Books

Who Has Heard of Morbi?

arindam

It’s strange that one can completely forget a tragedy like the collapse of the Machhu Dam II in Gujarat, which led to the death of nearly 25,000 people

The Importance of Being Earnest

Elizabeth Kuruvilla

Writers cannot live in a vacuum, isolated from political currents anymore, says Pankaj Mishra

The RAW Files

Hartosh Singh Bal

A former intelligence officer writes a gripping and thinly disguised fictional account of the case of Rabinder Singh, an Indian spy who went rogue and escaped to the US

The Illicit Happiness of Other People

Manu Joseph

Seventeen-year-old cartoonist Unni Chacko has jumped off a building. Nobody is able to explain why he did it. The only clues he has left behind are the cartoons and comics he has drawn, which his alcoholic father is trying to decipher. Extracts from Manu Joseph’s new novel

War, Terror and Hate

Pranati Mehra

Journalist Adrian Levy’s book Deception was about the West’s role in Al Qaida’s birth and Pakistan’s duplicity. The Meadow was about a kidnapping in Kashmir. Now he plans one on 26/11. An interview

The Immortal Vidal

Kiran Nagarkar

Why Gore Vidal will remain at the centre of 20th century American literature and political thought

If You Can’t Flush the Slush

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

A list of seven book titles that the author wants published

And Then There was One

Aastha Atray Banan

At last, there is someone to satisfy an Agatha Christie aficionado’s longing for old school whodunits—Japanese author Keigo Higashino

That Bird in the Bush

Rauf Ali

This compilation of the late M Krishnan’s Statesman column is a worthy companion for your evening tea on the balcony as you watch that little winged fellow hop around

Nayar’s Believe It or Not

Jatin Gandhi

Kuldip Nayar’s memoirs, really a personalised history of contemporary India, are a good read. But his apologies and retractions since its publication do justice neither to his book nor his reputation as a journalist