by Anuradha Goyal
307 Book Reviews
293 Authors
88 Publishers
19 Author Interviews

 

Indianomix by Vivek Dehejia, Rupa Subramanya

May 25, 2013

Book Review Indianomix by Vivek Dehejia, Rupa SubramanyaI read this book because of all the media hype that I saw around this book. Literally everyone was going gaga over how insightful the book is. Well, it is written interestingly, but does it tell you what its tagline ‘Making Sense of Modern India’ promises to, I don’t think so. It reminded me of another book also based on Game Theory called Games Indians Play, and the authors of both the books seem to have similar profile. Go spend sometime in the west, come back and get lost in the Indian chaos, and then use the western lens to interpret the chaos, especially through all the well-funded random studies that can derive a co-relation between any two parameters.

I could not make any sense out of any chapter; it starts from somewhere lands somewhere, and the meaning of initial intent and the chapter heading gets lost in the process. It seems like random conversations between friends that begins with some observation Continue reading →


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English Bites! By Manish Gupta

May 20, 2013

My Fullproof English Learning FormulaEnglish language has a unique status in India. It is a measure of education, class and accessibility to many things. Today it is fast becoming the de facto language of the youth, an integral part of colloquial local languages as well, but till a couple of decades back most of us struggled with it, specially when it came to speaking fluently in English. At home we spoke our respective languages, at school we learn how to read and write English but who was to teach us talking in English with its unpredictable pronunciation.  As a generation that went to school in 80s, we taught ourselves, we learnt from here and there – we did not have Internet or even TV except for news may be, and some of us took it more seriously than others. Manish Gupta, the author of this book is one of them. I discovered that author were in the same city, studying in the same vicinity around the same time, he is probably a couple of years my senior. So, I related very strongly to his personal anecdotes, as the backdrop was as much mine. Continue reading →


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How Stella Saved the Farm by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

May 15, 2013

Book review How Stella Saves the Farm Do we not love reading fables? Do we not like being in the world of those not like us? Is it not tickling to see animals running a farm with all management principles and falling into same traps? Authors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble are well known experts in the field of Innovation Management and have written the famous book on execution challenge. This is a tale that they weave to put across their points in a very simple and in my opinion the most effective way.

Authors share that reading this small fable has been more effective than a classroom or traditional ways of making people understand innovation and the pushes and pulls it requires in organizations. Through an animal farm, they have been able to state the problem of why innovation becomes a must for organizations at certain points in time and then how do you deal with the special needs it comes from. What I appreciate the most is that they deal with the softer aspects of innovation Continue reading →


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Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan

May 10, 2013

Anuja ChauhanFew years back I had read her ‘The Zoya Factor’, and I kind of liked the quirky story that blended all the happening elements of happening India then while sticking to the trademark superstitions. I missed her next book, but picked up this one for some light read. The blurb sounded interesting with story of five daughters named alphabetically in the Delhi of late 80s, or should we say just before liberalization. Well, I think I would prefer her first book to this one, but nonetheless this one is also quite readable.

It is a rom-com or romantic comedy between the 4th daughter i.e. Debjani and Dylon Singh Shekhawat a journalist working on 1984 riots. Story revolves around the Hailey Road, where the girl’s extended elite family lives. At most it moves to CP and it’s chaatwalas, or for some news snippets to other parts of Delhi, and for few minutes to Mumbai. You get a very good feel of how Delhi was in 1980s, when Doordarshan was the only TV channel, when people still traveled by buses primarily, Continue reading →


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The Other Side of the Table by Madhumita Mukherjee

May 5, 2013

the-other-side-of-the-table-madhumita-mukherjeeI have always believed that the best expression comes out when you know whom you are talking to, when you know them well and when your thoughts are well thought out. Letter writing is one such format where there is a conversation between two people and only one speaks at a time. Reader gets his own time and space to read and absorb what the writer has said without worrying about loosing the next sentence while you are still lost in interpreting the last one. To be able to weave a full length story through letters between two characters separated by continents is a craft.

