Top Ten (+4) Tuesdays: New Authors 2021

This week in Top Ten Tuesdays hosted @That Artsy Reader Girl, we have been asked to name top ten (or more or less) new authors whom we discovered last year. Well, last year I read a host of new authors from those whom I made a special point to read like Reginald Hill and Shelley …

Three Non-Fictional Reads

My Life My Rules: Stories of 18 Unconventional Careers by Sonia Golani My first read of the year 2020, the book charts the career of 18 individuals who shrugged off conventional wisdom by leaving highly-paid jobs and taking on something their heart desired: becoming a rock star, a food critic, a cricket commentator, a DJ, …

Short Notes: The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett & Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Charlie Lovett's The Bookman's Tale is concerned with an old puzzle related to English literary studies: Was William Shakespeare really the author of the plays that we have in his name or were they written by someone else: Francis Bacon, The Earl of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth, or Christopher Marlowe?American antiquarian bookseller and grieving widower, Peter …

Royalty in India: Maharani, and Almond Eyes Lotus Feet

There was a time when India was a mass of Princely kingdoms who spent their time warring with each other, patronising the arts, looking (or not-looking) after their subjects, and doing other things that Royals are supposed to do.In Maharani, Ruskin Bond narrates the story of an aging former queen Neena or H.H as the …

Between the Ordinary and Whatever isn’t: Bhaskar Ghose’s The Teller Of Tales

Somehow I find novels narrated in the form of tales very fascinating. Not only the tales but also the facets of the narrator that are revealed through that telling promise an interesting read. Thus when I saw Bhaskar Ghose's The Teller of Tales sitting invitingly on the library shelves, I had to pick it up.Tapan …

Entry Denied: Deb Simpson’s Closing the Gate

James Edward Pirkey Jr. died on May 13, 1997. He was thirty-six years old, had never married and had no children. He had placed a gun to his head, and reached for the next level, the place where he hoped to meet the precious spirits already departed.  This is the story of his life, of …