reading habit

Fiction

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi: The award-winning, magical author of ‘Boy, Snow, Bird’ (which blew my mind) tells the tale of newly-committed couple Otto and Xavier in this inventive novel, and the mysterious, life-altering train journey they embark on. The train reveals an array of astonishing sights and experiences, people and ideas, and makes the couple see each other—and the world—as they’ve never seen before. 

 

The City of Good Death by Priyanka Champaneri: This one is hugely exciting. Set in Banaras, it introduces us to Pramesh, the manager of a “death hostel”, a place the dying come to spend their last days before they can be cremated, ending their cycle of reincarnation and attaining a “good death”. But when a body reaches Pramesh’s hostel which looks uncannily like him, his entire life is upended, along with the system at his hostel, as the dying mysteriously continue to live, and Pramesh is confronted by his own ideas of death, rebirth, and redemption. Wowza!

 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro: What more can I say about Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro that ‘The Remains of the Day’ hasn’t already? His latest is an exploration of the meaning of that ol’ thing, love, from an unusual lens—that of an “Artificial Friend” Klara, highly observational, who from her perch in the store watches the behaviour of the store’s visitors and hopes that one day someone will pick her to be their friend. Wild.

 

Hunchprose by Ranjit Hoskote: He is poet extraordinaire and a respected art critic, and this dazzling collection of poems is designed to move and evoke and reaffirm poetry as something much above and beyond “the buzz of data”. For an in-depth look at some of the poems in this gorgeous volume, here is a loving review in The Wire. 

 

The Demoness selected and edited by Niaz Zaman: This year marks fifty years of Bangladesh, and this carefully curated volume brings together the finest short fiction from the country, since before it became a sovereign nation. Containing stories by stalwarts Kazi Nazrul Islam, Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Shawkat Ali, Hasan Azizul Huq and more, these timeless tales paint an extraordinary picture of a land and its people. 

 

Non-fiction

No Straight Thing Was Ever Made by Urvashi Bahuguna: This collection of essays on recognizing a mental illness and navigating the decisions and consequences that come with it is intensely personal, deeply honest and stunningly written. She talks about everything unflinchingly but with the utmost care, traversing her interpersonal relationships and her connections with art, literature, popular culture and more, at the same time grounding everything in solid research. A necessary book for our times. 

 

Brown Baby by Nikesh Shukla: This one is heart-breaking. Written as a love-letter to his late mother and his two daughters, Nikesh examines themes of racism, feminism, parenting and what we mean by the word “home” through this memoir, attempting to answer the million-dollar question: How do you find hope and joy in this racist, sexist, climate-doomed world?

 

What's a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina? by Rohini S. Rajagopal: Another memoir that broke my heart and gave me hope at the same time. Rohini and her husband decide to seek infertility treatment three years into their marriage. But nothing could have prepared them for the invasive, deeply uncomfortable nature of it, the financial and emotional strain they’ll have to endure as a married couple, and the shame and inadequacy Rohini would feel as a woman unable to conceive naturally. All of this and more is dealt with in this memoir with grace and courage, as the author throws some much-needed light on a seldom discussed issue in India.

 

The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer by Shrabani Basu: Colour me sold already. When George Edalji, a successful barrister and son of Shahpur Edalji—a Parsi convert to Christianity and the first Indian to have a parish in England—is wrongly convicted for mutilating horses and sending threatening letters to the vicarage, he loses his faith in the justice system. After a brief stint in prison but his conviction still hanging over his head, he turns to the one man he believes will be best-suited to clear his name—the creator of the world’s greatest detective, Arthur Conan Doyle. Not only is this tale beguiling, Basu is also an excellent storyteller, and she manages to elucidate the notion of being a foreigner in a country built on empire admirably. 

 

Royals and Rebels by Priya Atwal: As the Mughal empire seemed to be winding down in India, others rose to fill the power vacuum that was created. Among them were the Sikhs of Punjab, most importantly the dynasty of the legendary Maharajah Ranjit Singh, whose Sikh empire stretched throughout north-western India into Afghanistan and Tibet. Atwal takes a nuanced stance with this narrative as she chooses to explore this long-lost kingdom through perspectives that go beyond its founding father. Set in a time of global tumult and empires clashing, this is a terrific, informative read. 

 

Quick fixes, aka a few varied recommendations

What I’m reading: I’m currently in the middle of this little-known mystery called ‘The Novice’s Tale’ by Margaret Frazer. When the “lusty, blaspheming dowager” (hell yeah!) Lady Ermentrude visits her niece at a convent where the latter is a nun-in-training, it causes quite a stir. But before she could make any more trouble, she is murdered (*claps enthusiastically*). It is super-atmospheric, especially because it’s set in 1431 and the author manages to evoke that time effectively. The fact that another nun sets about solving the crime makes it even more delicious.  

 

A childhood fave: ‘Chasing Vermeer’ by Blue Balliett made me feel like I was in a National Treasure-esque scavenger hunt, working towards solving a mystery centred around Vermeer’s paintings. Reading this book was enthralling, where the kid protagonists were made to feel like they could decipher clues to a crime which has stumped even the FBI. To make things even better, there were full-page black-and-white illustrations interspersed through the book, and each artwork had a little frog drawn into them that the reader had to find. It was everything little detective-me had ever wished for. 

 

Book-adjacent rec of the week: I stumbled across this gem of a newsletter called ‘What to Read If’, which has book recommendations for a variety of situations. It’s got you covered for everything, including something as straightforward as if you need a comfort read, to if you love sea shanty TikTok. I love it.  

 

Underrated author of the week: Lucy Knisley is an award-winning comic creator who writes (and draws) about her life delightfully. Her adorable son, Palindrome (a cool internet code name), and her cat, Rhino, make regular appearances in her works. She has written a pregnancy and childbirth memoir called ‘Kid Gloves’, a childhood memoir about growing up with a chef for a mother in ‘Relish’, and continues to write/draw about her life in both fiction and non-fiction formats. I follow her on Twitter and Instagram and she is an excellent storyteller everywhere. 

 

Bookish adaptation to watch out for: I wanted to be smacked in the face with some pure comfort and nostalgia, and The Baby-Sitters Club on Netflix more than delivered. It is based on a series of novels written by Ann M. Martin about a group of pre-teens who start a local babysitting service. The show is updated and modernized in all the right ways, and the issues it deals with transcend the age group it depicts. The strong friendships, the pains of growing up and navigating complicated familial relationships is done so well, it is enough to make a grown woman (me) cry. 

 

Note: Reading Habit is curated by our books editor Anushree Kaushal. Want to send along recommendations, feedback or just say hi? Email her at kaushalanushree@gmail.com.