There is something unequivocally alluring about a book that follows the anachronistic literary narrative, which places people associated with a particular time in history in the wrong time period. These tales are old as time, and you are curious to know how the characters would react, think, or even just… live. Author Trisha Das thought… Continue reading #ELLERecommends: 4 Books That Celebrate The Magic Of Mythology Retold
Books that celebrate and honour the journey of LGBTQIA+ individuals are important because nothing is more profound and comforting to know that you are not alone, especially for queer and trans individuals. We’ve rounded up eight of the latest Queer YA books available right now — from romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, mystery, and all that.… Continue reading 8 Of The Best New Queer YA Books
Over the last few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about unanswerable questions. What happens when we die? How do we find happiness? (You know, the small stuff). So much so that I even wrote a book about my search for answers, called Stalking God: My Unorthodox Search For Something To Believe In (Seal Press),… Continue reading Mira Jacob’s new graphic memoir delves into what it means to be brown in a polarised America
In a recent cartoon, Tom Gauld, that irrepressible chronicler of literary life, depicts a customer asking a bookstore clerk: “Can you recommend a big, serious novel that I can carry around and ignore while I’m looking at my smartphone?” That would be funnier if it didn’t make one wince. What can fiction deliver that your smartphone, with its addictive hits of… Continue reading A closer look at how the fiction novel has changed over time
Surely a book can have several origins. But a serious work of scholarship resulting from a video that goes viral on the Internet is novel, still. That’s precisely how Shashi Tharoor’s latest, An Era Of Darkness, came about. Tharoor, once a UN diplomat, now a directly elected member of parliament — a relatively rare Congressman… Continue reading “The party of Hindutva has betrayed centuries of ancient Hindu practice in acceptance of sexual deviancy”
CliffsNotes: An Indian man lands at JFK and by the time he’s cleared customs, he’s forgotten his mother’s name. As his years in the new country go by, more information about his provenance – who is his family? What happened to them? Are they dead or alive? – slides off him, mostly unnoticed. Until the… Continue reading Book of the week: What Is Remembered by Suketu Mehta
CliffsNotes: Set in 1960s California, Commonwealth is a twisted, tumultuous family tree of parents, children, stepchildren, siblings, and stepsiblings. Bert Cousins and Beverly Keating leave their spouses for each other. Their new collective causes much anger, rebellion and resentment – and serious accidents. Years later, in her twenties, Beverly’s daughter Franny recounts their stories to novelist Leon… Continue reading Book of the week: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
CliffsNotes: “After all this time”, there’s a story from the Harry Potter universe. That’s not counting the many Pottermore missives and Twitter posts from JK Rowling over the last nine years. Harry Potter And The Cursed Child: Parts One And Two is written by JK Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne. The fat book is… Continue reading Book of the week: Harry Potter And The Cursed Child
CliffsNotes: Bestselling and wickedly funny American author Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) tackles mental illness with her sophomore book, and a collection of essays. She describes herself as “a high-functioning depressive with anxiety disorder and mild-self harm issues,” even if the title of the book made you think otherwise. Lawson goes from laugh-out-loud funny to startlingly… Continue reading Book of the week: Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
The morning I met Siddhartha Mukherjee, he had run most of the way from his room at the magnificent St Pancras Renaissance Hotel—as soon as he realised that his cab would not get the better of London’s rush-hour traffic. “You haven’t even broken a sweat,” I joke. “I have. I’m sweating,” he insists. But Mukherjee… Continue reading Siddhartha Mukherjee tackles mental illness with The Gene
ICYMI Man Booker Prize-winning author and activist Arundhati Roy talks about everything from writing, fighting and aerobics with ELLE this month. She also gave us a glimpse of her forthcoming book: Things That Can And Cannot Be Said (Juggernaut) on her meeting with Edward Snowden. “It’s a small book co-authored by me and actor John Cusack, who… Continue reading Exclusive: An excerpt from Arundhati Roy’s encounter with Edward Snowden
Cliffsnotes: North California in the ’60s. 14-year old Evie Boyd is lonely, intelligent and thoughtful, waiting to be noticed. With her mother newly divorced and a swiftly dwindling friendship with her best mate, her summer seems largely disappointing – until she spies Suzanne, a stunningly reckless, raven-haired older girl at the park. Drawn by Suzanne’s… Continue reading Book of the week: The Girls by Emma Cline
Tabish Khair has a knack for picking the most search-engine optimised titles for his books. They tap directly into whatever aspect of Muslim life most morbidly fascinates us at the moment. In 2012, a year after Osama Bin Laden was killed, he published How To Fight Islamist Terror From The Missionary Position; early this year,… Continue reading Meet the women who love ISIS
When Rana Ayyub pitched the story to her editors at Tehelka in 2010, it was met with enthusiasm. Gujarat’s home minister and current president of the BJP, Amit Shah was in jail at the time in connection with a ‘fake encounter’ case (he was later acquitted by the CBI), one that Ayyub had reported on… Continue reading Book of the week: Gujarat Files – Anatomy Of A Cover Up by Rana Ayyub
CliffsNotes: ‘The most shocking thriller you’ll read this year’ is the publisher pitch for the first part of LS Hilton’s trilogy. From the novel’s rapid climb on bestseller lists around the world, this isn’t reckless overselling, either. Judith Rashleigh, Maestra’s ambitious, intemperate heroine straddles two realities; her day job keeps her at the unglamorous end of… Continue reading Book of the week: Maestra by LS Hilton
CliffsNotes: Released in 2011, when she was 23, Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth is Warsan Shire’s first full-length work, a poetry pamphlet. She writes as a black woman in the UK, ripped out of a homeland she barely knows ravaged by war and genocide. She deals with themes of violence, identity, infidelity, love and… Continue reading Book of the week: Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth by Warsan Shire
Tahmima Anam didn’t set out to write a love story. The sweeping historical saga that is her Bengal trilogy has grappled with gnarly issues of politics, religion and identity. Over ten years, the author has mined her own family history to chronicle the birth of a nation. When it came to the third and last book, however,… Continue reading Idolise powerful female authors? You’re going to love Tahmima Anam
