A thriller that is both young and sane
A thriller that is both young and sane – Review of ‘The girl who loved a pirate’ Thrillers tend to be either similar to creaking bones oozing with wisdom or strut with the irreverent arrogance of youth that has little to convey. It is rare to come across one that defies these clichés and...
The world is always on the lookout for new wars
The world is always on the lookout for new wars: Review of BRUTAL by Uday Sathpathy Thrillers unwittingly talk about intrigues that the common man and reader is unaware of and has no way of accessing data that leads to the brutal conclusions that is so often expressed on the pages. So how do writers...
Smell the coffee. Look at your pyjamas
Well, yes, that’s how you breeze through life, don’t you? It is attitude and the way you make others perceive you that is sometimes more important than just the boxful of talent that you may be. So it is necessary that you ‘Wake up! Smell the coffee. Look at your pyjamas’… just like Trish did...
Pull away from ignorance and know the constitution
Pull away from ignorance and know the constitution. Review of ‘The Constitution and the Parliament of India’ written by Derek O’Brien With so much happening all around, it is necessary to understand it all through competence and knowledge… and not through a kaleidoscope of ignorance. I remember talking to a few bloggers and was...
Breaking up cosy cartels
Discussing politics fills us with enthusiasm… and so this is all that we can hear in buses, on kerbsides, in shops and offices, in homes, on the television, on radio, in colleges, and I sometimes suspect, even in the mushy conversations of lovers in some park. But there is another truth that must accompany this...
Pink candies in a thriller
Pink candies in a thriller. Review of ‘Catching the Departed’ * ‘She put her hands around him and looked into his eyes. Andy’s instincts took over. He kissed the pink candies gently at first and then passionately as she played on. Her lips had a tremble of submission in them which gave him greater pleasure...
Jojo needs a little time
Jojo needs a little time. Review of KALYUG It is Mrs Pandit, one of the political characters in the book (or should I say, political caricatures) who says, ‘Jojo needs a little time before he takes on more responsibilities. I think by the time the next elections take place, he will be ready for a...
Does Ashay Abbhi go around with severed hands?
Besides the question that the title poses, others could be: ‘Do book reviewers always have murder in their thoughts?’ Or ‘Why do writers get unreadable stuff published?’ Or ‘Is every reader qualified to call a book bad or good?’ Or ‘Is a book that disgusts one reader end up disgusting every other?’ These questions have...
Come over here and taste me
Anthologies are like our own Goa beaches with scantily clad tourists walking lazily across your vision, the sudden delight of a shore fisherman having caught a reasonably large fish, gulls swooping in for its quota of sea food, chatter, pitter-patter, and the sun forcing itself in even through the thatched roof of the shack you’re...
Tabla and Dagga. Review of ‘Stellar Signs’
It isn’t just Jatin, the astro-investigator’s assistant in ‘Stellar Signs’ written by Manjiri Prabhu, who dreams to hit it off like table and dagga, we see examples of twosome awesomeness all around. Readers and writers need to hit it off like table and dagga if you want to get away from the clichéd husband and...
The side effect of an itch. Review of ‘Chronicles of Urban Nomads’
I remember asking my drawing teacher one day after school, ‘Sir, what should I do to improve my drawing skills?’ He answered, ‘Learn to look at everything from multiple perspectives.’ He then asked me to look at the empty classroom from where I was standing and then wanted me to lie down flat on the...
The truth serum: Review of ‘A hundred lives for you’
If you’ve ever played that game of plucking out petals from a flower while saying ‘She loves me’ and ‘She loves me not’, you’ll know what I mean when I say that the first few pages of this book made me say ‘I’ll read it’ and ‘I’ll read it not’… and yet, I read on....
