Author: Sameer Kumar
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Our Must-Reads List for June
June is here and we’re ready with the list of books we want to read during the month. To start with, there’s Taran Khan’s account of her travels in Afghanistan, based on a series of visits to Kabul over almost a decade, followed by Manu S Pillai’s taking a stand for India’s Maharajas of yore,…
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Fighting the Good Fight: Must-Read Books on the Army Life
During our growing up years, most of us have, as children, watched war movies and have been overawed by the visuals. Machine guns blazing, battle tanks blowing roads and bridges to smithereens, fighter jets screaming across the sky, launching missiles that deliver death and destruction, brave soldiers roughing it out high up in the mountains…
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Book Summary Websites: Are They Really Useful?
Some things take time – that’s just the way it is. Want to be an expert at playing the piano? Want to build a National-level championship-winning physique? Want to learn to cook like the head chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant? Want to get a PhD in aerospace engineering? For any of those things – and…
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Mihir Vatsa: Tales of Hazaribagh
A PhD candidate in Literature, Mihir is an Institute Fellow at IIT Delhi. A writer, a photographer, and a man of many talents, he has earlier worked in advertising, taught English at the Sido Kanhu Murmu University, in Dumka, and worked with the Government of Jharkhand as a photographer and creative editor on administrative publications.…
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Kavitha Iyer: Landscapes of Loss
Mumbai-based Kavitha has been a journalist for more than two decades and a significant part of her work has been reporting on those living on the margins – slum dwellers, small farmers, indigenous communities, landless labourers and women. She is also the author of Landscapes Of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought, which won…
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Nadim Siraj: Secret Notes From Iran
Based in Noida, Nadim Siraj is an author, journalist and columnist. He’s one of the Founder Editors of Empire Diaries, a current affairs website he jointly launched a few years ago, after spending over a decade and a half in mainstream media, working with The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Statesman and Muscat Daily. As…
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Ruskin Bond: The Golden Years
I first ‘discovered’ Mr Bond’s writing sometime in the 1980s, with The Room on the Roof, his very first book (which he wrote in the 1950s). I must have been 10 or 11 years old at the time and found that tale – of Rusty, a teenaged Anglo-Indian boy living in Dehradun – utterly fascinating.…
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Wishlist: Five Interesting New Books from Penguin
Browsing through the Penguin India website for new and recent releases, we found five books that we’d love to read. It’s a diverse bunch of books: from a son’s story of his father’s life with Alzheimer’s to an anthology of modern Tibetan essays, and from an exploration of Pakistan’s religious minorities to the story of…
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The Travel Books We Want to Read This Summer
It’s the month of May and the heat is on. The brave continue to saddle up and ride/drive off in search of adventure. For the rest of us – armchair adventurers who can’t be bothered to leave the relatively cool confines of our living room – it’s time to settle down with a cup of…
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The Mighty Paperback – It Saves Lives
A paperback is defined as a softcover book with a thick paper cover or paper board cover, the pages of which are held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. Glue is used in a hardback too but here, the pages are sewn together in sections. The hardback is characterized by sturdy boards with…
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