Madhumita has woven a sweet and gentle love story between two not so unusual characters, one an Indian born Surgeon in London and another a new medical student in Kolkata. The relationship develops over the letters as they share their lives with each other while becoming a support system for each other. They go through their lives as usual, Continue reading →


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Ma Anand Sheela talks about Love, Life & Bhagwan

May 1, 2013

Ma Anand SheelaShe is an intriguing personality, a very unusual life – a life that may seem like a bundle of contradictions, so it was a privilege to interact with her and find her more real than her life sounds. Hear her answer my doubts and my curiosities:

1.Tell us something about your upbringing before you met Bhagwan, what did you study, where did you grow up.

I had a wonderful family life.  I was loved by everyone in the family as I was the last born.  My parents spoiled me with their love but also my brothers and sisters did the same.  This bond of love that our parents gave us as an inheritance we enjoy it still today.

My father was an ideologue. My mother was forgiving and loving beautiful woman.  She was the sunflower Continue reading →


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Give Away III

April 30, 2013

Book Give Away : Ten Shades of LifeThis month’s Give Away is sponsored by Mahaveer Publications, and they are giving away 3 copies of the book : 10 Shades of Life

All you have to do is answer this simple Question in the comments section:

What shade or color would define the best moment in your life & why?

All the Best and look forward to the varied hues of your answers.

About the book:

In times when anthologies dwell on prosaic romantic accounts, Fablery presents ten shades of life. From a nail-biting thriller to a spine-chilling ghost story, an exquisite romance to an ingenious fantasy, an adventurous science-fiction to mirthful and remarkable experiences of salaried men, Continue reading →

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Samarthya by ShashiPrakash Saini

April 28, 2013

A collection of Hindi PoemsA small self published book of Hindi poems by a Kashi resident comes to me for review and I tell the poet that it is not easy to review poems and I might fail. As I saw the Devnagari script, I picked it up and quickly read it over a few sessions, as it would not be justified to read poetry in one go.

I liked the poetic way in which the poet has described himself on the back cover. Like every poet there are a couple of dominant themes in Saini’s writing – lost love or absence of love, yearning for the life of childhood and a question on the emptiness of modern occupation. It is not easy to do a critical analysis of poetry so here is what I liked from the book:

His first poem on Kashi is nice but I thought he could have brought in many more hues of this multi-faceted city, but then may be he is yet to explore it to that extent. Hifaazat ki keemat Continue reading →


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Garbage Beat by Richa Lakhera

April 25, 2013

Book Review Garbage Beat Richa LakheraThe book reminded me of another book Between the Headlines, both the books are written on exactly the same lines by the TV journalists, based on a year or so of their experience with the TV channel. This time it is Entertainment news instead of general news and the author anchor is better known. The subject is entertainment news pertaining to Bollywood celebrities and is obviously more eye-catching.

Protagonist, an autobiographical character, is more real in this book, as she has shades of grey rather than being all goody-goody. A science postgraduate, daughter of a respectable family chooses to be an entertainment reporter in a news channel. She gets her own show and that is where her stories of covering various film stars and film event starts. Most of the stories are modified versions of real life events with changes made only to avoid any legal hassles, no imagination has been used to create stories. Continue reading →


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As Sweet as Honey by Indira Ganesan

April 20, 2013

Indira GenesanIt was the soothing cover with a texture of honey that prompted me to pick this book up and I am happy I did that.  Indira Ganesan tells a simple story that moves between three continents including a fictional island that exists somewhere closer to Sri Lanka, follows more or less Tamil culture but is not a part of India. A tale that travels about a decade in the life of a perceived traditional extended family on this island of Pi.

It is primarily narrated through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl who lives with her maternal grandmother’s house as her parents pursue their dreams in America. Sometimes the narration takes an anonymous third voice but the flow continues. There are cousins, aunts, uncles living in a huge grandmother’s house, including an aunt who is too tall, and most of the story actually revolves around her unusual life and begins with the most unusual part of it – her getting married and getting widowed on the same day simultaneously discovering that she is pregnant. Continue reading →


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