Difficult. That is the word often associated with Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant but undervalued scientist who won’t just play by the rules in a bid to disrupt the status quo. The opening statement sets the tone for the rest of the book, “Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and…
Book Reviews / Fiction / Literary Fiction / Man Booker Prize 2022 / Mystery / United States of America
The struggle to control the narrative and the need “to bend and align reality”; Hernan Diaz’s latest novel is a collection of four manuscripts and one woman’s resoluteness to find the truth scattered amongst these narratives. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Trust opens with the story of Benjamin Rask and promises to narrate his…
Book Reviews / Fiction / Honkaku / Japan / Locked Room Mystery / Mystery
An uninhabited and spooky island mired in tragedy. A group of amateur sleuths looking for real-life adventure decides to find it on the island. A stage is set for mystery and bloodshed. First published in Japan in 1987, the Decagon House Murders is a nod to the Honkaku style of writing, which translates as…
In the last decade, criminals have become more sophisticated, presenting a unique challenge for law enforcement agencies. The emergence of sophisticated technology has made it difficult to police using traditional methods. Increasingly, law enforcement agencies are using new technologies not just to prevent and solve crimes after they occur, but also to predict future ones.…
Violeta. A hundred-year-old woman. A woman who has lived through two pandemics, two world wars, imperialism, colonialism, and post-colonialism. A woman who has seen the history unfolding before her eyes. A woman who has never let conventions stop her or forging forward in time to make her mark. Well, she must have something to tell…
Amidst rising stalking and unwanted tracking concerns, Apple has issued a statement announcing a series of upcoming updates for AirTags and Find My Network. In December 2021, the New York Times reported people finding AirTags on their cars, and belongings and raised concerns about “tech enabled tracking” and “a new form of stalking.” BBC reported…
“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The dominant narrative fuels and gives shape to myths, and…
A virtual world where one can not only meet with friends but also shop, buy a piece of land, organize wedding receptions through digital avatars. Sounds unreal, bizarre even. But Metaverse is real, and it is here already. Dubbed as the “future of the mobile internet” and the next revolution in the internet of things,…
Acts of Desperation. Megan Nolan’s aptly titled debut novel is a lot of things, but it is definitely not an easy read. Gut-wrenching, violent, sinister, and claustrophobic at times, Acts of Desperation is a tale of a toxic relationship, of destructive love, of self-hatred, of self-deprecation, of not being enough, but above all, it is…
Introduction In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the dystopian novel published in 1949, George Orwell conceptualized the novel idea of the Thought-Police (Thinkpol), the secret police force of the superstate Oceania that monitors and punishes thoughtcrime which is the personal and political ideas that go against the diktats of the ruling regime. However, with the advent of facial…
“Greed has poisoned men’s souls” – Charlie Chaplin Almost everyone is aware of the opioid epidemic in the United States of America that killed nearly 72,000 Americans in the year 2019, yet there is much obfuscation about how it happened. Dopesick, an eight-part drama currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, brings much clarity to the…
Addie La Rue is one of the most unforgettable women one would come across. The tragedy – no one remembers her. Born in Villon-Sur-Sarthe, France, in the late seventeenth century, a girl with seven freckles’ thirst for living drives her to desperate measures. In a bid to live and have adventures of her own, she…
Seven mysterious deaths. Secret symbols. Forbidden library. The game is truly afoot. Brother William of Baskerville, on a theological mission, enters the wealthy Italian abbey with his novice, Adso of Melk, also the chronicler. What meets him is a mystery – the death of a brother monk. An abbot, desperate to keep the good name…
Koh-I-Noor has enraptured the imagination of the world since centuries, so much so, that for some, it has become the symbol of sovereignty, and for others, the blatant example of colonial greed and rapacity unleashed on the colonies by the colonial masters. Seeped in part-myth and part-history, the history of the diamond is replete with…
Near the end, one of the characters in Siddhartha Deb’s Surface says, ‘To conceal surfaces under other surfaces is necessary’ and this is what the entire narrative is all about. Cloaked under layers and layers, this is the ultimate revelation that is dawned upon the reader – ‘projecting attractive images that concealed what lay behind’.…
