Anoothi Vishal: Other books

The jacket warns: "This book is not for the faint-hearted, nor is it to be read late at night, especially not when you are alone." Don't take the warning too seriously.

Spooked is just what its title suggests: Just a little bit spooky without being seriously threatening. The anthology of ghost stories is primarily written for children but can be enjoyed by adults looking to relive campfire nights, just in the way books like Harry Potter can.

The spirits are quite genteel, at least for the most part. Some are witty, some humourous, one even a glutton""carrying memories of gulab jamuns beyond the grave""but none really malicious.

There are haunted houses, apparitions in white, ruined forts, ghostly tigers, planchette sessions, etc. But a striking feature of the writing is how these are juxtaposed with a contemporary world.

The settings are mostly modern and usually identifiable: A mother taking her son away on vacation while the busy father cannot take a break, an extended family preparing for vacation by the sea, a teenage girl obsessed with her appearance, a modern-day researcher who starts reading an old book to his peril, even an astronaut in outer space who sees stranger things than he had expected ... In all, a readable collection of 34 stories.

Shaiontoni Bose, Bunny Gupta,
Nilanjana Gupta, Arundhati Dasgupta
Pages: 227;
Price: Rs 250