Book Box | Reading without rules
2 months, 1 week ago

Book Box | Reading without rules

Hindustan Times  

Anything works, there are no rules when it comes to books. Early in my life, I learned the joys of being indiscriminate; promiscuous in my perusal, Monday mornings with missionary Soldiers of God the nuns in school sold us for 25 paise each, library books and the newsprint my jhaal muri packets came wrapped in. Love, lust, likability- they all jump into the ways I read my books Multiplying the highs and lows in my book clubs, dissing, debating, dissecting, discussing, Nuances of character, plot, setting and style Open it all up for analysis, Pages underlined and highlighted. Quick to pick up fiction and memoirs, always on the hunt for something Rare, that literary gem that’s been forgotten, like the stunning Fire of Bengal book written by the wife of a Hungarian professor invited by the Poet to spend a year in Shantiniketan as the fight for Indian Independence hots up Sometimes it is a book everyone is talking about like Orbital, perched on every best books of 2024 booklist. Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service.

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History of this topic

Book Box | The Best Books of 2024
3 months, 1 week ago

Book Box | The Best Books of 2024

Hindustan Times  

2024 has been a mixed reading year for me. Books like Brotherless Night, a historical fiction set during the Sri Lanka Civil War, won this year’s Women’s Prize. Best Fiction - I discovered Angie Kim in last year’s best book lists, many of which featured Happiness Falls, which I loved. Best non-fiction 2024 Best Non-fiction - Every now and then …

Book Box: Are You in a Reading Race?
4 months, 1 week ago

Book Box: Are You in a Reading Race?

Hindustan Times  

Dear Reader, A view of a bookstore. Shortlist for the 2024 Women’s Fiction Prize Other reading deadlines come from our favourite communities – the book clubs. And there are many of these - the celebrity book clubs, the online book clubs, the offline book groups, reading communities like Gurgaon Reads or Juhu Reads that are mushrooming in every city. And …

Book Box | Booker Prize-winning and other longlisted tales of the sea and sky
4 months, 1 week ago

Book Box | Booker Prize-winning and other longlisted tales of the sea and sky

Hindustan Times  

Autumn is turning into winter. Orbital by Samantha Harvey Reading the Booker Prize shortlisted quietly contemplative Stone Yard Devotional, I am comforted to find author Charlotte Wood objecting to these supermarket sachets. In Orbital, I am in outer space with four astronauts and two cosmonauts watching “the continents and oceans fall away beneath — the lavender Arctic, the eastern tip …

Book Box | Fast-paced feel-good books
4 months, 2 weeks ago

Book Box | Fast-paced feel-good books

Hindustan Times  

These last few days, on trips from the market, my backpack has been bursting — butter and baking powder for apple crumble, bread, eggs, lettuce and tomatoes for sandwiches. Starter Villain Book 1 of 4: Starter Villain by John Scalzi: PG Wodehouse meets Douglas Adams in this snarky sci-fi story set in a start-up world where villains rule the world. …

Unveiling the Layers of Kaikeyi: A Feminist Retelling of the Ramayana
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Unveiling the Layers of Kaikeyi: A Feminist Retelling of the Ramayana

Hindustan Times  

The article explores the complex portrayal of Kaikeyi in Vaishnavi Patel's book 'The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess'. It highlights how the book challenges traditional narratives by focusing on her intelligence, resilience, and the layers of her character beyond her role in the Ramayana. The article encourages readers to engage with retellings and listen to stories beyond the mainstream …

Invisible Faces: A Journey Through the River Beas and the Ottoman Empire
5 months, 1 week ago

Invisible Faces: A Journey Through the River Beas and the Ottoman Empire

Hindustan Times  

The article explores the power of storytelling and how it connects people across time and cultures. It highlights the beauty and complexity of Shafak's writing, which transcends prettification and offers a nuanced portrayal of history and politics. The piece also delves into the lives of the artisans and architects who built the mosques in the Ottoman Empire, providing a glimpse …

The Blue Jewel of Samarkand: A Journey Through Uzbek Culture and History
5 months, 3 weeks ago

The Blue Jewel of Samarkand: A Journey Through Uzbek Culture and History

Hindustan Times  

A group of 11 Juhu book club readers embark on a journey through Central Asia, exploring the vibrant cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. The trip is filled with cultural experiences, including visits to mosques, madrasas, and palaces, as well as a boat ride on the Amu Darya River in Samarkand. The readers also attend a traditional music performance in Bukhara, …

