Category: Books

  • Gorky Park

    Martin Cruz-Smith

    Gorky Park is the first of the Arkady Renko series – 2 others set in the Soviet era, and three after the fall of the Soviet Union.
    The book is as much a story about people and places as it is a crime thriller. The book starts with 3 bodies found in Gorky Park, in Moscow, with their faces and fingertips cut off. The investigation is led by Arkady Renko, who, after initial attempts to pass the case on to the KGB, sets out in dogged pursuit of the killer.
    Renko, the son of a famous general, battles his own demons as he plods through a bureaucracy that is rife with politics and corruption. Through the characters, the author manages to bring to life the character of Russia itself, from Moscow to Leningrad to Siberia.
    In a milieu where even a slight tone of dissent causes a person to be labeled as mentally disturbed, and procedures to be carried out on him to cement the case, Renko’s tenacity and his stubbornness to not let go of the case until the killer is brought to justice, ensures that he makes powerful enemies, who try everything to take him out.
    And while the mystery gets solved, we also find the human yearning for freedom and the paradox of wanting to be in a place where one belongs.

  • My Friend Sancho

    Amit Varma

    ‘My friend Sancho’ is the debut novel of Amit Varma, made famous by the blog ‘India Uncut’, which incidentally, is given quite a few plugs in the book. A blogger’s work – that explains why i picked it up. 🙂
    The book revolves around Abir, a journalist on the crime beat, who happens to be around during a police shootout, when he was only expecting to cover a routine arrest. It gets more complicated when he is asked to do a story on the victim, which leads to his friendship with Muneeza (Sancho), the victim’s daughter, who is sure that her father was innocent, and is unaware that Abir was present at the scene.
    Whether the book delivers or not depends on what you expect out of it. If you are looking for profundity that would make you contemplate the vagaries of the universe, you’d be better off looking elsewhere. But if you’re just looking for a light read, and a protagonist whom you’d find easy to relate to (net surfing, wise cracking guy who is still not sure what to do with his life) then you wouldn’t mind this book.
    I did expect the humour quotient to be higher than delivered, but it’s still not bad. The lizard, though it only has a ‘special appearance’ is entertaining. I also quite liked the way the story ended.

  • Married but Available

    Abhijit Bhaduri

    “Mediocre but Arrogant” seems to have preceded this, but its a read in itself. As the author says, this is not a sequel. I’m not sure whether Five Point Someone came before this, but its difficult to miss the similarity in the context and the writing style – racy, with a bit of ‘philosophy’ thrown in. It had been quite a while since I finished a book in one go – and this one almost succeeded, so, to me, there is no question on entertainment value.
    The premise of an MBA in his first job, and the ups and downs he faces, the things he has to learn – not just about his career but also about life in general, from people and his own experiences, as he moves ahead in different stages of life, is something I could identify with, at least in patches.
    A reasonably good snacky read with no pretensions.

  • First Proof

    Penguin – Compilation

    I’m a few years late in reading this, so it’s no longer ‘new’ writing. But that doesn’t take away much from a decent collection of fiction and non-fiction. A book which can be read from both ends (Fiction and Non fiction start from opposite ends) and consists of 17 works of fiction (including a trippy graphic one) and 13 works of non fiction. I liked the former, and not just because of my reading preferences.
    A few of the non fiction works are particularly relevant now – Nirupama Subramanian’s piece on the LTTE supremo Prabhakaran, and Saba Naqvi Bhaumik’s, Edna Fernandes’ and Smita Gupta’s works on the nature of contemporary Indian politics. Also worth mentioning is ‘Boarding School’ by Andre Beteille.
    My favourite fiction work would easily be ‘Kopjes at Serengeti’ by Arun John, and his awesome description in the ‘Notes on Contributors’. Indrajit Hazra’s Post-mortem is an interesting tale, so are the stories by Rana Dasgupta and Mita Ghose.
    I do believe that an anthology with more ‘breadth” (kinds of themes and writings) is possible, perhaps Penguin is doing it in the following volumes. (this is an annual project)

  • Video Night in Kathmandu

    Pico Iyer

    Set in the mid 80’s, Pico’s travel writing worked on two levels for me – one, in terms of his destinations, and the other, in terms of time. Right from the first page, with his interpretation of the Rambo phenomenon in Asia, his sharp wit makes this book a great read.
    He uses individual characters in different places (India, China, Tibet, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, HongKong, Japan, Philippines) to describe the place’s character. In some cases, the stereotypes are reinforced, but in a lot of others, he manages to fit in and yet observe objectively.
    He discusses the influence of the West on the East and tries to show each of the places he has visited have reacted to it – some by shunning it, some by completely absorbing it, and some by adapting it and making it their own.
    I felt that throughout the book he stayed true to his observations, though the perspective was tinged with a favouritism for the east.