varunob's reviews
345 reviews

Stubborn Life: Hardship and Hope in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland by Franceska Michalska

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

The subtitle is a bit misleading, because at no point does Franceska Michalska make "hope" a crucial element of her lived experience. Instead, what takes centre-stage is the determination she possessed to keep going in times of tremendous social and political adversity. The brusqueness of tone in writing the memoir gives it the sort of edge Elie Wiesel's style gave to Night: the brutality and cruelty becomes starker for the lack of graphic description.

A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport by Ramachandra Guha

adventurous informative lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.25

Ramachandra Guha does a marvellous job of contextualising the place of cricket in Indian history and while there is an argument to be, occasionally, for how harsh or how mellow he is in approaching certain things, there is the unbridled joy of loving the sport he is writing about that rings true on every page. 

Opposable Thumbs by Matt Singer

funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.5

Matt Singer’s account of the pairing of the most famous film critics since the advent of television is outrageously funny and incredibly poignant, aside from being a looksee into the world of film criticism (I dabble: see Cinephile Stock for more). Just how did the Laurel and Hardy pairing happen? And how the devil did two critics from a city like Chicago – whose greatest contribution to films, aside from being the location for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, is Michael Mann and/or Harrison Ford – pull it off? Siskel and Ebert’s adventure, and it truly was that, is often contradictory, and just as often not in line with the wider public sentiment about a film. Singer brings a great balance to the proceedings, diving with the same gusto into the relationship the men shared as he does into their joint dealings with broadcasters, revealing a canniness that was not necessarily visible to the executives in charge. Above all else, though, the book brings to light the most significant change in film criticism since the form has existed, and does it complete justice. 

Quentin Tarantino: A Graphic Biography by Michele Botton

funny lighthearted fast-paced

1.5

Interesting but unmemorable, Michele Botton's attempt to use Quentin Tarantino's much-heralded narrative style to depict parts of his life is a novel concept that conforms to the maverick filmmaker's slightly twisted sense of humour but lacks his cheek to make a real meal of his life. It leaves you with the sense of being nothing more than a gimmicky, not particularly enjoyable imitation. 

In the Language of Remembering: The Inheritance of Partition by Aanchal Malhotra

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

While Aanchal Malhotra's Remnants of a Separation is an account of Partition as experienced by people, this book illustrates the Millennial/Gen-Z understanding of the things their grandparents witnessed. It impresses upon the reader the importance of history and the need to remember, without bias, what happened. That this isn’t natural, or easy, is something Malhotra deals with. And while some of the over-optimism of interviewees in context of Indo-Pak relations felt a little iffy, it is to Malhotra’s immense credit that she captures the multitude of feelings: the good, the bad, and even the ugly. And while reiterating that her writing is just a pleasure to read is the same as saying water is wet, I’d be amiss in not noting that. 

Chronicle of a bookshop by Anuj Bahri, Aanchal Malhotra

informative lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

3.0

Technically a second edition of the 2004 book on the iconic Khan Market bookshop and its founder, the narrative is expanded to delve into the last twenty years – which include the explosion of online marketplaces, the passing of Balraj Bahri Malhotra, and the COVID-19 lockdown. The volume feels like two halves rather than a whole, which doesn’t make it any less readable, but something is lost in the creation of a bridge between editions. The perseverance of the senior Malhotra couple, and what of their bond comes across in the writing, contributes richly to the book. It also helps that unlike Britain, where the bookshop book is a genre that is nearly as difficult to avoid as trashy pretentious thrillers (looking at a bunch of you terrible writers!), this is a rarity of a book in India, much like the shop it is about. I hope both Bahrisons and the senior Malhotras get a thicker, more detailed volume about their contribution to the literary scene sometime soon. 

A Bollywood State of Mind: A journey into the world's biggest cinema by Sunny Singh

challenging informative lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

2.75

Sunny Singh’s book is part cultural commentary, part memoir, and part analysis of the world’s largest film industry, and thank god for the former two because the analysis is quite dully described. At no point did I find myself even remotely interested in the elements that make up a cinema I have grown up consuming, so whenever Singh goes back to a film from her childhood, or describes an experience from the vacations she made back home, the book becomes instantly more interesting and also serves as a text through which the evolution of Hindi cinema comes across. 

Sleep Tight by J.H. Markert

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Consistently entertaining yet utterly unremarkable, Sleep Tight feels too much like others of its kind, novels about detectives and serial killers and cults and childhood trauma, for it to rise above the trappings of the genre. It is proud to belong, though, and Markert plays fair with his readers throughout. There are parts of it that don't work - notably the trauma - but Sleep Tight moves furiously fast, making up for what it lacks in meaningful characters and narrative depth with its use of convention.

Hollywood Behind the Lens: Treasures from the Bison Archives by Steven Bingen, Marc Wanamaker

informative fast-paced

3.0

A very compelling introduction to the land of films and filmmakers, and also to an area of the city of Los Angeles, enriched by its photographs and conversational style of writing.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley and Lyons Press.

 

The Kidnapping of Mark Twain: A Bombay Mystery by Anuradha Kumar

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

This book feels like a scam. Not in a long while have I read a book that dragged on and on and on, relentless, purposeless, running on fumes. Nothing about The Kidnapping of Mark Twain is interesting aside from the premise, and that too is so badly (man)handled that there seems little point in acknowledging it, even.

Characters are the most bland sort one could imagine, with all the depth of a flat plate. Random people pop up out of nowhere, relationships are established and extinguished more rapidly than the movement of tides in the Arabian Sea, and the protagonist is one of the most notable dullards I've read in a long time.

And the sub-titular mystery is barely one because nothing is established. The writer is too entrenched in creating a multifarious criminal undertaking to make a single element of it work. There is no suspense, no intrigue, no nothing! A truly tiresome read, this.