Book Box | How to be alone
6 months, 4 weeks ago

Book Box | How to be alone

Hindustan Times  

I wake up alone to leaden skies. There’s Of Mountains and Men, Himalayan Circuit and Stern Reckoning, a book of Partition stories, The Last Mughal and also my favourite — his quaintly titled memoir Memory’s Gay Chariot. There are the books I read as a teenager during my summer holidays, here in Manali — The Dam Busters, a World War …

Book Box | Doppelgangers and dissonance: When Neil Gaiman and Alice Munro disappoint
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Book Box | Doppelgangers and dissonance: When Neil Gaiman and Alice Munro disappoint

Hindustan Times  

The last fortnight has been depressing in book news. “How do I tell my daughter — we’ve been reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman and enjoying it — how can I tell her, what words do I use?” says a reader friend. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I think about Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, a book that …

Book Box | My emotional reading journey through the Women's Prize shortlist
10 months, 1 week ago

Book Box | My emotional reading journey through the Women's Prize shortlist

Hindustan Times  

When I look at a literary shortlist, I want to read all the books on it. The books are set in different countries and times — River East, River West in China, Enter Ghost in Israel-Palestine, Brotherless Night in Sri Lanka, Restless Dolly Maunder in nineteenth-century Australia, The Wren, The Wren and Soldier Sailor in Ireland. I head for my …

Book Box | Meet Priya Narendra: The writer who loves badly behaved women
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Book Box | Meet Priya Narendra: The writer who loves badly behaved women

Hindustan Times  

She was the girl with the American accent. I was awed to hear Priya had written Two Chalet School Girls in India, a book in my favourite boarding school series – the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer. I love ‘badly behaved women’ – those are the ones that make history, aren’t they? The first chapter I wrote – Juggernaut …

Book Box | FOMO and feasting at the Jaipur Lit Fest
1 year, 1 month ago

Book Box | FOMO and feasting at the Jaipur Lit Fest

Hindustan Times  

I can’t believe I am in Jaipur. The sessions of the day are over, but people linger on, carrying JLF cloth bags, taking pictures under a canopy of colourful streamers, chattering and drinking chai in clay kulhads. I meet a friend who tells me about the electrifying sessions of the day – Booker Prize-winning Paul Lynch with Prophet Song, Bonnie …

Book Box | Writers, it’s okay to be jealous
1 year, 2 months ago

Book Box | Writers, it’s okay to be jealous

Hindustan Times  

Writers everywhere are talking about Cait Corrain. You’ll find evidence of cliques all over social media—writers gushing over excerpts of one another’s unpublished manuscripts, squealing over cover reveals, and posting selfies of group hangs at literary meet-ups across the globe," says the narrator of Yellowface, the literary thriller by RF Kuang. But in the world of the jealous writer, creative …

Book Box | Meet Mita Kapur, literary agent, food writer
1 year, 2 months ago

Book Box | Meet Mita Kapur, literary agent, food writer

Hindustan Times  

"Hey that’s Mita Kapur, literary agent and food writer," a friend pointed out. An English Literature graduate from Lady Shri Ram College, the youngest of three sisters, married for love into a Jaipur-based joint family, fulfilling everything expected from her and doing a lot more – that’s Mita Kapur for you. For more food writing from Mita Kapur, check out …

Book Box | A bookstore in New York draws attention to literary gems
1 year, 4 months ago

Book Box | A bookstore in New York draws attention to literary gems

Hindustan Times  

It’s Sunday morning in New York, and I’m sitting at the corner coffee shop, reading an interview with Annie Ernaux, last year's Nobel Prize literary legend. From there, it's a wild ride — a hired assassin, a girl in a tub — all converging on an Air France flight from Paris to New York. The narrative gallops through Putin's defining …

Book box | Welcome back, Bill. We've missed you.
1 year, 4 months ago

Book box | Welcome back, Bill. We've missed you.

