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Book Reviews

Questions of Identity

Mani Shankar Aiyar

What does Islam mean to Indians, Muslim and non-Muslim

Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India /
Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India
Suchitra Vijayan
The Walking Wounded

Questions of citizenship in an increasingly nationalistic world

The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War /
The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War
Malcolm Gladwell
The Tragedy of a Few Good Men

Malcolm Gladwell’s new book examines one of the great moral challenges of World War II and the price of different actions

Philip Roth: The Biography /
Philip Roth: The Biography
Blake Bailey
Roth Unbound

Remembering an American master on the anniversary of his death—and the biography that boomeranged

Intimate City /
Intimate City
Manjima Bhattacharjya
The Business of Pleasure

The offline and online contours of sex work in Mumbai

Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias /
Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias
Stephen Biddle
Rebels versus Soldiers

Increasingly, guerrilla groups and government troops exhibit similar military behaviour

The Unmarriageable Man /
The Unmarriageable Man
Ashok Ferrey
Ashok Ferrey: Our Fathers in Heaven

Ashok Ferrey’s new book captures Sri Lankans at home and abroad. The author tells Antara Raghavan about the persistence of grief and the art of construction

I Want a Poem /
I Want a Poem
Jerry Pinto
Bound by the Need for Breath

The discrete and distinct joys of reading poets Jerry Pinto and Ranjit Hoskote

Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music /
Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music
Amit Chaudhuri
Amit Chaudhuri: ‘I place our music in our experience of distraction and listening’

Author and musician Amit Chaudhuri speaks to V Shoba about his new book on modernism in Hindustani classical music and ways to renew the art form

This Life At Play: Memoirs /
This Life At Play: Memoirs
Translated from the Kannada by Girish Karnad (1938-2019) and Srinath Perur
‘There was no telling where a new bud might sprout’

In his memoir, translated for the first time into English, Girish Karnad writes that his artistic evolution began the instant he set foot in college

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