#Book Review: A Mountain, a Lake and a Song by Manav Kaul
Tag: #fiction #indianwriting #femalewriter
#Book Review: A Mountain, a Lake and a Song by Manav Kaul
There are some books that you read, and then there are books that you seem to travel through. Manav Kaul’s A Mountain, a Lake and a Song was that kind of book for me. As I read, I often felt that I was travelling alongside him, seeing what he saw, sharing his experiences as they unfolded, and at times feeling less like a reader and more like a quiet co-companion on his journey. Perhaps that is what makes this book so special; it is a travelogue, but the journey is never merely about the places he visits. It slowly becomes …
#Book Review : The Chowpatty Cooking Club by Lubaina Bandukwala
The Chowpatty Cooking Club is a thoughtful and quietly powerful middle-grade novel published by Duckbill Books, a publisher known for curating meaningful and well-researched children’s literature. The book is part of Duckbill’s special collection, Freedom Song, which brings alive the Indian freedom struggle through the voices and experiences of children across the country. Set in Bombay in 1942, during the Quit India Movement, the story is narrated through diary entries written by Sakina, a young girl who desperately wants to contribute to the fight for independence. Along with her friends Zenobia and Mehul, Sakina lives in a city buzzing with …
#Book Review: Abscond by Abraham Verghese
Abscond by Abraham Verghese is a poignant short story that explores loss, grief, shifting relationship dynamics, and the search for identity in the aftermath of death. In a brief yet powerful narrative, Verghese captures how a single loss can fracture a family and force its members to confront themselves in unexpected ways. The story centres around a small family of three whose lives are irrevocably altered when the father passes away. His death leaves behind a household overwhelmed by grief and emotional disarray. The son, struggling to process his loss, begins to define himself through the rituals he performs during …
#Book Review: A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hawawaldong by Lee Onhwa
There are some books that don’t ask to be read so much as entered. A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hawawaldong is one of them—quiet, glowing, and softly magical, like a streetlamp you stumble upon while walking alone at night. Set in a pastry shop that opens only at midnight, Lee Onhwa weaves together stories of the living and the dead with remarkable tenderness. The shop is a liminal space, a threshold where spirits linger, not out of fear, but out of love. These spirits come searching for unfinished feelings, unresolved conversations, and the people they were unable to say goodbye …