In ‘The Emperor of Shoes‘ set in Guangdong, China, Spencer Wise tells us the story of Alex Cohen, a 26-year-old heir to a thriving shoe business. Of course, the shoe business thrives on the backs of underpaid Chinese workers, which Alex begins to see slowly. Wise turns the spool unhurriedly, the various threads interleaving beautifully....

This is what I get when I don’t write reviews for a week. A pile of messy thoughts, all tumbling and falling over each other in a heap on the floor of my mind. Here they are, laid out very briefly as I pick my way through them. I am not quoting from the books...

Over the past week, I finished reading three books. Two of them were extremely slim volumes, and absolute pageturners, which made it very easy for me to finish them quickly. Here are my reviews. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson Train Dreams pulled me in right away with its opening lines, In the summer of 1917 Robert...

In the past week, I finished reading two books. Come to think of it, both books were about the struggle with being different, and both had children as the focus. But while I thoroughly enjoyed reading one, the other was marred by an overdose of quirkiness. Here are my reviews. Little Warrior (aka Don’t Tell...

I had never heard of Henning Mankell but I had heard, and even seen a couple of episodes, of Wallander. I couldn’t take the glacial pace, and the perpetually pissed looking Kenneth Brannagh after two or three episodes so I didn’t go further. But when I began reading “The Man from Beijing” I was immediately...

Here I am with my book review of 2018, as promised, and I couldn’t have got a better book to begin with than Katherine Arden’s “The Bear and the Nightingale.” I am not one for fantasy or science fiction but I have promised myself that I will move beyond my beloved go-to’s like literary fiction....

I enjoy stories set in WWII and particularly those that are based on real events. Pam Jenoff’s “The Orphan’s Tale” immediately tempted me for the same reasons when Lisa offered it to me for a book review. There was friendship, romance, history. It couldn’t go that wrong, I thought. The story revolves around Noa and...

Yesterday, I started this short online course named Literature and Mental Health from the University of Warwick featuring prominent figures like Sir Ian McKellan and Stephen Fry. One of the introductory questions that is addressed to the reader is, ‘why do you read?’ It set me thinking and led to this post. I have always...

The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart It’s been ages since I wrote a book review. Save for the teeny two sentences on Goodreads, I haven’t been doing much writing recently. Probably because I have been drunk on life in a good and bad way. Highs and lows one after the other have kept me distracted....

I have one copy of Helen Maryles Shankman’s brilliant book of collected stories named “They Were Like Family To Me” to giveaway! All you have to do is comment on this post with the name of one book that has left an imprint in your memory and why. I will pick one lucky winner who...