Hindustan Times  

Dear Reader, 28 years after writing his last Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson is back! For years, I’ve read picture books out aloud to our three girls from authors such as Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, Shel Silverstein, and an illustrated Lewis Carroll. "Deep truths hide in plain sight in picture books" she pointed out, reading us The Rabbit Listened …

Book Box | Manohar Malgonkar's "The Princes": A literary journey into princely India
1 year, 5 months ago

Book Box | Manohar Malgonkar's "The Princes": A literary journey into princely India

Hindustan Times  

I am in tiger country. Our host, a long-time member of our book club, is also Manohar Malgonkar’s niece; this is her family home. Manohar Malgonkar’s ancestral house Sitting outdoors, at the breakfast table, we are enraptured by the twists and turns of this family saga- right from a young boy, his newly married wife and mother being thrown out …

Book Box: A trailblazing economist's memoir who helped build today's India
1 year, 7 months ago

Book Box: A trailblazing economist's memoir who helped build today's India

Hindustan Times  

I am at dinner. Send it to me, I can help you.’" Sixty years later Devaki writes this book, titling it in tribute to The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, explaining why she has chosen a brass notebook over a golden notebook. The Brass Notebook and The Golden Notebook Back to Devaki, who says, "I was never an influential academic …

Book Box | The secret lives of banks
1 year, 8 months ago

Book Box | The secret lives of banks

Hindustan Times  

The monsoons are here. He has a whole list: The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness by Morgan Housel, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten …

Book Box: A Delhi Bookstore Crawl
1 year, 10 months ago

Book Box: A Delhi Bookstore Crawl

Hindustan Times  

I am back in Delhi. Mirza Afsar Baig, Midland Bookstore It’s Time Shelter the Booker prize winner, he says, handing me a copy of the book. I spy the first and second last books in two of the graduate-to-be’s favourite series - The Decagon House Murders and The Last Orphan and pick both up. The book arrives in less than …

Book Box: A Guide to Help Women Get Rich
1 year, 11 months ago

Book Box: A Guide to Help Women Get Rich

Hindustan Times  

I am standing outside the school gate, with a gaggle of mothers. I’ve written about Let's Talk Money in hacking your financial life, because, really, there is no better book on personal finance in India. Rand’s writing may be dated in its setting, but one must consider reading her work to get perspective on money beliefs and how they impact …

Book Box: How to Avert a Financial Collapse
2 years ago

Book Box: How to Avert a Financial Collapse

Hindustan Times  

A few months ago, I attended a talk by Edward Chancellor. This IIT IIM alumnus takes us through his journey of reading — from Russian literature translated into Gujarati, in the libraries of Ahmedabad, to books on capital and risk, amidst the bourses of Bombay. USSR also used to convert many Russian language books into Indian languages and made these …

Book Box: The Goddess, the Writer of Science, and Women Who Fight
2 years ago

Book Box: The Goddess, the Writer of Science, and Women Who Fight

Hindustan Times  

I’ve been preoccupied by images of goddesses. I’ve followed Saini with fascination ever since I read Inferior, her book on women and science. There are just so many good things to say about The Patriarchs, from the book’s fluency and flow to the unbelievable lightness of its erudition — but here’s a one sentence pitch instead — if you’d like …

Book Box: Become a Master Persuader
2 years, 1 month ago

Book Box: Become a Master Persuader

Hindustan Times  

Tell me about a time you failed to persuade somebody, I ask my students. It’s time today to pick the words we use to better persuade people - from sponsoring MBAs to rental agreements and remote working to romance. You vent to a friend, who might say Don’t be upset, Life is like that, You must have done something to …

Book Box: Create Your Home Library
2 years, 1 month ago

Book Box: Create Your Home Library

Hindustan Times  

My book club is reading a book about a boy who runs away to a library. Begin by choosing your library vibe You may be happy with your books “not yet touched by the mild boredom of order” as philosopher Walter Benjamin puts it. In such a case, my grandfather's home library model would be a good one — the …

Book Box: JLF Diaries
2 years, 2 months ago

Book Box: JLF Diaries

Hindustan Times  

We are sitting on the eighth floor, in a rooftop bar, overlooking the city of Jaipur. When she was ten years old, she began helping her elder brothers win kite flying competitions by making the best manjha coating kite flying thread with cooked rice, glue and glass powder. You can totally picture him in his childhood experiences of burrowing amongst …

Book Box: The Ghostwriter and the Prince
2 years, 2 months ago

Book Box: The Ghostwriter and the Prince

Hindustan Times  

I met JR Moehringer 14 years ago. I read newspapers, old Readers Digest magazines, my mother’s hoard of Women’s Weekly magazines, everything I could get my hands on. Often, authors don’t have a clear idea of what they want to share, or they have too many ideas and think that all those ideas will fit into one book. The Mahabharata …

