Category: Books

  • The Fear of Freedom

    Erich Fromm

    This was my favourite book from 2022. Towards the last part of the book, Fromm writes, “The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that what we believe to be individualism has become an empty shell“. An insightful remark for today, but here’s the kicker – this book was published in 1941! And though the book seeks an explanation of the psychological-social conditions that led to the rise of Nazism, the historical and psychological constructs it uses ends up answering a lot more. 

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  • Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir

    Farah Bashir

    I remember the early days of Covid and the curfew, when we ran to shops to stock up on food and essentials. I also remember the fear and the uncertainty that came from having no idea when it would end. This was a foe we didn’t understand, which didn’t even have an intent. Now imagine doing this intentionally to an entire population. That’s the 90s Kashmir Farah Bashir writes about through the lens of her teen self in Rumours of Spring. A war with no end. 

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  • Open

    Andre Agassi

    I picked up the book after reading an interesting anecdote from it on how Agassi cracked the Boom Boom Becker serve, and then only sparingly used the knowledge so Becker wouldn’t know he knew the tell! I haven’t read autobiographies before and didn’t know what to expect, but what I did get from it was a classic five-setter between Agassi and Sampras. And as it goes, if it reaches the fifth set, Agassi invariably wins. 

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  • Parva

    S. L. Bhyrappa

    Like many good books, this one too made its way into my list in a random fashion. A friend saw the different Mahabharata versions on my shelf and asked me if I had read this one. I hadn’t even heard of it! I initially thought I’d skip because I thought it was part of the recent glut of (IMO) ridiculous books being written from different perspectives, which were quickly reaching a stage where even the view of the elephant named Ashwatthama would become a book! But this was published around the time I was born, and the hope was that perspective would therefore be (ironically) fresh. And indeed it was. The best part of it is its overall outlook, which makes it seem contemporary, in a good way. 

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  • The Coming of Age

    Simone de Beauvoir

    Sometime back, during a college reunion, D’s friend mentioned how she was shocked when she realised that she (and therefore us) were ‘those people’ who were being referred to as ‘middle aged’. A couple of years ago, I had written a blog post on entering the second half of my life, which I was hoping would not be a “mountain’s downhill, but instead, a series of small hills, gracefully undulating until the end.” So yes, I have been thinking of old age, and this book, though written back in 1970, is a great exploration of what it means to be old. 

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