories told in a style that not only pounds on the reader’s sensibilities and emotions but claws at the soul. The place is as much a character as the people who inhabit this collection. These are tales of love, lu...

ABOUT THE BOOK Image Source: Goodreads.com The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told showcases Odia’s greatest storytellers ranging from literary masters such as Fakir Mohan Senapati, Gopinath Mohanty, Reba Ray, and Manoj Das to contemporary stalwarts like Pratibha Ray, and Nrusingha Tripathy, among others. A young woman who was dragged away by a crocodile mysteriously resurfaces after a decade in Manoj Das’s ‘Mrs Crocodile’; a pet goat let loose in a government office causes amusement and chaos in Gopinath Mohanty’s ‘The Solution’; Godavaris Mahapatra’s ‘Maguni’s Bullock Cart’ deals with the anxieties of a bullock cart driver stuck between the trappings of traditions and modernity—the stories in this anthology traverse an exciting range of themes from fantasy to reality, and bone-chilling horror to rib-tickling humour. Timeless, evocative and striking, The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told offers a rich selection of stories that are unrivalled in their range, style and complexit...

About the Book Say hi to Rumana. A freshly minted (baked?) chef who decides to trade her powersuit for chef’s whites to live her dream of owning a cafe. Cut to six months later and there is not too sweet, a gorgeous little cafe with a burgeoning clientele. This is home and heart and everything in between. But Rumana's Banker’s bliss is cut short when competition drives in not only right into her street but parks itself right next door! What the... Enter Daniyal—rock star chef, too good-looking, and annoyingly charming. With him around, Rumana flits between being putty in his hands—giving away a cherished recipe to him when he asks nicely!—and getting mad at herself for her actions. But battle lines get drawn when Daniyal decides to present her recipe to the world with his take on it. Attracted towards the wild-haired Rumana, whose sweet kisses are a complete contradiction to her angry personality, Daniyal has no idea what’s about to hit him. At Daniyal’s Desserts, he can’...

    Title: Interpreter of Winds  Author: Fairoz Ahmad Publisher: Ethos Books ( 2019) Interpreter of Winds  is a collection of four stories which brings together Fairoz Ahmad’s experiences and observations while growing up as a Muslim. In a world where we are (sadly) divided by religion and united by our bitterness towards it all, these stories are an invigorating read. This short collection is a remarkable attempt to interpret faith and capture its challenges. Ahmad is a young voice who is striving to be the change he wants to see in the world. Having co-founded an award-winning social enterprise  Chapter W —  which works at the intersection of women, technology and social impact, he has been awarded the Outstanding Young Alumni award by National University of Singapore for his work with the community. He believes that magic, wonder and richness of one’s history and culture, together with their quirks and eccentricities, could help narrow the gap in our und...

About the Book Raghu Mehta is a desperate man. His handicraft imports business has unexpectedly collapsed and cash is drying out quickly, his wife thinks he is a loser and society considers him irrelevant. Meanwhile, his closest friends and family all seem to be running flourishing businesses and living luxurious lives in Surat, the diamond capital of India. A trip to China to scout for a new consumer goods business offers a glimmer of hope. But Raghu instead gets sucked into the black-market trade in the back alleys of Beijing. Everything about this new opportunity goes against his god-fearing, vegetarian, middle-class mindset - can he quash his natural instincts to make a success of it? Darkly comical, 'Made in China' is a soul-stirring and thrilling entrepreneurial journey of a man willing to do anything he can to make it big.

The Speaking Stone by Ratnadip Acharya ~Book Tour~ 11th to 17th November

The Sinners by Sourabh Mukherjee ~ Release Day Blitz ~ 12th November

  Book Review by Namrata   Title: Animalia Indica –The Finest Animal Stories in Indian Literature  Editor: Sumana Roy Publisher: Aleph Book Company (2019) Edited by Sumana Roy,  Animalia Indica  is a first of its kind collection of animal stories in Indian literature. From classic story tellers like R.K.Narayan, Premchand, Rudyard Kipling to the most recent maestros like Kanishk Tharoor, Perumal Murugan, and Nilanjana Roy, this collection features them all. Sumana Roy is a Siliguri based author whose previous works include a non-fiction title ( How I became a tree ), a fiction novel ( Missing ) and a poetry collection ( Out of Syllabus ). She went on to win the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award in 2017 for her debut book  How I became a tree . This anthology, with its beautiful cover, has twenty-one stories about humans and animals. It can easily be called a collector’s edition with the who’s who of Indian literatu...

About the book Do you know what you really are? Or has life not tested you yet! 8 stories 8 situations 8 emotions 

    Title: The Crooked Line Author: Ismat Chugtai (Translated from Urdu by Tahira Naqvi) Publisher: Speaking Tiger, 2019 Narrating the tale of a lonely child called Shaman, the novel,  The Crooked Line , by Ismat Chugtai is considered to be one of her finest works. Written is an extremely poignant and evocative manner, Shaman’s story takes us through her experiences of growing up as a woman in a conservative Muslim family. Ismat Chugtai  is regarded as one of the most rebellious and provocative women writers in Urdu and continues to be a luminary till date.  The Crooked Line  was originally published in 1945 and was translated into English fifty years later, after it was compared to  The Second Sex  (1949) by de Beauvoir for its strong portrayal of gender and politics. However, the two books are starkly different in their approach with  The Crooked Line  being a novel while  The Second Sex  is a treatise;  though it h...

  Title: She Stoops to Kill — Stories of Crime and Passion Editor: Preeti Gill Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books Date of Publication: 2019 She Stoops to Kill  is a collection of crime stories written by some of the most illustrious women writers of India. A chanced discussion at Guwahati airport between Preeti Gill and the featured authors about the rising crime rates featured in daily newspapers matured into an anthology of murder stories. Preeti Gill is a renowned name in the literary circles, having worked in the publishing industry for more than two decades now. She has donned various hats during this period, ranging from being a writer, commissioning editor, rights manager, script writer, researcher and is now, an independent editor and literary agent. This collection brings together a heady combination of renowned authors like Paro Anand, Venita Coelho, Uddipana Goswami, Manjula Padmanabhan, Janice Pariat, Mitra Phukan, Pratyaksha and Bulbul Sharma. Interestingly, each one...

About the Book The Godfather of Mumbai, wracked by his son’s brutal death, has called Senior Inspector, Hawa Singh, to catch the killer. The Mastermind, an extremist, lured by the secret, has brought out his forces in Mumbai, determined to wipe off anyone and anything that comes in his way. And when, on the chase of the elusive killer, he discovers a group of scholars, the guardians of the secret, Hawa Singh is in the way.  Image Source: Amazon.in

About the Book Ghublistan. An island resplendent with the divine herb. A country rich in bat Guano. A society where people are content, happy to serve their Prophet. But the country is experiencing a surge in emigration, and the Prophet is getting restless.  Image Source: Goodreads.com