Real Time Intelligence: Review of ‘The Winner’s Curse’
Politics, political subterfuge, political nexus, political patronage, and the politics of a socio-economic drama… these will no longer remain mere words once ‘The Winner’s Curse’ by Dee Walker has been read. Yes, the book can be read fast, but then if you’re too fast you just might have to turn back a few pages and...
Standing on the parapet dangerously: Review of ‘Life is always aimless…’
Akash was standing on the parapet dangerously, about to end his life, when he finally decides he is in love and now has ‘an intense urge to record his feeling of deep love for Maria and life,’ and decides to live on. Throughout the novel I felt I was on the edge of some parapet...
Writing of rights: Review of ‘Talking of Justice’
Now here is an author who doesn’t flinch as she admits that she is short and that there are things that she doesn’t know about. Leila Seth writes in her book ‘Talking of Justice’: As the discussion began, I remember feeling acutely uncomfortable on stage. I am short and, seated on the chair that I...
A spoonula of creativity
Some books that one gets to read are like a spoonula of creative thought and expression and then there are a whole lot of others that make the critics say that we ‘have turned literature into a cesspool of mediocrity’. Well, the PR and marketing games fill up the virtual and the real spaces...
Crime is always in the real world
What happens when you cross criminal attitude, real temptations, the anonymity of the virtual world, and greed with creative imagination? A thriller is born! One such thriller is ‘God is a Gamer’ written by Ravi Subramanian where the concept of bitcoins, the Misznay Schardin effect, and TOR come together to take a reader off on...
The strength of a zealot. Review of ‘Private India’
Attention is like that ‘fine line between life and death’ transforming a thriller into a readable book or being shelved for some future reading which is as good as it being sentenced to a life in company of millions of unread words. Every book looks for the zealot lurking inside a reader, and who is...
Think of rising higher. Review of My Journey written by A P J Abdul Kalam
Ulluvathellam uyarvullal matratu Tallinum tellamai nirttut Abdul Kalam quotes this kural from Tamil literature in his book and goes on to give us its translation in English: ‘Think of rising higher. Let it be your only thought. Even if your object be not attained, the thought itself will have raised you.’ The book is a...
The surge of power. Review of ‘Prisoner Jailor Prime Minister’
The book has surges, urges, and purges splurging through the pages… and if you just sauté these elements with a pinch of the political history of India, a few drops of fantasy, and a liberal garnish of radical thoughts, you’ve actually almost written the recipe of the book. This book by Tabrik C can be...
This is how we speak. Review of ‘Terms and conditions apply’
I am just wondering what the purists will have to say about this book where the title is in English, the author’s name is written in Hindi… and the 14 short stories inside use English phrases and words almost where any of the urban and rural reader would while communicating in his daily life. This...
Adjectives for Sid
The book’s cover calls Sid a ‘man in progress’ and the cover behind the cover (yes, and that’s something of an innovation for a novel) calls him amiable, easy-going, lovable, beer-lover, idiosyncratic, witty, impulsive, thoughtless, vain, master of denial, idiotic, well-meaning, comical, vice-president, metrosexual, and smart-ass. Even his relationship with his wife in the first...
The Fablery Interview
Below is the text of my ‘Fablery Interview‘ that I gave to Nethra Anjanappa of fablery.com. You can read the interview on their site as well… Click here if you wish to read the interview on the Fablery site. As an alternative, the text is reproduced below: My journey into a professional life began with...
I thought I understood. Review of ‘My stroke of luck’
What happens if your ‘heart is on the right side’, the doctors diagnose you as having situs inversus with dextracardia, and everyone else simply says: You are wrong in every way! Nothing really… because you can still complete your degree in engineering from an IIT, learn management from an IIM, and be poised to lead...