Book Box: The Life-Changing Magic of Reading Plans
2 years, 2 months ago

Book Box: The Life-Changing Magic of Reading Plans

Hindustan Times  

Last year, I read 130 books. Writing down my TBR, on Goodreads, on Google Docs and even as book screenshots on my phone, helped solidify my reading goals and make them attainable. Explore engaging reading themes: Join a book club and pitch them a theme – like reading the Pulitzer prizewinners for the last 5 years. Read The Year of …

Book Box: The Big Listen: Audiobooks for the Holidays
2 years, 3 months ago

Book Box: The Big Listen: Audiobooks for the Holidays

Hindustan Times  

Last week, I began teaching a course on persuasive communication. You can walk 10,000 steps listening to Friends star Matthew Perry tell you his story or to Tim Waterstone, founder of the United Kingdom’s most successful bookstore chain, in The Face Pressed Against the Window. Audiobook 2 of 5: Short Story Listen to this short story for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's …

Book Box: Racy Reads for the Holidays
2 years, 3 months ago

Book Box: Racy Reads for the Holidays

Hindustan Times  

Fiction is the gateway drug to reading, says Neil Gaiman. But here, in 384 pages, I feel like I’m looking at the real story, the one they never told me, the one that happened off the battlefields of Troy. They have waited long enough for their turn.’ Book 4 of 5: Coming of Age Romance All the Right People. What’s …

Book Box: Best Book Club Reads of 2022
2 years, 3 months ago

Book Box: Best Book Club Reads of 2022

Hindustan Times  

It’s mid December in Mumbai, with a whiff of the holidays, time to sit outdoors all weekend with book talk. And often, we ended up changing our opinion on a character or even on the book - ‘Hmm, you may have a point, I never thought of it that way.’ Sometimes, we were lucky to have an author join us, …

Book Box: Why We Need Memoirs — 2
2 years, 3 months ago

Book Box: Why We Need Memoirs — 2

Hindustan Times  

It’s a sunny winter afternoon on the Malabar Coast, and I am teaching a personal storytelling class at IIM Kozhikode. The motives for writing memoirs are many — a personal catharsis with grief, abuse, addiction, memorialising a story that would otherwise be forgotten, influencing public opinion for a cause or a community, communicating your expertise, and if you’re in the …

Book Box: Why We Need Memoirs — 1
2 years, 4 months ago

Book Box: Why We Need Memoirs — 1

Hindustan Times  

This is the story of an elegant lady in a silk sari who comes to tea. What was it like to deal with dacoits in Bokaro Steel City, to help expose the police excesses in the Bhagalpur blindings, to get a call early in the morning from the then Chief Minister of Bihar Laloo Prasad Yadav, we ask her? We …

Book Box: What do you read before Harry Potter?
2 years, 4 months ago

Book Box: What do you read before Harry Potter?

Hindustan Times  

"Children’s books are the most important books of all. To celebrate the upcoming Children’s Day, here are six sets of stunning books for you — profound and page-turning, with stories of our earth and its animals, art and science, food and personal finance. On the Origin of the Species is the perfect book to have on your children’s home library …

Book Box: Kickstart Your Writing Life
2 years, 4 months ago

Book Box: Kickstart Your Writing Life

Hindustan Times  

We begin with On Writing by Stephen King, and then Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The writers' group exercise throws up amazing books on writing, with everything from the psychology of writing to advice on planning plot lines, creating characters and revising and editing. Storytellers all over the world will spend 30 days this November, completing a draft of …

Book Box: The Gifts of Reading
2 years, 5 months ago

Book Box: The Gifts of Reading

Hindustan Times  

Last month, at a book club in Bengaluru, we talked about giving books as gifts. To friends Man’s Search for Meaning,” said S. “Atlas of the Heart - this beautifully illustrated book by Brene Brown,” said D. In the end, in anticipation of all the birthdays and festivals coming our way, we walked across to the indie Champaca bookstore to …

Book Box: Why read translations
2 years, 5 months ago

Book Box: Why read translations

Hindustan Times  

When Jhumpa Lahiri was in kindergarten, she had to make a Mother’s Day card. “Inside the card, we all had to hand write the same message: Dear Mom, Happy Mother’s Day” This was a problem for the young Jhumpa Lahiri, one that was about, both writing and translation. For today, here are 5 detective stories from across the world – …

