The title of Pico Iyer's The Man Within My Head seems straightforward if you know beforehand that this book is about his longtime obsession with the English writer Graham Greene. Almost from the first
Whenever I speak with friends about the recent growth of commercial fiction in IWE (Indian Writing in English), one idea recurs: that our genre writing — especially crime, science fiction and fantas
A few years ago, while reading a magazine article titled "Caring for Your Introvert", by Jonathan Rauch, I found myself nodding vigorously at nearly every sentence. As someone who feels discomfited if
Like everyone else who saw The Artist, I loved Uggie the performing dog who plays Jack, the lead character's most reliable companion. I enjoyed the scenes where Jack mimics human reactions to various
In a recent piece for this paper, I mentioned the pitfalls of writing simplistically about poverty and squalor. That's relevant to a reportage-driven project, where the writer has a responsibility to
I've always liked the idea of breaking rules, doing stuff that raises eyebrows, but suddenly I wasn't sure anymore. This wasn't like the other delicious secrets that the gang shared — this was big.
Among the many carefully observed moments in Parvati Sharma's novel Close to Home is one where the protagonist, a young woman named Mrinalini, is entertaining her maid's little daughter Anjali with ca
The protagonist of Gabrielle Zevin's gentle, moving novel is a man who lives, literally and otherwise, on an island. A. J. Fikry runs a bookstore — the only one on Alice Island, off the coast of Hy
"Happiness always takes us by surprise, or perhaps it is not happiness. It is one's unhappiness diminished in size."
Is this a happy book or a sad book? The question sounds trite and reductive, but i
As a foreign correspondent frequently visiting and living in India in the 1970s and 1980s, Ian Jack spent much time covering mainstream politics and addressing the large questions ("Can India Survive?