Readiscovery

What I've read and discovered

  • Can literature be a healer in a pandemic?

    Can literature be a healer in a pandemic?

    Hamlet tells Horatio: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. His words seem all too true today if you substitute science for philosophy. Who ever thought a virus transmitted by a bat could disrupt the whole world?

    1–2 minutes
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North

    The Narrow Road to the Deep North

    The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2014, depicts the suffering and brutality inflicted on Australian prisoners of war (POWs) by their Japanese captors who forced them to build the infamous Death Railway though the jungle from Thailand to Burma.

    1–2 minutes
  • In praise of PG Wodehouse

    In praise of PG Wodehouse

    It feels like heaven,To be reading PG Wodehouse again,Hailed by critics one and all,As the Garden of Eden before the Fall,

    1–2 minutes
  • Jan Morris’ beautiful diary

    Jan Morris’ beautiful diary

    Even in her 90s, Jan Morris remains a pleasure to read. I am re-reading her book, In My Mind’s Eye: A Thought Diary, first published in 2018, when she was 91 or 92 years old. And what a pleasure it is. She is observant as ever, recording her observations in…

    1–2 minutes
  • Not quite limericks

    Not quite limericks

    There is a gentleman in BeijingBy the name of Xi JinpingWith a burning ambitionAnd steely determinationTo be the world’s uncrowned king. ***

    1–2 minutes
  • Unleash the poet within

    Unleash the poet within

    Unleash The Poet WithinIs a primer for womenTo try their hand at verse,Though why it’s male-averseI’ve no notionOr explanationFor. Is the author,Wendy Nyemaster,A literary feminist,A versifying specialist,Intent on a sororitySkilled in prosody,But absolutely no timeTo teach men to rhyme?

    1–2 minutes
  • William Dalrymple, Bengal and East India Company

    William Dalrymple, Bengal and East India Company

    Did Bengal’s last independent ruler Nawab Siraj ud-Daula bring about his own downfall and pave the way for the British conquest of India by his attack on Calcutta, destroying the city? The question came to my mind after reading William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India…

    1–2 minutes
  • The poems of Philip Larkin

    The poems of Philip Larkin

    Often wry and dry, mocking and wistful in turns, sometimes even bitter and foul-mouthed, Philip Larkin is no Wordsworth, William Blake or Keats. He doesn’t go into raptures about love or nature or into spiritual ecstasy. He isn’t a poet who offers solace or comfort. And yet, as James Booth…

    1–2 minutes
  • Shashi Tharoor: Inglorious Empire

    Shashi Tharoor: Inglorious Empire

    I was surprised by Shashi Tharoor’s criticism of India’s parliamentary democracy in his book, Inglorious Empire. He himself is a member of parliament, elected to the Lok Sabha (the Lower House) from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala on a Congress party ticket. But Tharoor, who had been a minister of state when…

    1–2 minutes
  • Jill Lepore: A history of America

    Jill Lepore: A history of America

    Jill Lepore’s These Truths is a sweeping history of America from the founding fathers to Donald Trump. As she says, it’s a political history with very little military, diplomatic, social or cultural history though she does refer to the role played by journalism and technology. The internet, she says, has…

    1–2 minutes