One Summer: America, 1927

Author – Bill Bryson

Genre – History, Journalism

Source - Audiobook

Rating - 4

Read - July-October 2015

This is how the book ends.

"Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed 44 people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before. Whatever else it was, it was one hell of a summer."

And all that in Bill Bryson's flowing, humorous prose. And in Bill Bryson's voice. It's a treat! I loved this book.

Inverting The Pyramid

Author – Jonathan Wilson

Genre – Football, Sports, History, Journalism

Source - Print

Rating - 5

Read - September 2015

There are some books for which the one-minute book review is insufficient - not because you are full of things to say and you cannot do it concisely (that is YOUR problem, reviewer), but because there are so many things to write about. 

There are so many things to write about in this book. To the commoner, Cricket is the game of detailed tactics, and football is the game of hit and run. They cannot be further from the truth. Cricket is essentially a game of skill. Football is essentially the game of strategy. And this strategy, which took the last hundred years to develop, is detailed in this book - in crisp, clear, precise, journalistic language and quite phenomenal depth of research. @jonawils is quite a special football journalist, as any regular reader of The Blizzard and The Guardian (and even ESPNCricinfo) will attest - and this will, I think, remain his pièce de résistance.

And you, readers of this blog, know that I sometimes recommend sports books to non-sports fans. This is not one of those books. But if you are a lover of the beautiful game, you have to have this book.

সেই সময় (Those Days)

Author - Sunil Gangopadhyay

Genre - Historical Fiction, Bengali

Source - Print

Rating - 5

June 2014

A monster of a book. Very strong writing. Te history comes alive. I hope this is as good in English translation as in Bengali, though (I read the original) - this is about more than anything about the rise of the Bengali people and the Bengali language.
Do tell me, friends, if the translation works.

তুঙ্গভদ্রার তীরে (Tungabhadra'r Teerey)

Author - Saradindu Bandyopadhyay

Genre - Historical Fiction, Thriller

Source - Print

Rating - 4 

May 2014

First: About Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. He is a fantastic writer of bestsellers that are NOT devoid of literary merit. If one has to make the parallel to an English writer, it has to be with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and Sharadindu's Byomkesh is almost the equal of Doyle's Sherlock).
Second: About the time and place. You'd say the novel has not dated very well. You'd say that some of the sentiments some characters display are rather out of our times (reg: religion, sex). But hey, this is historical fiction, and that too medieval history, how do you expect it to be in with the times?
Third: Sharadindu creates such amazing plots. And has such a strong, clean writing style. Two hundred odd pages finished off in one go. This is good stuff! 
Fourth: I am lucky that I can read Sharadindu in original Bengali. This is one of the first few non-Byomkesh novels of his that I read, and I am itching to read more.Fifth: Nice to read about the history of Karnataka. This is about the Vijayanagar Empire.

Wolf Hall

Author - Hilary Mantel

Genre - History, Politics, Non-Fiction

Source - Audiobook

Rating - 5

December 2013

This is an incredible achievement. Really one of the books where even while reading it you know that this is a piece of high art. Hilary Mantel is a genius. How many book have you encountered where in the middle of an exciting passage of events you suddenly stop to marvel at a piece of sparkling prose? And you are never over-burdened by the literariness of the piece (something that, I must agree, happens to me often), the book, all 24+ hours of it in Audible, flows through. I am not the Booker-prize-reader kind, in fact, I am the exact opposite. This however was brilliant. Will have to start on the next part in a few days.

India After Gandhi

Author - Ramachandra Guha

Genre - History, Politics, Society, Non-fiction

Source - Print

Rating - 5

November 2013

Re-read. This should be re-read once every year. Masterful. A page-turner, it reads like a thriller. Even on the second read.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Author – Bill Bryson

Genre – Science, Popular Science, Non-fiction, Humour, History, Physics, Geology, Paleontology, Anthropology

Source - Audiobook

Rating - 5

August 2013

I have been having great luck with books in recent times. Or maybe I am easy to please. But really, this book here is a definite read-this-now. The dexterity is not in the physics, the geology and paleontology and anthropology, a fair bit of which (gloat gloat) I was to an extent in the know of, but in the presentation. Bryson is an awesome storyteller, and he weaves these superb, fun, and exceedingly funny stories around the mysteries of nature and creation and the men and women who solved these mysteries for us – this is the perfect book to read beforehand if you are planning to babysit a particularly inquisitive nephew or niece. 

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Author - Jared Diamond
Genre - Society; History

Source - Audiobook
Rating - 5

Oct 2012

Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power

Author - Niall Ferguson
Genre - Society; History

Source - Audiobook
Rating - 4

Sep 2012

The Ascent Of Money

Author - Niall Ferguson
Genre - Society; Ecomonics, History

Source - Audiobook
Rating - 5

May 2012