Book review
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‘Remember, Mr Sharma’: This novel laced with novel magical realism explores India’s communal history
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‘Nocturne Pondicherry’: In these translated short stories, night is an enabler and invader
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‘The Shudra Rebellion’: Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd studies the vital role of oppressed castes in India
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‘Think Again’: Jaqueline Wilson’s novel grapples with the realities of being a late millennial
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‘Liberal Hearts’: This fun and frothy campus novel is reminiscent of old-school Bollywood
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‘The Fertile Earth’: An epic debut novel about how class and caste dictates whom and how to love
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Sushilkumar Shinde’s ‘Five Decades in Politics’: A revealing memoir of a Dalit’s life in politics
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‘Chikkamma Tours Pvt Ltd’: A cosy Bangalore murder mystery with a realistic portrayal of queer lives
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‘The Menstrual Coupé’: These experimental stories about women’s lives and sexuality are a revelation
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‘Island’: Novel about an uncontacted tribe asks profound questions on what it means to share a world
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‘We Solve Murders’: Richard Osman’s new murder mystery promises – and delivers – a good time
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‘The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi’: A charming novel about a forgotten rockstar
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Booker Prize review: Desire, suspicion, and obsession comprise the emotional core of ‘The Safekeep’
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‘Thoughts of Gaza Far from Gaza’: The book shows how to think of Gaza as a world in itself
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‘Patriot’: Alexei Navalny’s memoir is a testament to resisting authoritarianism
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Booker Prize review: The wretched of the earth in Charlotte Wood’s novel ‘Stone Yard Devotional’
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Booker Prize review: ‘Orbital’ is a wondrous, evocative novel about witnessing humanity from space
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‘Iru’: A biography in motion about anthropologist Irawati Karve, who lived life on her own terms
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‘Our Bones in Your Throat’: A savage campus novel that takes the culture of bullying head-on
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Booker Prize review: In ‘Held’, the moments of transcendence that bind us to one another
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‘Asides, Tirades, Meditations’: Kiran Nagarkar wrote with an electric style on a host of topics
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‘The Identity Project’: Rahul Bhatia examines the hijacking of governance by sectarian interests
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‘Leaf, Water, and Flow’: An ingeniously structured novel that questions how we read and write
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Sakshi Malik’s memoir ‘Witness’: The wrestler sees an unsparing image of herself in her own mirror
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‘Nexus’: Has AI hacked the operating system of civilisation? Yuval Noah Harari sounds a warning
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‘Do Not Ask the River Her Name’: A congested fictional narrative includes Israel-Palestine conflict
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‘Indian Millennials’: What being a Millennial means to the Akashs, Sameers, and Siddharths of India
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‘Sanatan’: A shameful history of caste violence in Sharankumar Limbale’s novel about the Mahars
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Booker Prize review: Percival Everett’s ‘James’ is a caustic tale of America’s shape-shifting racism
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‘Dalithan’: KK Kochu’s autobiography is a crucial cultural-historical-political document
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‘The One Legged’: This Bengali novel in translation is a shocking exploration of children’s psyches
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‘Broken Threads’: A thoughtful memoir on how a colonial past has framed a family’s present
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‘A House of Words’: Indian writers honour Keki N Daruwalla’s enduring influence on literature
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‘The Spice Gate’: A fiercely political fantasy rooted in caste and food-based discrimination
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This book asks why the Indianness of Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia is questioned
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‘The Dust Draws Its Face on the Wind’: A landscape of feelings in Avinash Shrestha’s poetry
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‘The Life and Work of Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar’: A biography of a brave anti-caste Devadasi
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Booker Prize review: Rachel Kushner’s spy novel ‘Creation Lake’ shows us hurtling towards extinction
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‘This Land We Call Home’: A rare account of changing homes, faiths, identities and nation
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‘The Golden Road’ by William Dalrymple: An information-rich narration of knowledge in ancient India
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‘Glass Bottom’: An unexpected, wondrous, and brave new way to tell a story
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‘Intermezzo’: Sally Rooney has done it again with this novel of cracks in primordial relationships
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‘The Big Book of Odia Literature’ packages Odisha’s rich and diverse literary heritage effectively
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‘How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?’: An investigation of how the state can stifle dissent brutally
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‘White Blood’: Nanak Singh’s 1932 novel is a searing critique of the moral corruption in society
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‘Maria, Just Maria’: A defiant story of female madness with a wicked sense of humour
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‘The Many Lives of Syeda X’: The story of an everywoman whose constant battles build our economy
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‘The Tales from Campus: A Misguide to College’: The first lessons on empathy for young adults
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‘Into the Forest’: An elegant novel about the obligations to humanity during troubled times
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‘Our City, That Year’: The many tangled happenings that form the psychic context of communalism
