Books – Non-Fiction
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Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier. This book talks of the world today of constant surveillace and the loss of privacy. [ ... More ... ] (December 2016)
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Never mind the Bullocks by Vanessa Able. Should I call this fiction? An English girl gets the deal of a lifetime and buys the world's cheapest car - the Tata Nano - and does a circumnavigation around India in it, driving herself, for all of 10,000 kilometers. [ ... More ... ] (November 2016)
- The Virtue of Prosperity by Dinesh D’ Souza. This book deals
with the issue of changing values in a technological world. Some people have
made it so rich seemingly so easily that it is difficult for them to keep it
straight between what is right and what is wrong. Material prosperity that has
been attained by the large majority of people in the
US
to the point where basic
necessities of food, clothing, and shelter are not a worry any more. Does that
impact our value system. It does not necessarily. Poverty is not ennobling nor
is it nurturing of good human values. At the same time, wealth saturates the
improvement of values and beyond a point (which is surprisingly low) it does
not improve the moral compass of human beings. D’Souza poses the
intriguing question – who has done humankind more good – Bill Gates
or Mother Teresa. If we keep our objective hat on, then the answer is a
resounding Bill Gates. [ …
More … ] (May 2008)
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The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. There are two kinds of
chimps in the animal kingdom and we humans are the third kind – and thus
the name of the book. Diamond once again is erudite and takes you on a
fascinating journey, putting convincing arguments every step of the way. I saw
how natural selection in evolution has played an overwhelming role in our
social, economic, moral, you name it, development and made the human race what
it is today. As only he can, he explains the practice of marriage as existing
today through evolution; he explains the motivation for adultery through
evolution; as he does with drug abuse. I found myself led effortlessly from one
aspect of human life to the next being tied to evolution. I had to jerk myself
out of the journey to ask if the book was not becoming too simplistic in tying
everything to human evolutionary pressures – almost too fatalistic. I realized
that it was. When it ties humans wanting to practice art to man wanting to mate
to propagate his genes, I said aahaah … that is too glib. He makes nature
sound too calculating, maybe it is, but after reading the early sections, the
argument tends to chafe you. Nevertheless, a book that I found a worthy read,
and as Diamond has done with the other book of his that I have read
(“Guns, Germs, and Steel”), he opened new areas of understanding
for me. (December 2007)
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In Spite of the Gods by Edward Luce. This is a book about the
rediscovery of
India’s
soul that is going on at web speed today. It is written by a western author but
one who has a feel for the pulse of the country. It does not gaze in naïve
wonder at the swank software industry complexes, nor does it aah in fake
empathy with the slum dwellers. It portrays what is right about India
– and by jove, one can write tomes on that topic – from the
entrepreneurial nature of its citizens, the national qualities of education and
diligence, to the large population which is now regarded as a positive. It also
unflinchingly portrays things that are not so right and which can derail India’s
forward march. The author has dined with the kings and the commoners and
presents their broad perspectives and then ties them all to give convincing
insights. As an Indian I was enlightened, felt proud, and concerned all in the
space of reading the book. One beef is Luce does not break from the mold of
westerners not being understanding of the rightist movement in the country. He
is disappointingly superficial in dismissing its qualities and its impact.
(September 2007)
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The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel
Huntington. The book makes the argument that the world is irrevocably poised
for a civilizational conflict between the West and another power, either the
Islamic world or China.
It provides an overwhelming amount of evidence and argues through them
logically. The potential for conflict comes from the very different world view
of these three different civilizations. Such cataclysmic clashes have happened
time and again in history (think the Crusades for example) and the time is ripe
for another one. The book does strike somewhat of an alarmist and harsh tone
about the greed and fanaticism of people in the civilizations, and is
disturbing because it says something out of our comfort zone – that it is
the people, not just the politicians, that are opposed to people from the other
civilizations. (November, 2005)
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In Search of America
by Peter Jennings and Tod
Brewster. What are the roots of some of the most important economic and
cultural strains in today’s America. This book answers the
question by tracing events far back in time and drawing a connection to tell
tale signs in today’s happenings. It tells the story through many touching
and real examples from people that you can relate to, even if they are the
founding fathers of this country. It is told wonderfully and makes you look at
several things around you today with a new understanding. For example, when I
open my next packet of Lay’s chips, I will have fleeting thoughts of the
behemoth organization and the amount of hard-nosed capitalism that went into
the seemingly trivial chips. (May, 2005)
Books - Fiction
1.
Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. This is the novel that followed Jhumpa
Lahiri’s wildly successful Pullitzer-prize winning debut book called
“Interpreter of Maladies”. In this book, she chronicles the life of
a couple from, of all places my dear Calcutta,
who chart the course of their life together in New York city. Being far from their family
and in initially unfamiliar environs, they go through the mélange of
excitement, dread, delight, resignation, wonderment, and rejection in a foreign
land. But they make their life work here and then enters the next generation in
the form of a son and a daughter. The story shifts to the son’s
perspective, who is called Gogol after a Russian author, a name that becomes a
central theme of the book. Lahiri never breaks free from the stereotypes of the
Indian immigrant experience. At one level, I delight in some parts of the book
– Ashima pining for spicy food on a snowy day and coming up with an
inventive concoction with puffed rice and cereal that she can lay her hands on
– as I have been through such experiences, but at several other levels, I
rebel at the thoughtless and stereotypical portrayals – the son trying to
be American with a vengeance and he and his sister finding Calcutta on their
trip back suffocating. It is playing a little too glibly to a western audience,
with scarcely an effort to peek beneath the surface and touch the flesh and
bones of the characters. I like some of the parts that evoke nostalgia, because
I am a sucker for nostalgia. For example, I am right there with Gogol and his
feelings as he is having the last look at the house where he was born, grew up,
loved and lost his father. Overall though, Ms. Lahiri take a stab at making the
characters deviate from the stereotypical immigrant experience. It may seem
risky and probably is, but you will do yourself and us a world of favor by
trying. On a side note, the movie based on the novel gets an unequivocal thumbs
up. Go out and rent it on DVD and keep your Kleenex’s handy. (December
2007)
2.
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie has shown
a remarkable ability to weave fanciful worlds with his pen, or the keyboard in
these modern times. In this book which won the Booker in 1981, Rushdie does
full justice to the ability—the lands that he traverses are diverse
geographically (Kashmir, Punjab, Bombay)
as well as in their milieu. The central character is Saleem Sinai who is born
at the stroke of midnight when India
earned its freedom (Aug 15, 1947) and receives a letter of congratulations from
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, and carries on his shoulders
an exaggerated sense of self-importance. It is this self-importance that is
carried to an annoying level in the book. The author is trying to play tricks
with the reader through the contortions in the incidents and the sentence
constructions. The narrator assumes a mythical power to be present during the
tumultuous happenings of his father and grandfather’s life and his bitter
sarcasm and foreboding of doom touches all these incidents. I always like
Rushdie’s ability to weave in and out of the present real world into a
fanciful world of the narrator’s imagination and he is true to form here.
Down to the very end, the narrator manages to infuse the story with his
determined painting of all things as gloom and doom. Observe his ruminations on
being proposed to by his long-time paramour Padma “Love does not conquer
all, except in the Bombay
talkies; rip tear crunch will not be defeated by a mere ceremony; and optimism
is a disease.” (December, 2006)
3.
Shipping News by Annie Proulx. Brokeback
Mountain may have drawn
you to this novel in the first place. But this is a stellar read in its own
right even though you may have to will yourself to concentrate yourself to tide
over some of the parts. The vast bleak landscape of Newfoundland opens up before your eyes and
the characters come to life as they go about setting up their ordinary lives in
this backdrop. Almost everything that happens to the characters is commonplace
and the landscape is forbidding but with Annie Proulx’s writing both take
on a beauty that makes the book a worthy read. Here is a more detailed account
of why I was glad I picked up this book and read through till the very end. [Detailed review]
4.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I felt it is high
time I directed my reading to this much-hosannaed classic from 1925. Also
Fitzgerald is also from the mid-west and I want to have bragging rights for all
the famous authors from here. The novel is short and direct. It sheds
intriguing, and often unfavorable, light on human characters – Gatsby the
tragic hero, Nick, the narrator, Tom and Daisy, the couple that gives love a
bad name. However, the novel left me unsatisfied. It was too black and white
and I have an innate anathema to the disappointed, dispirited lover, which
Gatsby plays. The novel is lyrical in parts and I swam along in a beauteous
haze in those parts but came down jarringly when the characters say or do
something completely two-dimensional. The novel also had many parts that hung
loose and felt disconnected — Nick and Jordan drifting away, Wilson’s
wife’s accidental death, Nick’s fruitless search for Gatsby’s
friends at his funeral. (May, 2006)
5.
