Reviews & Musings

Namrata reviews Jerry Pinto’s latest book, The Education of Yuri (Speaking Tiger, 2022) emphasizing how everything about this book spells classic.   “We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, we reach out to other people.”    From the book blurb  Jerry Pinto’s latest work of fiction, The Education of Yuri (Speaking Tiger, 2022) is a tender portrayal of a young boy growing up in Bombay in the 1980s. Jerry Pinto is one of India’s finest writers with award-winning works to his credit across genres ranging from translation, poetry, memoirs, and fiction. Time and again, he has proved that he is a writer par excellence. In his writings, he is known to capture Mumbai and its nuances with an unmatched exactness. This is exactly what he does with The Education of Yuri too. Mumbai (then- Bombay) is the heart of this story which takes you through some of the early days of Yuri, as he grows up in the 80s.  Pinto tells us his story with a certain profundit...

Namrata reviews A Book of New Beginnings: Some Words for Living – Edited and with an introduction by Jerry Pinto (Speaking Tiger, January 2022) and calls it perfect food for thought.  Long after I was done reading this book, I kept thinking about the one story I had read long ago in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series which had changed the way I think drastically. I come from a dysfunctional family, where abuse in any form is normalized. I grew up believing that to be the way the world functioned. There was no reason for me to think otherwise as everyone I was surrounded with had a similar story to narrate. The ways of abuse changed, but the abuse was the common thread that bound us all, I felt.  Coming to the story from Chicken Soup for the Soul- I do not remember the author’s name or the complete story verbatim but I remember the basic crux which I will share with you. It was written by someone who was a prominent name at that time (in the UK if I am not wrong) and credite...

This blog has been a witness to my journey as a reader, writer and most importantly, as a book lover. I have shared my editing woes, of clients leaving me in despair, of books I have loved and lived and of course all the milestones that have adorned my nine year journey till here. Yes, this is the 9th year of the blog and I don't know how it all happened. I just know - I want this blog to be the epigraph for the book of my life. This is what life meant to me and this is what I created. Image Source All I know is this blog was the beginning of a dream in 2011 and I don't know what the end destination is going to be like. As the image above says, I started with absolutely no vision. I started this blog purely out of love for books and the written word. I loved listening to authors and their journeys. It felt magical to hold a book in my hand every single time and it still does. Given that I read my first book when I was 4, it has been a long way!  The goal might no...