Wilting in Delhi’s fearsome summer heat and humidity, and still wary because of the pandemic, I am currently on a mountain reading binge, trying to imagine/will myself out of the heat and up into the hills. Of all the books I’ve read of late, this one might just be my …
It’s been a long time since I read a book that simultaneously baffled me and had me hooked. The world of Brigitte Sharp, a hacker turned cyber-spy, is so technical and tech-heavy, that at times I had no clue what Brigitte and her colleagues in MI6 were even talking about. …
I have come very late to the Mark Forsyth Fan Club, but I am already a fully-paid up member. Mr. Forsyth showed us just how formidably clever and witty he is in The Etymologican – my first review of 2020, incidentally. “The Etymologican” is all about words and is an …
I first read this extraordinary book about the state of one of India’s most sacred rivers a year ago, and was bowled over by the research as well as the empathy the writer shows towards India. Although lamenting the damage done to the Ganga/Ganges – this most holy & revered …
On a visit to Hong Kong last year, I revisited Tai O after a gap of at least 30 years. There were lots of changes, obviously, but reassuringly there was also still a distinctly “rural” feel both to the village and to the whole island of Lantau, which is a …
Everyone needs a sister like mine. A voracious reader, Jane generously shares her books, her reading lists, her favourite authors, and has introduced me to many good reads over the years. Latest discovery, via kid sister, is Peter Lovesey, whom I am only just now discovering, decades after everyone else. …
Daniel Silva’s latest book in the brilliant Gabriel Allon series takes up where “The Black Widow” left off, though you absolutely do not have to have read the former to enjoy the later. Gabriel, the thoroughly likeable, decent, honourable man who heads up the Israeli Secret Service has unfinished business …
What an amazing world we live in. You know someone for almost 30 years, and only now discover the hidden, almost-mystical side to them. My Mumbai-based friend Lakshmi Narayan has just published her second book (& here’s a link to my review of her debut novel) and what a revelation …
Reading Abir Mukherjee’s “A Necessary Evil” was a fine balancing act between dying to know what happened next, and dreading the approaching end of the book. This absolute cracker of a novel is a fine and worthy successor to Mr. Mukherjee’s first novel “A Rising Man“, and it is with …
