Top Reads

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…

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…

I often approach contemporary writers with some trepidation, much like Margaret Lea, the narrator of  The Thirteenth Tale. I need not have worried, because this gothic tale hooks and reels you in as you open its first pages. It was November – Diane Setterfield The book’s opening sentence is simple and yet it contains the promise of a dark, grim ghost story. For in the end, this is what The Thirteenth Tale is; a ghost…

The latest novel by Ann Patchett is an intimate character study of a brother and sister, abandoned by their parents and their fate often tested by life. One day the Conroy siblings find themselves motherless, as Elena Conroy leaves them for a higher calling without ever bothering to say goodbye. This abandonment by their mother, and her picking the needs of strangers over her own kids, leaves a permanent bruise. And it all started with…

The Underground Railroad is not the kind of book you want to read when you are sheltering-at-home, avoiding the rest of the human race and a pandemic. But then again, is there ever a right time to read about the horrors of slavery? As a 21st century immigrant American, I feel somewhat of a personal responsibility to understand the history of the nation I have adopted, no matter how dark or uncomfortable it is. Now is…

Spoiler Alert: The review does have spoilers for The City of Brass and The  Kingdom of Copper, so don’t read ahead if you plan to get to those books. Instead read this to know why these books are so awesome. The Empire of Gold is the final installment of the Daevabad Trilogy, a middle-eastern fantasy fiction series set in the late 1700s. In the first two books, Nahri, a con artist from Egypt, discovers her…

During the many rereads of Pride & Prejudice, as much as I enjoyed the goings on of the Bennet household, I often felt shortchanged in my understanding of Mr. Darcy. His reclusiveness adds both to his arrogance and enigma. We hear of his good deeds only from his friends and employees, but very little from him is heard through the pages. He often makes his presence felt by sulking or glowering in the background, an…