reading habit

Words with Deepanjana Pal

Each month, The Curious Reader will bring a short, snappy and fun interview with an author to give you a quick peek into their reading and writing habits.

 

This week, Deepanjana Pal, author of ‘Hush A Bye Baby’, tells us why she’d like to live as Bertie Wooster.

Which fictional character would you like to switch lives with?

Bertie Wooster — partly because I really want a Jeeves to manage my life for me right now (especially the household chores) and partly because it would be nice to glimpse the buttery privilege of being a rich white man.

A book that’s overhyped, according to you.

Just one? ‘Sita: Warrior Of Mithila’.

A book that made you cry.

So many. The first that comes to mind is ‘Charlotte’s Web’.

A sentence that you are proud of having written.

I’m still working on that.

What is the one word you’d like to erase from your vocabulary?

Praxis.

TCR’s picks for the week

Here’s a round-up of some of our favourite literary reads and a short podcast for you to delve into.

• Listen to President Snow’s enigmatic backstory in this short narration of Suzanne Collins’ ‘The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes’ and uncover his journey to ruthlessness.
• Read this extremely important article on why using the right pronoun matters.
• We’ve all heard of true crime novels. Now, brace yourselves for a new genre – true crime podcast novels. (And yes, there are book recommendations.)
• Here’s what NK Jemisin and other authors have to say about writing characters of other identities, and what they keep in mind while doing so. This is an old one, but worth reading.
• Follow an assistant director’s literary quest as he reaches out to strangers in search of an unpublished German book. 

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