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‘The Politician Redux’: Devesh Verma’s novel of Indian politics makes familiar events interesting
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‘Making It Big’: Nepali billionaire Binod Chaudhary’s memoir is an endearing tribute to his life
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‘Of Mother and Other Perishables’: A dead mother’s vigil for her daughters tells evocatively of love
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Aruna Roy’s memoir ‘The Personal is Political’: The transformative power of empathy and commitment
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‘A Person is a Prayer’: A moving novel about the aches, regrets and longings each of us harbours
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‘The Provincials’: Sumana Roy breaks the artificial barriers about the provinces in her book
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‘Woman, Life, Freedom’: Marjane Satrapi shows freedom is incomplete without women’s liberation
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‘Talashnama’: Novel about religious fundamentalism is testament to the political significance of art
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‘Amrut’: An engaging account of the ambition and global success of an Indian single malt whiskey
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‘Poor Economics for Kids’: Nobel laureate Esther Duflo’s book for children imagines a fair world
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‘Love the Dark Days’: Ira Mathur’s memoir is an insightful study of politics of love and exclusion
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‘More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop’: The Japanese comfort read returns with a charming sequel
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‘The Gentleman from Peru’: André Aciman’s novel mourns (or celebrates) lives spent in waiting
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‘The Enclave’: Heavy-handed execution mars the intriguing intent of Rohit Manchanda’s new novel
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‘Riverside Stories’: This book of writings from Assam gives space to marginalised voices and themes
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‘Wild Women’: Anthology of Bhakti poems shows how women shaped language subconscious in India
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‘Girl With the Seven Lives’: Vikas Swarup’s new novel is entertaining, despite a clichéd plot
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‘Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones’: Priyanka Mattoo’s memoir illuminates deeper truths about displacement
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‘How the World Was Born’: The 108 Indian myths in this book take readers on an unusual tour
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‘Darako’: Parashar Kulkarni’s new novel about spitters and believers is a total riot
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Death row prisoner Ehtesham Siddiqui’s memoir ‘Horror Saga’: A sobering tale about justice systems
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‘On the Other Side’: The good and the bad Muslim, and the Urdu language that just wants to exist
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‘The Incarcerations’: Alpa Shah’s book about the Bhima Koregaon-16 portrays faces of resistance
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‘The Lion and the Lily’: Ira Mukhoty’s new book on Awadh history resurrects Nawab Begum, Bahu Begum
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‘Mother India’: Prayaag Akbar’s new novel excavates the often empty roots of nationalistic pride
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‘This Our Paradise’: Karan Mujoo’s debut novel is tender, heartbreaking, and ingeniously panoramic
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‘Pig Flip’: Malayalam writer Joshy Benedict’s unique style redefines Indian graphic storytelling
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‘The Distaste of the Earth’: Kynpham S Nongkynrih’s novel is a love story between humans and nature
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‘Love in the Time of Hate’: Rakhshanda Jalil’s book is a loving tribute to the Urdu language
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‘Biopeculiar’: Speculative short stories about nature tell what is at stake to those who will listen
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‘Treasurer of Piggy Banks’: The cosmic and the planetary in Vinod Kumar Shukla’s poetry
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‘Rosarita’: Anita Desai’s new novel shows she is still at the top of her game
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Damodar Mauzo’s ‘Boy, Unloved’: Surviving loss and loneliness with friendship and books
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Madhumita Murgia’s ‘Code Dependent’ offers a powerful critique of data colonialism in the age of AI
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‘The Children of this Madness’: A saga of a son of the soil who goes from Bangladesh to USA
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‘The Remains of the Body’: What the fluidity of love, friendship, and liminality of desire can do
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‘Sweet Shop’: Amit Chaudhuri (re)opens intimate, everyday spaces for English poetry from India
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‘A Slight Angle’: Rule-breaking, self-actualisation, and queer desire at a historic time in India
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‘The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years’: What haunts us is not the supernatural but our existence
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‘Ebrahim Alkazi’: The meteoric rise of an artist who shaped contemporary theatre aesthetics in India
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‘Mahmud And Ayaz’: An envelope-pushing novel that takes the past and the present head-on
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‘My Beloved Life’ by Amitava Kumar: Truth, memories, and what we leave behind
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‘Bhang Journeys’: A heady tale about the popular Indian intoxicant and its many splendours
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‘Parade’: Rachel Cusk’s new novel makes the familiar strange – and moves beyond womanhood
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‘The Scent of Fallen Stars’: The prose shines with possibilities but the plot does not quite sparkle
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‘Choice’: Neel Mukherjee’s new novel buckles a bit under its own lofty ambitions
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‘Crooked Seeds’: Karen Jennings’s new novel is cautionary, political, moving
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‘Swadeshi Steam’ illustrates South India’s under-studied contributions to the nationalist movement
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2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction: Quick reviews of the six shortlisted novels
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Shahnaz Habib’s ‘Airplane Mode’ is an inquisitive account of travel and its attendant histories