News from Books around India & World

Review: Out of the Blue

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:39:01 GMT

This book is more than a chronicle of how a bunch of domestic cricketers turned giant-killers. It includes a series of compassionate portraits of cricketers on the margin whose worlds are far removed from the razzmatazz of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Looking back at all that anger

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:37:41 GMT

A hundred years after August Strindberg's death, the challenge for the contemporary theatre director is to ensure that in staging Strindberg, that outrage and candour does not end up lying interred with his bones.

Suffering for art’s sake

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:36:43 GMT

Being purposely unhappy does not boost creativity. AL Kennedy writes.

Review: The Man Within My Head

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:35:17 GMT

With much lightness of touch, an author talks of the haunting and troubling experience of having writer Graham Greene as a doppelgänger. Soumya Bhattacharya writes.

Through sickness to strategic health

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:16:14 GMT

A former US state department official’s somewhat optimistic view of the future of India-US relations. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri writes.

Review: JD Salinger - A Life Raised High

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:13:02 GMT

Kenneth Slawenski may be a determined man, but what he has produced is less of a biography than a work of literary criticism that tries to relate JD Salinger’s work to some of the better known facts about his life and thought processes. Soumitro Das writes.

Seriously playful

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:11:13 GMT

Pictorial devices wage a war against textual forms in this impressive anthology of graphic narratives. Indrajit Hazra writes.

Review: Pullela Gopichand: The World Beneath His Feat

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:15:43 GMT

Eleven years after Pullela Gopichand became the second Indian to win the tournament, we finally have Pullela Gopichand: The World Beneath His Feat. Written by Shachi Sharma and former international player Sanjay Sharma, the book traces Gopichand's life before he sprang into the spotlight in 2001, writes Anamika Nandedkar.

‘Drama of sports is designed for conflict’

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:47:23 GMT

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka, who recently won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), came down for the Kolkata Literary Meet 2012.

Review: India - As An Asia Pacific Power

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:45:42 GMT

India is in the throes of rekindling ambitions to be a maritime power. At the heart of this is a belief that its interests in the Indian Ocean are expanding and under threat. An offshoot of that is a bit of flag-waving in the Pacific as well.

‘Story telling and writing are separate’

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:44:00 GMT

In Valerio Manfredi’s works, history isn’t dead but alive and breathing.

Review: The Muddy River

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:41:08 GMT

Albert Herbert’s ‘Jonah and the Whale’ looms in the mind’s eye as one races through the gripping drama in The Muddy River. In PA Krishnan’s novel, the painting is a copy made by Kalita, an IIT graduate who returns to Assam from the United States to take up guns and fight for independence from India.

Banning books is a sin: Chetan Bhagat

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:41:11 GMT

While talking about the freedom of speech and expression in books written on religion, popular novelist Chetan Bhagat opined that there should be no ban on books and people should appreciate the diversity of opinion.

'No human being is above criticism'

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:18:36 GMT

Let me ask you - not as writers or readers but as plain citizens, as ordinary Indians - Where is this liberty today, asks author Vikram Seth during his speech at the First Kolkata Literary Meet. Read on for the full speech.

Imagining other worlds

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:31:06 GMT

A Palestinian author on why his people do not like to be the focus of attention. Antara Das writes.

'The reader shouldn't be chaperoned from A to B to C'

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:30:00 GMT

On leaving things unsaid in books. Bhavya Dore writes.

'Long-form is alive'

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:27:15 GMT

The New Yorker editor on why life can't be fitted in 140 characters. Antara Das writes.

Government doesn't believe in censorship: Kapil Sibal

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:25:40 GMT

Union minister Kapil Sibal, took a break from his political duties to bring out of the closet a poet in himself at the DSC Jaipur Literature af Festival. Sonakshi Babbar reports.

Review: The Other Country - Dispatches from the Mofussil

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:21:49 GMT

Veteran journalist Mrinal Pande’s book could very well be compared to a train journey through the Indian heartland. The book, which brings together a wide-ranging selection of essays by Pande, traverses many little Indias bustling in the country.

Review: The Sky is Silent

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:19:39 GMT

Life is a photo album for young poet Aazar Anis, who creates picturesque avenues through his verses.

Cover to coverage

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:49:40 GMT

There are two ways in which you can enjoy the seventh DSC Jaipur Literature Festival that starts today. Too many sessions, too little time? Here’s our must-attend list.

Background to the fore

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:48:19 GMT

Humanising Bollywood’s, and Bombay’s, extras.

Scheherazade returns

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:47:14 GMT

The master storyteller from Lebanon at the top of her game. Urvashi Butalia writes.

Against the ingrained

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:45:56 GMT

The art of the provocative literary essay is alive. Manohar Shetty writes.

Johnny Ramone's autobiography to be released

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:19:50 GMT

Eight years after he died of prostate cancer, Johnny Ramone, one of the founding members of the legendary punk band the Ramones, will come alive in the pages of his autobiography.