Ash Talks Books

Recently, I attended a zoom session on chick lit by the Chennai Lockdown Literary Festival (CLLF). In the session, one of the speakers was Maya Sharma Sriram. I was so impressed with the way she conducted the session and answered the questions that I decided to pick up her chick lit novel, ‘Bitch Goddess for Dummies’ brought out by Rupa Publications in 2012. And I was not disappointed. I’m not sure if I was biased toward the book by the personality I had seen on zoom or not, but I quite enjoy chick lit and have read several chick lit novels in my thirties.   So the novel is about a 27-year-old woman Mira Iyer who decides to transform her personality from good girl to ‘bitch goddess’ to deal with the people in her life. Her mom who is constantly trying to fix her up with some eligible guy so that she can get married and Sanya, the real office bitch who is always cosying up to their bosses and vying for a promotion, are just two of the people in her life causing her angst. So it’s go...

I bought Magical Women by Hachette India on Kindle a few days back. It had been on my TBR for a long time. However, I hadn’t read up on what kind of a collection of stories the book would contain. People who like weird stories, horror, dystopia and sci-fi might enjoy this collection, which has been edited by Sukanya Venkatraghavan. It was published in 2019.   The editor’s note states, “Each story in this collection is unique in its representation of what it means to be magical.”   It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The book is well written, but some of the themes are a bit disturbing. The first story “ Gul” by Shreya Ila Anasuya has themes of lesbianism. The second story “ Gandaberunda” by S.V. Sujatha is violent and macabre. When I read the third story, ‘Rulebook for Creating a Universe’ by Tashan Mehta, I felt that although I was reading English, I was seeing Greek and Latin. It went totally above my head.   I really enjoyed the fourth story ‘The Demon Hunter’s Dilemm...

I’d won a coupon to buy this book from Amazon in a contest conducted by @NewAsianWriting on Twitter. @NewAsianWriting also requested me to review the book.   The author Siddhartha Gigoo wrote the short novella of 58 pages in 21 days. It is a poetic description of two lovers who are separated during the lockdown. Their musings are interspersed with the story of a homeless family and the confusion that the children of that family face at some of the events that take place.   The structure and format of the book is a little confusing since it switches from the point of view of the lovers to the perspective of the homeless family. The lovers’ musings are recorded once in the morning and once at night through a stanza for every one of the thirty days.  In between, the homeless family’s confusion is described, too. One has to read it more than once to grasp the story.   The author highlights how the lovers are privileged to be able to think of their love and separation rat...

For those taken in by the headline, I haven't quit anything! That's just the name of the book I'm reviewing, which was written by Zarreen Khan, who has NOT quit her job either, She is "a mother, cook, maid, doctor and magician for her kids - a very demanding job! And when she gets time off, she works as a marketing consultant." Now, much like Nimisha, the protagonist in the book, who does some 'jasoosi', I looked up Zarreen Khan on Facebook, and I found out that two of my friends have clicked 'Like' on one of Zarreen's pictures. Other than that, I don't know Zarreen at all. Except through her writing. This is for the sake of being totally transparent with my readers. Now, for her book: Chapter one opens with a wedding in Goa. Interesting. Me likey.  Chapter two sees Nimisha, the protagonist, heading to her office.   Loved these opening lines, "Slavery is common in the corporate world. And having committed the s...