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Wednesday, November 5, 2025
TopicBook review

Topic: Book review

With a touch of Marquez, a non-fiction fairy tale gives China’s people a voice

‘Becoming China: The Story Behind the State’ is an excellent starting point for someone wanting to move beyond a traditional, i.e. statist, understanding of China.

Dalmia’s ‘Fiction as History’ undercuts grand narratives to tell unspeakable tales

Her book is a lucid entry point for those unfamiliar with the Hindi novel in the past 150 odd years and offers a sharp analysis of tradition, nationalism, and modernity. 

‘The Bengalis’ does a thing that books of its kind rarely do: criticise the Bengalis

Sudeep Chakravarti's mammoth undertaking to trace the Bengalis from its genesis to now results in a detailed, intriguing, and confounding book.

Art and narrative that delineate the complexities associated with Northeastern identity

Edited by Parismita Singh, ‘Centrepiece’ brings to the readers stories of a region which still remains largely absent in the popular imagination.

‘The Dawn Watch’ is an attempt to understand Conrad in a globalised world

In Maya Jasanoff’s book 'The Dawn Watch', Joseph Conrad is placed in the context of world politics. Jasanoff refuses to treat Conrad as mythical personality

Sujatha Gidla’s ‘Ants Among Elephants’: Baring the caste bugs in India’s revolution

‘Your life is your caste, your caste is your life’, writes first-time author Sujatha Gidla, who has been unable to escape caste ostracism in faraway USA.

No Songs for Silence: A Review of Gulzar’s ‘Two’

In Two, Gulzar carves the facts of the partition to its bare bones in a masterpiece stoic prose

‘The Last Battle of Saraighat’ is a battle half-won

Rajat Sethi & Shubhrastha’s book eulogises the BJP’s victory in Assam, but fails to capture the truepicture of the Northeast and its complex issues.

R.K. Narayan through an Indian philosophical lens: Ranga Rao’s new book shines

In ‘R.K. Narayan: The Novelist and his Art’, Ranga Rao pleasantly surprises the reader by ushering in a new critical paradigm through the theory of gunas. 

A gripping story from pre-Partition Punjab

‘A Memoir of Pre-Partition Punjab’ traces the life and work of Ruchi Ram Sahni; freedom fighter, educationist and story-teller, Sahni wore many hats.

On Camera

Indians have a complicated relationship with Zohran Mamdani

Mamdani’s politics feels unusual compared to India’s current climate. He unapologetically foregrounds Muslim identity at a time when doing so in India invites scrutiny.

India may cancel green projects struggling to find clients

While the move could free up grid capacity struggling to keep up with rapid renewable rollout, it would be a major setback for green ambitions. India aims to double clean power capacity to 500 gigawatts by the end of the decade.

‘Let them see’: Putin says new nuclear-powered missiles in the making, in message to Washington

At a ceremony felicitating Russian military engineers, Putin highlights Moscow’s 'parity' in defence technologies for the next century.

Trump’s trade wars have rewritten powerplay, but India didn’t get the memo

This world is being restructured and redrawn by one man, and what’s his power? It’s not his formidable military. It’s trade. With China, it turned on him.