SBR: Yellow Lights of Death was originally written in Malayalam and the translation does a good job of retaining the flavor or the original. So good a job, in fact, that it became a problem for me. It didn’t translate all the…

SBR: Chetan Raj Shrestha continued to shine as a writer in his second book The Light of His Clan. This is another Sikkim novel, affectionate but unsparing with its subjects, which brings a smile to your lips even when…

SBR: Like many of the popular and best-selling business books, Six Thinking Hats has a meritorious idea, which can be useful. And like its other brethren, it can’t avoid the temptation of overselling that one idea. Six Thinking Hats…

SBR: The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan is a well-written book, but it falters as historical fiction. I’m pretty sure that the court language by the time of Akbar and Jehangir was Persian and not Turkish, hot chai was not…

SBR: Farthest Field talks about Indians in second world war, an aspect of the history that is usually ignored within as well as outside India. Because in India, Indians fighting the…

SBR: What do you say about a book which is very well written and incredibly boring to read? No. Not in the way some people find classics. My Name is Red really is well-written for a modern audience. The translator must have done a hell of a job…

SBR: What a contrast The Pillars of the Earth is to my previous read Fire from Heaven. If the latter’s writing craft was too evolved for regular readers, the language and the style in The Pillars of the Earth is plainer and more…

SBR: Gods, Kings & Slaves is one of those books that had great potential, but it fell far short of it because the very first draft was published where severe rewriting and editing was needed. The…

SBR: Salvation of a Saint is a murder mystery and it does a good job of it. The prose is readable and the story keeps your interest hooked. There are the standard ingredients of a main detective and a junior and a brilliant…