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Thoughts to
elevate your mind
Reviewed by Roopinder Singh
The Freethinker’s Prayer
Book and Some Words to Live by
By Khushwant Singh
Aleph, New Delhi. Pages 189. Rs 495.
The
well-known agnostic has brought out a prayer book. This should
not come as a surprise because Khushwant Singh had been interested in
religion for long. He started out as a young Sikh, performing rituals
and reciting gurbani, something that he still listens to
regularly. "Over the years, I came up with a religion of my own.
I had very simple rules: Ahimsa —non-violence above all—
work as worship; honesty (even about one’s dishonesties); helping
people in need; silent charity; and respecting and preserving the
natural world. I may have failed to live by these rules sometimes, but
I have tried to do so to the best of my ability."
Our
very own super hero
Reviewed by Puneetinder Kaur
Sidhu
Jaal – Book 1 of the Kaal
Trilogy
By Sangeeta Bahadur
Pan Books. Pages 460. Rs 299
Sangeeta
Bahadur’s debut novel heralds happy tidings for devotees of
speculative literature. For a genre yet to leave an indelible
footprint on the Indian literary landscape, Jaal – Book I of
the Kaal trilogy is your proverbial leap towards that
objective. It is the story of Arihant, a warrior with divine powers;
envisaged as both saviour and destroyer by universal powers that be.
Set in an illusory world in an India immediately after the Vedic ages,
the super hero is assigned the task of annihilating Aushij, Lord of
Maya, one of the four children of Adi Purush and Adi Shakti. Who,
despite being endlessly trapped in dreams following sibling
subterfuge, continues to create havoc in the real world.
Persistence
of memory and fight for survival
Reviewed by Balwinder Kaur
The Book of Summers
By Emily Hall. Headline Review.
Pages 338. Rs 395
Beth
Lowe has actively avoided her past for 14 years. Every action
and choice is designed to reinvent herself. But as often happens with
the past, it refuses to stay buried till it is properly laid to rest.
Her relationship with her emotionally handicapped father is a
practised charade; their family tradition is one of careful avoidance.
But this carefully constructed peace is shattered when her father
comes visiting. The unwanted memento is The Book of Summers,
overflowing with reminders and frozen memories of those adventurous
days.
Secret of the Scribe
By Douglas Misquita.
Frog Books. Pages 332. Rs 245
The Ravines
By Dimitri Friedman.
Rupa. Pages 368. Rs 395.
Voices
from the margins of a troubled spot
Reviewed by Manisha Gangahar
Portraits from Ayodhya
By Scharada Dubey.
Tranquebar. Pages 272. Rs 295
The
Truth. Or, many truths. One truth contradicts another. Nothing
remains as true. "Truth lies in paradox," rightly says
Scharada Dubey in the foreword to Portraits from Ayodhya, her
13th book.
The
lasting lure of a life in crime
Viva La Madness
By JJ Connolly
Duckworth £7.99
A
convoluted tale of drug-dealing, money-laundering, faked death,
IT trickery, torture, and good old-fashioned violence, Viva La
Madness is a darkly comic thriller, fast-paced, full of alarms and
surprises, written in Guy Ritchie geezerspeak (your home is your drum,
to kill someone is to serve them, cocaine is cha-cha, and major
swearwords have the status of punctuation marks). The story begins
promisingly: the resolutely unnamed narrator wants to quit his
Caribbean bar and return to a life of crime for one big payday so he
can retire in comfort. He puts out feelers, and the noble black dude,
Monty, a staunch figure on the London crime scene, comes to Barbados
with a proposition and two murderous gangsters in tow, Sonny King and
Roy "Twitchy" Burns.
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