Page 26 - Book Review

It's still a man's world

Our data collection methods have been skewed because over time, men have come to be considered as the default while the female gender has rarely been taken into account

Plagues, disasters and heroes

Why turn to a hero, not a god? Joseph Campbell has said a hero scores over a god when it comes to resolving the problems of the here and now because "a hero's sphere of action is not the transcendent"

Maoism: A Global History is a milestone in describing a harrowing legacy

Julia Lovell's book on Maoism is concerned with understanding the phenomenon of Maoism when it swept the globe, in some places politically and in most places ideologically and intellectually.

Books for our times

Ms Atwood quotes science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin to remind us that freedom 'is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one'

The limits of 'realism'

Barry Gewen tackles the contradic­tions, and offers absolution, in this book, a timely and acute defence of the great realist's actions, values and beliefs

Star struck

A candid admission about Milind Soman's enrolment with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a young boy has generated tremendous curiosity in this book, which might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Science off the wall

One of the points this book makes is that it is often difficult to distinguish a sound hypothesis from something completely off the wall

The first people

This book by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia is about the "first people" or some of the aborigines of India she met and interviewed in the course of researching the book

Undead ideas

Anyone who regularly reads Mr Krugman's twice-weekly NYT column, will be familiar with his accessible style, his arguments and his political leanings

Donald Trump's 'deep state'

Much of the book charts the history of congressional oversight over the CIA and the FBI, beginning, in 1975, with the committee chaired by Senator Frank Church

From Saigon to the suburbs

Sigh, Gone is Tran's first book, a recollection of his childhood growing up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, after his family's escape from Saigon right before the fall in 1975, when he was a baby.

Rites of non-existence

The first half of the book traces a sordid childhood, where the author's mother mysteriously leaves for a journey only to return and never speak of it

Her voice amid lurking danger: Reflections on some feminist crime novels

It goes without saying that not all of the female crime novelists come out as feminists, and that some male writers can do feminist crime novels quite well.

A gripping book on T20 cricket and why it's the sport's default format

Two English cricket writers have written a brilliant and engaging history of the shorter form of cricket that explains why it has become the default format of the sport worldwide, says Dhruv Munjal

Immigrant chronicles

We learn about Sir Jamshedjee Jeejeebhoy who traded in opium, earned a fortune, and donated generously to charities during the Bengal famine of 1943

From good wife to free agent

Pakistani-Canadian inspirational speaker and social entrepreneur Samra Zafar's memoir will leave readers simultaneously horrified and inspired

End runs in End Times

Mr O'Connell's timing was either a bit premature or just right. In the last three months a global pandemic has already killed tens of thousands

Akbar: The Great Mughal is an instructive retelling of the emperor's life

This vivid retelling of Mughal emperor Akbar's life is both timely and instructive

All in the family... and friends

Learning how to build a brand can easily take a semester-long MBA course but the authors manage to distil their story over 25 chapters spanning 236 pages

The 'groupthink' contrarian

The term groupthink itself was inspired by such Orwellian words as newspeak and doublethink