Reading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi. The book
is the tale of a teacher and her group of girl students finding release from an
oppressive theocratic regime in Iran.
I liked it not just for the realistic portrayal of the lives of these girls as
they battle the fashion police and suffer humiliation for as much as a hint of
color in their clothes, but also for showing the wonderful world they discover
through the books. I know I am going to stay away from “Lolita”
after reading this book – just too twisted. Azar’s fiery distaste
for the people who had made her life so suffocating once upon a time (she is
now at Johns Hopkins) is understandable, but serves to make the book corrosive
in parts. (January, 2006)
6.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This was
one blockbuster hit from a hitherto unknown author. The book profiles a Piscine
Molitor Patel aka Pi, who is born in Pondicherry
and then travels the seas with his family to come to Canada. The growing up experiences
of Pi with his questioning of religious divisions and insights into the life in
a zoo are entertaining and riveting. The never ending chapters when he is
adrift in the ocean on the life boat are where the story becomes somewhat of a
drag. However, the ending is again crisp and has the signature quixotic humor
of the rest of the book. It seems like I don’t like the story of an
individual floating on a vast water body, with or without a tiger. (May, 2005)
7.
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This book is so
acclaimed that I went to it with great expectations. I was sorely disappointed
with the book. The lack of action once the old man is adrift put me off. It was
a long meandering story from then on. The insights into the mind of the old man
were interesting but there is only so much of that that you can take. (Mar,
2005)
8.
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. Sinclair Lewis was the
first US
author to win the Nobel Prize in literature. If you read “Main Street”
or his more famous “Babbitt”, you will know he richly deserved it.
This one paints a sketch of middle class America in the mid-west in the
1920’s. The heroine Carol battles with the seeming ordinariness of middle
class life as she has higher aspirations. I have added Sauk Center, Minnesota,
the hometown of Lewis, to the list of places I would like to visit after I
started on this book. (Jul, 2004)
9.
Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger. You
want to remember the joys and hassles of adolescence. Then read this one. Too
bad Salinger was a one book wonder. [Revision:
I took a suggestion and am trying out Franny and Zooey by the same author.
Salinger’s life story is material fit for a book. Rejoinder: Fraany and Zooey sparkles in parts, but disappoints overall.
It is meandering and lacks any cohesion, reflective of the author’s
disturbed life.] (May, 2004)
Albums
1.
Not Too Late by Norah Jones. This third album was richly worth the wait. She has
matured and she is not afraid to experiment now. Her mellow vocals make you
swoon still, but she also has thrown in zingy beats and rhythms in her songs
that she had held back from. She reserves the best for the last – the
song “Not too late” is drop dead gorgeous, with a perfectly placed
music score. (February, 2007)
2.
Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens. This is a part of his effort at making a record on
each of the 50 American states. I have a soft corner for Illinois, the state I came to first and
Sufjan seems to capture the mystique of the state in effervescent colors. The
tunes are rollicking and make you want to rush back to the state. I will skirt
the big behemoths like Chicago,
and will head to dear ol’ Urbana-Champaign. But whatever your proclivity,
if you are an Illinoise at heart, you will find your mind soaring with a
longing as you listen to this album. (January, 2006)
3.
American Pie and other hits by Don McLean. I got the album because of
American Pie – a song that sends me hurtling back through the times. It
used to be a favorite song in my favorite late night haunt at Urbana and it has stayed with me. There are
as many interpretations of this song as there are fans. Almost all of these
interpretations have differing levels of sadness born out of unrequited love. I
also recommend Vincent, another song of sorrow and open-ended lyrics. (May,
2005)
4.
Life for Rent by Dido. It’s
“White Flag” that made me buy the album. The title song is also
worth a listen. (May, 2004)
5.
Feels like Home by Norah Jones. If Norah Jones sings, I
listen. It’s that simple. The almost two year’s wait for her second
album after the fantabulous “Come Away With Me” was almost worth
it. I love the song “Sunrise”
above all others in the album. (Feb, 2004)
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Saurabh Bagchi
Last modified: June 27, 2008