Category: Books
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William Golding tried to rape 15-year-old, made schoolboys fight
Will the Lord Of The Flies author William Golding now be remembered as a would-be rapist, asks the Guardian. Golding, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983, three years after bagging the Booker for Rites Of Passage, admitted trying to rape a 15-year-old schoolgirl when he was an 18-year-old student…
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PG Wodehouse and the Garden of Eden
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong invoked the Garden of Eden while talking about the racial and religious harmony that exists in Singapore. (See previous post.) I love Singapore but never thought of it in those terms. For what is the Garden of Eden but a paradise lost? I am…
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Will A Suitable Girl be as good as The Glass Palace?
The news that Vikram Seth is writing a sequel to A Suitable Boy, my favourite novel, had me reaching for another book I love: The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. What set me off was an interview Seth gave to The Hindu newspaper in India. The sequel, A Suitable Girl,…
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Nandan Nilekani: Imagining India
Nandan Nilekani’s book, Imagining India, has been called both exhaustive and exhausting. It is a big book – a clear-eyed look at one of the world’s fastest growing economies where, nevertheless, millions are still poor and illiterate. For a quick summary by the author himself, watch this video. Nilekani begins…
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Incredible India: Through a newsman’s eyes
India is an unlikely economic giant. The vast majority of its people don’t even have steady jobs, points out Edward Luce in his insightful book on India. Fewer than 40 million of its 470 million workforce are employed in the “organized sector”, which offers job protection and other benefits. The…
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Frank McCourt and Angela’s Ashes
Frank McCourt loved “smart-ass English authors” like Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh but his favourite was PG Wodehouse, he says in this video. More interesting is what he says about poverty: We were ashamed. My mother was ashamed of being poor.The poor were ashamed of being poor. You don’t come…
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The truth about the Beatles
I can’t wait to read Elijah Wald’s How The Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll. The New York Times reviewing this history of popular music says: While Wald never says in so many words that the Beatles destroyed rock ’n’ roll, he does take a stance several degrees removed from standard-issue…
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Raffles Hotel, Chowringhee and Death In Venice
Singapore’s Raffles Hotel and the Bengali writer Sankar (real name Mani Shankar Mukherjee) both feature in Brick Lane author Monica Ali’s excellent essay on hotels and writers. The essay in the British magazine Prospect follows the publication of her hotel-based novel, In The Kitchen, which I am dying to read.…
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The Singapore Grip
The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell Anyone who loves Singapore should read The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell. He won the Booker Prize in 1973 for The Siege of Krishnapur about the 1857 War of Indian Independence. The Singapore Grip is also a historical novel, describing Singapore at the time…
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An absorbing history of India since independence
India After Gandhi: The History Of The World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi: The History Of The World’s Largest Democracy is a riveting account of India since independence in 1947. The narrative never flags. Historical figures are brought to life and history re-enacted in its…
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