Ash Talks Books

I read ‘Resilience: Stories of Muslim Women’ by Shubha Menon recently.  The author, who belongs to one of my writing groups, requested a review of the book and also sent me a review copy. The foreword is by Syeda Hameed. Syeda Hameed established the Muslim Women’s Forum in 2001. The author, Shubha Menon, has documented the life of Muslim girls and women of Nizamuddin Basti in Delhi. She discusses the origin of the basti, how it became a magnet for displaced Muslims and goes on to outline “scenes from the medieval ages” in the basti. Sordid realities such as the practice of halala and mutah are discussed, which are used to terrorise women. The author shares the story of Farida, who has five sisters. By the time Farida was sixteen, she was a mother of two and abandoned.  She had been only accorded the status of a domestic servant. Her husband had cruelly divorced her saying “ Log teen bar talaq datein hain, mein tumhein hazaar baar talaq deta hoon.” After a few years, ...

This book ‘Hiraeth’ (Partition Stories from 1947) was sent to me for review by ArtoonsInn Room 9 publications, after my interaction with the author Dr. Shivani Salil on Twitter. I have previously ‘Liked’ the ArtoonsInn page on Facebook and the ‘Room 9 Publications by Artoonsinn’ page also on Facebook. I’m a member of the Artoons Facebook Group. I learn that Dr. Shivani Salil, MD., is a Mumbaiite who always wanted to become a doctor but who was also interested in literature. She belongs to a family of refugees, for whom “the place they called home was not just a geographical zone, but an emotion.” This is her first book. The book is inspired by true events. It is a slim volume of only 143 pages. The book has 24 stories, each named after an Urdu word. The English translation of the Urdu words is also helpfully provided. The titular story Hiraeth( Longing) is about a little girl Paro who is facing the pain of partition. With Diwali around the corner, Taro reminisces abou...

  There are well-travelled people, and then there is Sudha Mahalingam, who is in a league of her own by travelling to 66 countries! Her book ‘The Travel Gods Must be Crazy: Wacky encounters in exotic lands” clearly had to be written because here’s a woman with so many stories and anecdotes to share with the world that they must have come bursting out of her. The title of the book seems to have been derived from one of my favourite movies from my childhood ‘The Gods must be crazy,” which was a hit in the eighties. And after reading the book, you will be quite convinced that the title is suitable. She is clearly a traveller, not a tourist. Each chapter in the book describes a different trip that she has undertaken at some point in her life. Each chapter is independent and the book is a collection of these travel tales (not for the faint-hearted, I might add). She lands up in the Czech Republic without a valid visa and was caught without yellow-fever vaccination in Na...

I must say I loved this book from the very beginning. I liked the sparse writing style and how the author minimizes the use of quoted speech. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what would happen to them. Marianne shows us how an intelligent girl can go down a strange path due to family problems, which by the way, remains a shadowy backstory. Only her troubled relationship with her brother and mom is outlined. The relationship she had with her dad is up for conjecture, but the reader understands it was rather abnormal.  Some readers might be put off by the kinky sex scenes in the book, but I looked upon it as a part of the story of a troubled character with self-esteem issues. It also highlights the lengths to which a person would go for love. Even as Marianne degrades herself in her own eyes, the reader doesn't judge her but only wants her to redeem herself and do better. Connor comes across as a decent human being after he finds himself. On the whole,...

This was the book of the month in one of the book clubs I belong to. Although slow in the beginning, it picked up pace after about 25% of the book was over. There was tension in the story, so as a reader I wanted to know what happened next although I could not connect to the characters very well. I found the minor character Frederick interesting and somewhat of a true leader. The part about the cursed gem 'The Sea of Flames' was interesting. The 'love story' between Verner and Marie Laure seemed very one-sided ( from his side only). The book highlights how war changes the lives of everyone caught in its grip and how powerless they are over their own fate

I’ve loved books since I was a child. I vaguely recall the 'Ladybird' series of books that I read as a child, but the first novel I remember reading was ‘The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage’ by Enid Blyton that my mom brought home for me to read from the library when I was in Class 4. I then finished the children’s books section in library after library in my neighbourhood. Reading has served me well since I now work as an editor. Reading was what filled my hours as a child and kept loneliness at bay. Reading is what helped me find myself at age 40 when I got back to the habit after several years of reading sporadically. I now average about 25 books a year that I track on Goodreads .  I’ve had the opportunity to interact with quite a few authors online and offline. My cause for the Blogchatter #BloggingWithAPurpose campaign is "promoting authors." There is a popular joke in the publishing industry these days that there are more authors than readers. Authors a...