books
ESSAY / Evil never looked this good
Even without a full-blown sympathetic backstory, a villain’s motivations can be complex.
ESSAY / Musings of a romance reader
Navigating the lines between gender politics, feminist beliefs and love for romance
THE SHELF / Beyond the page: Podcasts discussing POC authors
The following are podcasts that focus on POC writers, a list made because of the heavy Eurocentrism still present in the lists and bookstores known around Bangladesh.
Beyond Nilkhet: Dhaka’s second-hand book markets
The second-hand book market is a buoyant one and there are places in Dhaka, other than Nilkhet, where your desire to buy books meets affordability. With a keen eye and some bargaining skills, it is possible to make a deal at these places.
Conquering that stack: 5 ways to finish a book in a week
Let's face it. Our to-be-read piles have started to look like a leaning tower of literary Pisa now. If you are a bookworm, you will relate to this one much too well.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / It’s ‘Mean Girls’ meets ‘Heathers’ meets ‘The Craft’
The best part of this book is perhaps the fact that all the weird, bonkers cultish stuff just happens with no rhyme or reason to it.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / (Re)visit to the alleys of contestation, narratives, and memories that the Partition left behind
The book discusses the lack of sensitivity among policymakers in acknowledging the distinct socio-cultural differences and linguistic and community identities of the refugees that often got merged. It explores how different categories of refugees received different treatments.
THE SHELF / 6 Books to add to your summer reading list
As summer rolls around and our lifestyle changes to adjust to the heat, so do a lot of our books! So here are a few books that might make a good addition to this year’s summer reading list.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / The strange library of Haruki Murakami
Review of the Bangla translation of ‘A Strange Library’ (Knopf, 2014) by Haruki Murakami
Learning to let go
As the novel progresses, you peel back layers of history between Claire and her grandparents and realise that the Korea issue isn’t as straightforward as our protagonist imagined.
A pleasant pool of magic I would happily drown in
What I loved most as a reader about her is that her strength was not displayed in the conventional ways that most fantasy books tend to use to depict a powerful woman.
Discovering something not-so new with ‘The Turtle of Oman’
The melancholic, tuned nostalgia of finishing a journey was being caressed by the soft yet upbeat rhythm of the journey coming forth.
Human virtue questioned in the not-so-small things
At a time when everyone is grappling with financial instability while combating the icy spree, Bill is grateful enough to have survived another year with his wife Eileen and five daughters.
The wisdom of innocence
These stories, whether in books or movies, not only provide pearls of wisdom for young minds, but even subvert the preconceived notion that wisdom is cultivated with age
There's a Jo March in every woman
Whether it was in the past or in the present, Jo March instilled herself in every woman.
Disempowering voices of propaganda: The BDS movement in books
When millions of lives are at stake and indiscriminate violations of human rights are perpetuated, there is no longer space to entertain the debate on whether the art should be separated from the artist
In search of lost eden
From the beginning we see Benjamin Honey, the patriarch of the island, longing to return to his past, in a garden, the Eden of his childhood where he reminisces about being with a woman who might or might not have been her mother.
Returning to Haifa – A tale of despair and hope amid the Palestinian catastrophe
In "Returning to Haifa," Ghassan Kanafani explores Palestinian trauma and the complex dynamics of homeland, weaving Arab-Jewish perspectives in a tragic narrative.
Revisiting ‘Chobir Deshe, Kobitar Deshe’
The book captures all the enjoyable experiences of travelling, and the food they ate, and provides descriptions of France's seas.
