Tag: book review

It’s difficult to begin to describe this work, or try to box it. Into a genre, into a review, anything. This book was my first brush with Neil Gaiman, and I realized there is so much beauty on earth left to be explored. When the forests are burning, swooning over words and imagination could appear…

Book Review Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a magnificent work by Yuval Noah Harari. The book talks about the evolution of human beings, from being a middling species in the food chain to the masters of Earth riding the tiger of technology in…

Panchajanya by Gajendra Kumar Mitra A review Panchajanya is the story of Krishna. It is the story of Mahabharata, told from the perspective of Krishna, the architect of nearly all of what transpires in the great epic. Krishna – the catalyst behind the action, the master strategist, even the schemer. Gajendra Kumar Mitra’s perspective is…

Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik A review I read Sita, the illustrated retelling of the Indian epic Ramayana by Devdutt Pattanaik, soon after I had read Jaya, Devdutt Pattanaik’s retelling of the Mahabharata. Now, it might have been due to my lack of prior understanding of Ramayana, but I found Sita to be a much more…

Jaya by Devdutt Pattanaik A review Jaya – Devdutt Pattanaik’s retelling of the Indian epic Mahabharata, with a mish-mash of various versions, has been on numerous bestseller lists for some time now. I finally took up the book in late 2013, partly to revisit the “greatest story ever told” and partly out of curiosity generated…

Quiet by Susan Cain A review Susan Cain’s Quiet is a book about introverts by an introvert for introverts. Okay, I think I got a bit carried away there! Quiet, subtitled “The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” is not just for introverts but also for extroverts and in fact for…

Tungabhadra’r Teere (By The Shores of Tungabhadra) by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay A review Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay is perhaps most widely known for creating the quintessential Bengali and likeable sharp-witted sleuth, Byomkesh Bakshi. However, there is a fine set of historical fiction he has authored which is a wonderful contribution to Bengali, if not Indian, literature in its…

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins A review My desire to read Richard Dawkins stemmed from hearing and reading about him – the man behind the curious term: “selfish gene”. I read about what this curious term meant and it immediately seemed intuitive. However, I did not succeed in locating the namesake book…

The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Jim Corbett A review The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag is about Jim Corbett’s famous adventure of his pursuit of a wily adversary who gained notoriety for transforming into a devilish (and even an incarnation of the devil itself to some!) killer. The book details the long hunt launched by…

The One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan, the founder of khanacademy.org A review The One World Schoolhouse is a documentary of the philosophy, thoughts, ideas and experiences of the founder of The Khan Academy – Salman Khan. A child born of immigrant parents from India and Bangladesh, Salman Khan is today renowned globally for his…