The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan is probably one of the earliest “thrillers”. In the introduction to the book in my Collins Classics edition it is mentioned that Buchan himself called this book a “Shocker”. And it is one. Great pace in the narrative, spare language and crackling dialogues. The book is a slim…
The Little Black Classics 02 – As Kingfishers catch fire is a collection of poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Gerard Manley Hopkins (July 1844 – June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest. He innovated a new form of poetry – Sprung Rhythm. I like prose better than poetry. To add to that,…
It has been quite long since I read any classical literature. At the start of the last year, I had decided to spend the year reading Hindi Literature classics. While I did that for a couple of months, the reading shifted to other subjects. Now it is the start of another year. Keeping my…
Starting in the early 2003, Shrilal Shukla wrote a column in the Hindi India Today magazine for a period of two years. These columns were a look at the contemporary news and a rumination on them. The book Khabron ki Jugali by Shrilal Shukla collects those columns. My previous post was also on a…
Satire: a way of criticizing people or ideas in a humorous way, especially in order to make a political point, or a piece of writing that uses this style Harishankar Parsai is considered to be one of the greatest satirists in the Hindi language. My previous post on Pagdandiyon ka Zamana was a celebration…
What happens when the normal legal route to get a task done is made difficult and inefficient? Harishankar Parsai Jee answers this question in his essay Pagdandiyon ka Zamana. People start taking the routes which are not normal and not legal, because the task must be done. And what happens when this practice is…
Earlier this year, around the time of new year resolutions, I decided that I want to spend this year reading Hindi literature. I have read a lot of books over the past three decades of my life but a concerted effort on Hindi has not been the case. This year, I want to correct…