History

SBR: My luck with reading histories continued as I started reading A History of Cambodia by David P. Chandler. Like A Brief History of France by Cecil Jenkins that I read earlier, this book about Cambodia was just suitable…

SBR: Unlike in case of Vietnam and Sri Lanka, the book I picked up to get an overview of French history turned out to be suitable for this purpose. A Brief History of France is readable with clear chronology and just the…

SBR: The idea behind picking up a book on Sri Lankan history was to get a broad overview in preparation for our trip (since concluded), and not really research it to hell and beyond. Although I slogged through it, this wasn’t a…

SBR: John Keay’s India Discovered was an eye-opening read for me. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I picked up India: A History when I wanted a refresher on Indian history for myself. This book is as charmingly written and accessible as…

SBR: The point of reading Viet Nam — A History from Earliest Times to the Present was to acquaint myself with the history of the country before our trip in last November. That…

SBR: I once jokingly summarized Sapiens by saying that we fu**ed up wherever we went and we take ourselves too seriously. Or perhaps I wasn’t joking at all. That’s what it says. But the beauty of the book is that it is accessible and easy to read…

SBR: The Agony and the Ecstasy — a novel based on Michelangelo’s life- was another novel that was picked up in the anticipation of our Italy trip, although I read it only after coming back. The timing wasn’t bad though. After…