Tag Archives: harper collins india

Title: The Illicit Happiness of Other People
Author: Manu Joseph
Publisher: Fourth Estate
ISBN: 978-9350293645
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 352
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
Manu Joseph is definitely the most promising writer on the Indian Literary scene as of now and well-deserved of that place in my opinion. Serious Men made a great impact in the literary world and rightly so. It was a sweeping novel of family, doubt, and loss in an emerging India, full of hopes, aspirations and the need to get somewhere. Manu Joseph writes with a…

Title: The Liberals
Author: Hindol Sengupta
Publisher: Harper Collins India
ISBN: 978-93-5029-143-6
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 311
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
So one cannot help but compare parts of, “The Liberals” by Hindol Sengupta to Pavan K Varma’s, “The Great Indian Middle Class”, however that is just those very small parts. The rest of the book is nothing like it. The reason I start my review with this comparison is that both the books have their roots in the Indian Middle class.
“The Liberals” is in part a meditation on the…

Title: Toke
Author: Jugal Mody
Publisher: Harper Collins India
ISBN: 978-9350293409
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 224
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3.5/5
If you are looking to read a heavy-handed sort of a book, then Toke is definitely not for you. Then there is all the more reason for you to read it. Because its humour will ensure that you are laughing out loud at almost every page of the book. At least, that is what happened to me.
“Toke” by Jugal Mody has all elements of a blockbuster novel. The one that…

Title: Arzee The Dwarf
Author: Chandrahas Choudhury
Publisher: Harper Collins India
ISBN: 978-93-5029-216-7
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 201
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
I had heard a lot about, “Arzee the Dwarf” by Chandrahas Choudhury. A lot of people had recommended it. Some suggested that I do not read it. I finally did and I found it to be quite alright. I liked the premise of the book for sure. There were some parts that I had trouble going through but that is for later.
“Arzee the Dwarf” as the title suggests…

Title: The Householder
Author: Amitabha Bagchi
Publisher: 4th Estate, Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-93-5029-229-7
Genre: Indian Fiction, Literary Fiction
Pages: 239
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5
The householder is expected to set things right in our country. After all, he takes care of the household, doesn’t he? He has to manage a job, the perils of working for someone he may or may not like, the wife at home (who will or will not nag), the children (who will or will not demand), and then maybe some time for himself (if he…

Title: The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun
Author: Saeed Akhtar Mirza
Publisher: Fourth Estate, Harper Collins India
ISBN: 978-93-5029-206-8
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 247
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
Sometimes you need to get rid of the pre-conceived notions and look at things differently. We need that so much as we tend to just think and believe what we have been taught or raised on. The ideas we grow on or read and take them to be true without questioning. That maybe is the biggest disease of our time…

Title: The ExtrasAuthor: Kiran NagarkarPublisher: 4th Estate, Harper CollinsISBN: 978-93-5029-204-4Genre: Literary FictionPages: 467Source: PublisherRating: 5/5
Kiran Nagarkar according to me has somehow always been under the microscopic view of readers and reviewers. May be it has to do with the way he writes and concocts themes and ideas, but one thing is for sure, there is never a dull moment in his books. I got hooked on to his books, like any other teenager (then) with Ravan and Eddie. Ravan and Eddie (though according to me was loosely based on,…

Title: Flute of Vrindavan – Book 3 – The Krishna Coriolis SeriesAuthor: Ashok K. BankerPublisher: Harper Collins IndiaISBN: 978-9350291924Genre: MythologyPages: 272Source: PublisherRating: 3/5
I did not read Ashok Banker’s Ramayana. I do not know, however I did not. Moreover, I prefer The Mahabharata over Ramayana, so maybe that is why. Having said that, when Harper Collins India sent me an installment of The Krishna Coriolis Series, I was only too glad to read and review it.
The third installment in this series is called, “Flute of Vrindavan” focuses on the…

Title: Beyond the MBA Hype: A Guide to Understanding and Surviving B-SchoolsAuthor: Sameer KamatPublisher: Harper Business, Harper Collins IndiaISBN: 978-9350290781Genre: BusinessPages: 200Source: PublisherRating: 4/5
Sameer Kamat’s “Beyond the MBA Hype: A Guide to Understanding and Surviving B-Schools” comes as a welcome addition to the world of books. The reason I say this is while growing up we didn’t have such books to refer to. There was no hand-holding so to say. You were thrown in the big bad world and you either swam through or drowned. There was no direction.…

This book review has been published in association with Vodaphone Crossword Book Awards -2010. You can check out the award details here.

Author: Kalpish Ratna

Publisher: Harper Collins India

Buy from Stack your Rack
Rating: 5/5

That first Sunday in December, while the Prime Minister in India dozed in Delhi, lesser things happened to lesser people in Bombay.

Mohammad Yunus doused his clothes with kerosene and struck a match.

Balkrishna More leaned out over the frenzied maha-aarati in the street and jumped to his death.

In a shuttered room in…