Thursday, August 14, 2014

The Return of the Butterfly by Moni Mohsin

One writer that I admire and envy(in a good way) is Moni Mohsin. Every time I read her Butterfly series I wish we had a writer like her in India. Her wit, sarcasm and humour in her books is near perfect. I know this sounds very fan girlish but I have no hesitation in admitting that!

So Butterfly is back the third time and this time she chronicles her tales post Benazir politics of Pakistan. Butterfly through her tabahi diary entries takes a swipe not just at the hi-fi society ladies of Isloo (uf oh Islamabad) . While Butterfly claims to have zero love for politics but comes across as an astute commentator of the goings on in Pakistan.

This time in the book though she is at her fiery best, the reader also can feel her concern for her country and how it impacts her 'crack' husband and equally 'crack' son. Her love hate relationship with her sisters in law and her mother in law is something many women will instantly connect with. What makes Butterfly absolutely lovable is her confidence in herself despite the rest of her family thinking otherwise.

While the author does attempt to show the ugly mess that Pakistan is in right now through the diary jotting of Butterfly but that is something we would want the reader to read and find out.

The author's razor sharp wit makes this book a must must must read. Highly recommended     reading. Long Live Butterfly and more importantly a request to the author to keep writing the life and times of Butterfly!

Scoop by Kuldip Nayar

There are some people who need no introduction, their work speaks for them, Kuldip Nayar, is one such person. Out of many of his books I recently read Scoop the tagline of the book mentions it as providing 'Inside stories from the partition to the Present' Present being till 1999. The book is a good read that gives insider info to events that unfolded post partition. As a young journalist who started his career with an Urdu Daily to serving as a press information officer to Gobind Ballabh Pant and Lal Bahadur Shastri to Emergency the book covers some anecdotes from all his journalistic years.

He while sharing some stories from his stint as a press information officer to Lal Bahadur Shastri also ensures that he sticks to fact telling rather than trying to spice up events as they unfolded or show off in anyway his proximity to the leader. What many in today's writers seem to have forgotten when chronicling their lives and times in important roles in the government.

The book extensively covers the post indepence era from the eyes of a journalist, From Nehruvian period to Shastri era (however short lived) to his scathing attack on the emergency era, also covering the then political upheavals in Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

The book is an interesting and candid collection of some important news events in India's post Independence history. Do read for a quick reckoner to India's contemporary history. 

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

From online popularity to publishing...a tale of two books.

 Recently we read two books authored by people we love to follow on twitter and through their blogs. Their humour, wit and sarcasm on every topic (especially current affairs) has been exceptionally fantastic. So when we heard that the hugely popular blog The Unreal Times had come up with a book on Indian Elections, it was a on our must read list. The book turned out to be as much fun as we had expected. Indian politics with its very complexities has always had people very seriously opining on it but thanks to the authors who through their satire have made our politicians, if we may say so, more likeable. Most of the chapters in the book have their extremely popular FB updates of some well known politicians and the following comments to the updates. The humour will have you laughing out loud literally. The book clearly establishes the author duo C S Krishna and Karthik Laxman have their finger on the political pulse of the nation. It does go a bit over the top in the end but clearly a good read. A great debut and looking forward to many more books from The Unreal Times, till then we continue to read their blog.

The second book we read is from Aditya Magal (the man behind the parody account of the renowned stockbroker Rakesh Jhunjhunwala)..Aditya has been extremely popular on twitter with his funny and hilarious tweets as the parody account, his blog The Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala also has many followers. So it came as no surprise when we heard he is writing a book, we expected the book,like his tweets to be larger than largest, grander than grandest, funnier than funniest. Did the book match our expectations? Yes again. For a debut author it is a good effort, How to become a millionaire by selling Nothing, is a fun read. Though it does seem to stretch on a bit at the end and the humour at places does seem a bit forced but nevertheless it makes for a funny read. If you are looking for a crazy, whacky and funny book go for this.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Back with a bang!

Yes the blog has been silent for long, but not anymore. We shall soon be sharing more reviews, author interviews, book events, author interviews and upcoming releases on this blog shortly. If you are a publisher/author please do send us details about book releases, author interviews, book contests to the following email id: bookwelove at gmail dot com

If you are a passionate book lover and love to review books we will be giving access to a few select people to share their posts, author interactions on this blog. If this sounds interesting write to us at the above mentioned email id with subject line as Book Reviews.

Looking forward to hearing from our readers and also a new innings on this blog!