Oliver Burkeman sets his readers off on a four-week quest at the end of which lies the beauty of “imperfection.” While the enchanting realisation that each one of us is unique, warts and all, has been the bedrock of many a philosophy, this recognition has been relegated to the status of an inconsequential footnote in … Continue reading Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts – Oliver Burkeman

Exploring the liminal space between fact and fiction in a frighteningly ingenious manner, Benjamin Labatut leaves his readers enveloped in a sense of extreme enervation. A fatigue brought on by a hitherto employed combination of exhilaration and perplexity. When We Cease to Understand the World begins with an arresting narration of facts and concludes with … Continue reading When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut

In March 2023, Credit Suisse was taken over by its archival UBS, thereby bringing the curtains down on a kaleidoscopic saga of greed, ambition, and hubris. Repeatedly racked by scandals and consistently embroiled in sleazy business deals, the once storied and venerable behemoth of the banking and finance industry was finally brought down to its … Continue reading Meltdown: Greed, Scandal, and the Collapse of Credit Suisse – Duncan Mavin

Hansjörg Schneider’s fourth instalment of the phenomenally successful Inspector Hunkeler crime novels, begins on a sombre and timid note. Retired Inspector Peter Hunkeler wakes up in a state of torpor in Basel’s Merian Iselin Hospital after undergoing a successful operation for the excision of a benign tumour. He shares his hospital bed with an irritatingly … Continue reading Hunkeler’s Secret – Hansjörg Schneider

In this fascinating book length essay, Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki mesmerises, teases, provokes and even exasperates his readers with a degree of deliberateness that is calculated yet spontaneous; facetious yet severe. Tanizaki dwells with great vigour on an aesthetic that has its edifice in the murkiness of shadows, not just symbolically, but literally. Arguing that … Continue reading In Praise of Shadows – Junichiro Tanizaki

Vaclav Smil loves to inundate his readers with data. Statistics, charts and graphs keep hurtling off the pages at the rate of knots. An apologist for facts and an acolyte of information, the Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba - and the author of more than forty books - is also an extraordinary … Continue reading How to Feed the World: A Factful Guide – Vaclav Smil

Richard Powers revealed that he read one hundred and twenty books on trees while researching his now bestselling Overstory. I know not how many books on oceans and marine life Powers read in researching for Playground, but the result is electric. The damage caused by the Anthropocene on marine ecosystems is now common knowledge. Powers … Continue reading Playground – Richard Powers

Jeff Burlingame, winner of an NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Work for Youth and Teens, and co-founder of the Kurt Cobain Memorial foundation, in this “primer,” he brings together the life and times of Kurt Cobain, a tortured genius. In a life that encompassed all of twenty-seven years, Cobain enthralled the music world like … Continue reading Kurt Cobain: Oh Well. Whatever. Nevermind – James Burlingame

Provocative, prophetic, and polemical, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and the University of Warsaw, and acclaimed author, Zygmunt Bauman bemoans the dissipation of reliable societal structures and even individual frameworks of reference in an increasingly globalised world. Paradoxically, when a seamless movement of income, capital and labour was expected to bring … Continue reading Liquid Times – Zygmunt Bauman

A desi version of where Harold Robbins-meets- Agatha Christie, Shameless in Stilettos by Ell P is a one sitting gripping read. Chaos, confusion and carnal passions run riot in this murder mystery where four women of eclectic tastes assume centre piece. Inspector Meenakshi Rao has her hands full when Ananth Reddy, the eccentric son of … Continue reading Shameless in Stilettos – Ell P