(Image Credit: http://www.amazon.com) Frank Herbert’s second installment in the Dune saga, ‘Dune Messiah’, bears an uncanny resemblance to one of its most telling characters, Skytale, a ‘Tleilaxu Face Dancer’. A Tleilax is a product of a renegade training centre and is representative of a twisted soul who is capable of assuming the face and voice … Continue reading Dune Messiah – Frank Herbert

(Image Credit: http://www.amazon.com) Every now and then, crops up a piece of literary marvel that unshackles itself from being straitjacketed as belonging to a ‘genre’ and escapes being blasély branded as the undisputed barometer of an oeuvre. Such books bridge the two dimensions of time and space and continue to be undiminished in their relevance. … Continue reading Dune – Frank Herbert

(Image Credit: NetGalley.com) Published by Magination Press, a children's book imprint of the American Psychological Association, Jamie Roche, an experienced professional in the field of mental health and wellness and containing a fantastic write up by Donald Merriman, PhD NCSP, certified school psychologist at Pequenakonck Elementary School, "Tummy Troubles", is an attempt to counter bouts … Continue reading Tummy Troubles – Jaime Roche

(Image Credit: Vikatan Publications) The unparalleled story telling capabilities of Kalki attain its apogee in the concluding volume, a tome titled “Thyaga Sigaram”. No review can possibly do justice to the culmination of a saga such as ‘Ponniyin Selvan’. There are very few works where every single character in a veritable phalanx, has an influential … Continue reading Ponniyin Selvan – Thyaga Sigaram (Volume 5) – Kalki Krishnamurthy

(Image Credit: http://www.goodreads.com) This imaginatively titled book – originally penned in French as ‘Nouvelle Histoire de I’Inde’ – by the former South Asian correspondent for multiple reputed French-language dailies, Francois Gautier, is an interesting bricolage of studied socio-cultural and political events that have spanned the civilizational course of the world’s largest democracy, and which unfortunately … Continue reading An Entirely New History of India – Francois Gautier

(Image Credit: Netgalley.com) Jon Kabat-Zinn, an American professor emeritus of medicine and the creator of the stress reduction program mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), is also a founding member of the Cambridge Zen Centre. In this small volume titled “Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief”, Kabat-Zinn offers a few techniques revolving around the practice of mindfulness, to … Continue reading Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief: Practices to Reclaim Your Body and Your Life – Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

(Image Credit: Vikatan Publications) If Volume 3 progressed at a countrified pace with its patented twists and turns, Volume 4 takes off like an impatient rocket eager to honour a commitment to the stratosphere! One cannot but be rendered stupefied by the breadth of imagination and the depth of storytelling that take exquisite shape in … Continue reading Ponniyin Selvan – Manimukutam (Volume 4) – Kalki Krishnamurthy