Book Reviews

Like much of USA, I have been glued to the television and phone over the last few days. Afraid that this might become an unhealthy habit, I determined that a good distraction was in order. So here I am attempting to do a round-up of all the books I read in the last two months, with the hope I might pick another shortly. Kiddo started school and work picked up pace, so reading was SLOW.…

Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London (Midnight Riot in US) suffers a bit from an identity crisis. It tries to be a fantasy-fiction novel, a police procedural, a London guide, a commentary on race all at the same time, but never quite succeeding. There is so much going on in every single page, that it was often hard to remember how I arrived at a particular point in the story and whether it was significant. The…

September is here, and we are heading towards the last quarter of this very strange year. I have never more adhered to the ‘one-day-at-a-time’ philosophy as I have in the last six months. And there appears to be no end in sight. The only upside (and I use that word extremely cautiously, as the world is literally dying from COVID), is that all this staying at home is forced us to lean into habits and…

Thomas Cromwell Finds A Sympathetic Portrayal in ‘Wolf Hall’ In Wolf Hall, Mantel takes us back in history when Henry VIII was shaking the very foundation of the Church in his bid to marry Anne Boleyn. Fun times, huh? Historians and storytellers have already written much about one of the most reformative and turbulent periods of the Tudor rule that it is challenging for a writer to leave their own mark and bring some freshness…

In The Lost Queen, Signe Pike dives deep in Welsh and Scottish myth to bring a fresh look at the legend of Arthur & Merlin.  Pike takes us back to 550 A.D to Goddeu, a small kingdom in Scotland, where  Languoreth, a ten-year-old princess and her twin brother, Lailoken, are mourning the death of their mother. Bereft and grieving, both the young kids are fearful of what the future holds for them. Plot Summary In…

Le Carrè’s brooding spy thriller is slow in execution but big in substance. At a few hundred pages it’s a quick read with a plot engaging in its simplicity. Plot Summary Alec Leamas is an aging British intelligence officer who has recently led the Berlin division during the height of the cold war. His network has slowly collapsed over time because of one person — Mundt, the leader of East Germany’s intelligence operations. The novel opens with…

Megha Majumdar’s debut novel A Burning is literally setting the world ablaze with its rave reviews. The praise is so universal that I hesitated a bit before opening its pages. What if it did not live up to the hype, or worse, what if it mishandled the geopolitics that dominate today’s India? I need not have worried. Through the stories of Jivan, Lovely, and PT Sir, Majumdar weaves an intricate human drama that touches on a myriad…

The Four Graces is a pleasant, relaxing beach read for the discerning reader. Early 20th century England, life at the vicarage in a quaint parish, local gossip, eligible young bachelorettes — it’s fairly staple Georgian fare. It’s not quite up the same alley as Benson, but there is a sufficient amount of plot to keep it interesting. The war clouds hovering over the story add some depth to the somewhat two-dimensional story line. The title…