Page 24 - Book Review

Nikah Halala: A proxy scandal

The book is an attempt 'to take the lid off this legalized form of prostitution, encouraged under the garb of faith by men of religion'

Persuading without coercion

Instead of pressing harder on the accelerator, Mr Berger advises removing the parking brake and wheel chocks

Enablers of authoritarianism

A recurring problem in this book is that most of the clercs refuse to talk to Ms Applebaum, leaving her dependent on the public record and the wisdom of mutual acquaintances

Covid-19's long heritage

The Black Death introduced new vocabulary - quarantine - the Italian word for 40, the number of days ship carrying diseased passengers were kept away from dock

Mahabharata deconstructed

Stripping the epic of much embellishment through its careful reading, Dr Karve comes to the conclusion that, above all, it is a story of stoic people, not superhuman beings

Driving the private sector

R C Bhargava finds the idea of reforming a public sector undertaking and making it competitive and a wealth-creator almost an impossibility

Climate change & its discontents

Yes, climate change is real. Yes, we should do something about it

Rearranging our thoughts

The authors urge people who think of themselves as change-makers to recognise how they collude with the systems they are trying to fight

All (garbled) sound and (little) fury

In his tenure, Mr Bolton was the president's faithful companion on all the president's sojourns and meetings with world leaders

Goa's Hindutva architect

This is a book written with affection and sadness about a man who had the talent and intellectual bandwidth to do anything

All in the family dynamic

It's the kind of detail - memorably specific, fundamentally human and decidedly weird - that gives this book an undeniable power

A big history for a long lockdown

Long lockdowns make for long reads and I was lucky to be able to procure this three volume set

The evolution of 'Homo Puppy'

Written by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, Humankind argues that we've been trained to be more biased towards the innate "evil" character in humans

Classics & other favourites

Without boring you with what I bought, let me share the three books I've enjoyed reading since then

Lehman & poetic justice

When theatres went dark in March, good plays were left dangling early in their runs

'There and Back' review: A history of famous travellers and their sojourns

Stewart Gordon has made skilful use of his protagonists' memoirs, letters and travelogues

Portrait of 'The Portrait'

Ms Jordan has drilled down, though, and brings new information about this unconventional first lady to the surface

The treasure of comfort reads

The ideal re-reading ritual should be of a book just smart enough to not irritate you, just deep enough to keep you engaged

Period piece pleasures

There are several novelists who have set their detective stories in this period when the freedom movement was taking roots in India

Between deer and running dogs

Book review of The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century