Tag Archives: Westland Publications

Title: Urban Shots- CrossroadsEditor: Ahmed FaiyazPublisher: Grey Oak- WestlandPublished: 2012Price INR 195Pages: 217Genre: Contemporary Indian Fiction/Short StoriesRating: 3.5 on 5
Now this is quality stuff. Genuinely. I do not know how many times did I find myself touched and connected and affected by the short stories compiled in this yet another brilliant anthology under the Urban Shots series. I do know, however, that this is one book I will strongly recommend to all book lovers out there, for the 30 stories told by 26 odd authors in this book are…

Title: The Love Collection- Urban ShotsEditor: Sneh ThakurPublisher: Grey Oak- WestlandPublished: 2011Pages: 216Price: INR 199Genre: Short stories/Contemporary Indian Fiction
Love is sacred, yet to many lost and caught in this web of society, it remains forbidden. Love is universal, yet to most who devote all their senses to its pursuit, it remains elusive. Love is ethereal, yet it is defeated more often than not by considerations real and pragmatic. Love is love, yet in this one word lies a myriad of emotions ranging from happiness to anger to jealousy to…

Title: Hot Tea Across India
Author: Rishad Saam Mehta
Publisher: Tranquebar
Pages: 191
Price: Rs 195
Genre: Non Fiction / Travel
Rating: 7.5/10
Source: Review Copy (from Publisher)

‘Hot Tea Across India’ is a collection of experiences put together by travel writer Rishad Saam Mehta, from his many road trips across India. The stories are not in any particular order or about any one particular journey. The chapters – some really entertaining, some interesting while a few inconsequential – are independent of each other. ‘Tea’ acts as the common element in all these stories,…

“At the end of love there is unloving, when you can engage in the ceaseless hunt for all those things to be taken out, and somehow discarded, when you can fight against the new roads and try, futilely, to return to what you were before.” -Page 180, Another Chance.
Much thought goes into deciding the title for a book. No matter what genre, what subject, what type a book, a title is supposed to provide just enough peek into a book’s soul, without revealing too much about it. It is…

Title: The Newsroom MafiaAuthor: Oswald PereiraPublisher: Grey Oak-WestlandPrice: Rs. 245Pages: 303Rating: 4 on 5 starts
Is there a genre of fiction that can be called a masala thriller? Or a bollywood thriller? Well, if there were one, then Oswald Pereira‘s debut novel would effortlessly claim the golden throne among the list of books belonging to this category. What a read!
The Newsroom Mafia is a journalist’s take on the crime syndicate that thrives in the dingy alleyways of Mumbai. Veteran journalist Oswald Pereira has woven a sensational story around the…

Title: The Canyon of Souls (also, The Ascent)Author: Ronald MalfiPublisher: Silverfish-WestlandPrice: Rs. 225Pages: 303
 Coincidences in life are can sometimes be amusing, and sometimes a little spooky. It is due to a coincidence that the book ‘The Canyon Of Souls‘ hit off with me instantly. And this coincidence was a spooky one. I had undertaken a literary quest sometime back for understanding the deeper meanings of words like ‘Nature‘, ‘Providence‘, ‘Divinity‘ and ‘Man‘. Specifically, ‘Nature of Man’. More specifically ‘Insidious Nature of Man’. In Ronald Malfi’s The Canyon of Souls…

REVIEW BY CHITRALEKHA MANAHOR

Hot Tea Across India by Rishad Saam Mehta could not have had a more direct title. Written more like a story than a travelogue, the book features a series of engaging anecdotes of tea shared at India’s most picturesque destinations and its oddest in-between places. Moving backward and forward in time, the author strings together diverse experiences ranging from tea shared with a shepherd in a picturesque valley in Kashmir, to a Bollywood-style quick getaway from Kargil, to photographing un-cooperative wild asses in the Rann of…

Image from here.
There is a genre of Indian movies with villains clad in dhotis, the hero in non-designer pants-shirt, kick ass music, dangerous looking gundas and cops- fun, fast and exciting.  Unfortunately, they don’t make many of these today- take Don 2 for example, the antagonist is surely ‘bad’ and  Hollywood, the locations nothing even remotely close to home(given they probably flew over the Indian Ocean from Asia to Europe) and the only ‘Indian’ element seems to be language.
The Newsroom Mafia, on the other hand has familiar aromas-A…

Well, to begin with, I am happy to be among the chosen ten to review the latest book by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik. So, thank you BlogAdda!

For those who haven’t heard of Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, he is India’s renowned mythologist and has penned several books, like: Myth = Mithya, The Pregnant King, Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata, 7 Secrets of Shiva, 7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art, among others. Actually he wears many hats – that of author, speaker, illustrator and mythologist – and is a medical doctor…

The following book review is done in association with Stack Your Rack

Author: Amish Tripathi
Publisher: Westland Publications

Buy from Stack Your Rack

It is always difficult to put down a review for a book which has already been claimed as bestseller having reportedly sold 1,20,000+ copies. But then you got to judge a book by what you read in it, minus the hype and the expectations. That, i believe is the best way to enjoy any book. The Immortals of Meluha, first book in the Shiva Trilogy is a…