Book Box: The secret life of democracies
2 years, 6 months ago

Book Box: The secret life of democracies

Hindustan Times  

On Thursday, we discussed Midnight’s Borders by Suchitra Vijayan. This book of essays, edited by SY Quraishi, has contributions from experts whose life’s work has been democracy. Democracy is an idea worth engaging with early, and a good book to do this is We The Children of India by Leila Seth. This investment banker turned founder of PRS Legislative Research, …

Book Box: How to raise a reader
2 years, 6 months ago

Book Box: How to raise a reader

Hindustan Times  

On a recent trip to St Petersburg, we fell in love with a painting. Because books will Stimulate your child’s imagination Expand his understanding of the world Develop her brain to better problem solve Improve his communication skills Give her a sense of ethics Increase his empathy As we celebrate International Literacy Day from earlier this week, on September 8, …

Book Box: Equal, Yet Different
2 years, 7 months ago

Book Box: Equal, Yet Different

Hindustan Times  

I am to meet with a storyteller and I have volunteered my house. They come from different corners of the city - Sion, Wadala, Malad, Malabar Hill and Mid-town, they’ve brought food and drink and copies of the storyteller's book. Stories from vantage points around ‘Equal Yet Different’. On Bad Bosses ‘My first boss was the worst - she’d summon …

Book Box: Why Salman Rushdie?
2 years, 7 months ago

Book Box: Why Salman Rushdie?

Hindustan Times  

My mother was complaining to the lending library man, in Jamshedpur’s Bistupur market. I was a “paying guest” in the neighbourhood where protagonist Saleem Sinai and Rushdie grew up - on Warden Road in Breach Candy, walking past Scandal Point, searching for its second-hand library. And then there was the lush language — the very first time I’d seen words …

Book Box: How to fall in love with books (again)
2 years, 8 months ago

Book Box: How to fall in love with books (again)

Hindustan Times  

“Did you really read 100 books last year?” I get asked. A trip to a bookstore is a pocket of quiet reading time, it’s a crash course in the latest book releases, and when you buy books there, you are helping local bookstores stay alive. I talk to her at her Bethesda home, via email and phone, on reading goals …

Book Box: Rainy Reads
2 years, 9 months ago

Book Box: Rainy Reads

Hindustan Times  

We are listening to Carolina on repeat. With the movie releasing in a few weeks, it’s the perfect time to curl up indoors, on a rainy day, to read this book. Book 3 of 5: A Japanese time travel story Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a …

Book Box: The beginner's guide to audiobooks
2 years, 9 months ago

Book Box: The beginner's guide to audiobooks

Hindustan Times  

When my daughter was 10, she started to mumble. Why you should read audiobooks ⦁ You will end up reading significantly more ⦁ It’s a great way to liven up tedious times like travelling or doing chores ⦁ Your language fluency, articulation, and pronunciation all improve ⦁ Listening to audiobooks helps reduce screen time ⦁ It can be a good …

Book Box: The book lover's guide to New York
2 years, 10 months ago

Book Box: The book lover's guide to New York

Hindustan Times  

When I was in school in Jamshedpur, students were forbidden from opening the glass cupboards full of books. For a more contemporary New York feel, go straight to Paul Auster’s mesmerising and metaphysical murder stories in his New York Trilogy. Book 4 of 7: Gangster Saga The Godfather by Mario Puzo and the Godfather films that are based on this …

Book Box: Seven fabulous books for architecture lovers
2 years, 10 months ago

Book Box: Seven fabulous books for architecture lovers

Hindustan Times  

Walking through the streets of Chicago, I feel I’m in a museum of architecture: Bridges that split to let the boats out, glass towers, Gothic churches, neighbourhoods built and rebuilt after the Great Fire. There’s also a fabulous picture book celebrating a rock garden in Chandigarh and a graphic novel. In this riveting read, America’s architects squabble and strive, Edison …

Book Box | Seven provocative books for mothers
2 years, 10 months ago

Book Box | Seven provocative books for mothers

Hindustan Times  

Growing up in small-town Jamshedpur, my mother would bring me books. Also, a conversation with Zibby Owens, creator of the award-winning Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books Podcast. Must-reads: Book 3 of 7 The world’s draconian demands on motherhood show up in a striking new novel - The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. Moms Don’t Have Time …

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