Akankshya Abismruta

Between being and nothingness: Yiyun Li picks acceptance as a way of living

Yiyun Li is an award-winning Chinese-American author with multiple novels and short story collections to her name

Searches: Book explains how we turned to internet to understand ourselves

The strength of Searches, despite its banal moments, lies in the breathing space allowed to each digital experiment without judgments or definitive conclusions

The Last Bench: A story that moves readers to question caste norms

This book doesn't call for action to abolish the caste system - yet it leaves the reader wanting to do away with it

Nautch Boy: Manish Gaekwad's book sheds light on lives of boys in a 'kotha'

Nautch, a corrupted pronunciation of naach, fascinated the author in his childhood. As a practice, the tawaifs didn't let their children near their performances and patrons

The Evin Prison Bakers Club: Prison memoir details hard-baked resistance

The book blends memoir, recipes, and resistance, portraying Iranian women prisoners who turn baking into an act of defiance and solidarity

Iran's grieving mothers' ties have been a political force to reckon with

An interesting aspect of the rebellion in Iran is the power of mourning mothers. Since the 1980s, kinship among grieving mothers has been a driver of political engagement

On Failing: Where the quiet complexities of failure take centre stage

Through an eclectic collection of essays spanning subjects from suicide to physiology, On Failing creates space for failure to exist-without forcing life lessons down anyone's throat

The Feminisms of Our Mothers: How one woman's step sparked progress

This anthology successfully subverts the social dynamics of men and women in patriarchy, and centres women as the subjects of their exploration

A crusader on the high road: Sunitha Krishnan's book exposes trafficking

I Am What I Am is not merely a linear recounting of a life in service. In parts, it reads like an action-packed thriller

Everyday Reading: Tracing the evolution of Hindi magazine culture

Diving into Everyday Reading raises many questions. Did the consumer become a passive viewer with the rise of television as opposed to active participation in the magazines?

Hameed's memoir calls for reclaiming India's spirit of communal harmony

The book reveals the India that once was, a plural state for which the liberal elite waxes nostalgic, and the India that could be by defeating rising Islamophobia

Dinesh Sharma's 'Beyond Biryani' explores Hyderabad's future in its past

There is a figurative divide between the old city and Cyberabad, a tension between Hyderabad's history and its future, raising the central question of Beyond Biryani: Does history hinder development?

Exploring Irawati Karve's life in Iru: An anthropologist ahead of her time

This extensively researched biography reads like a novel, without academic jargon, that sucks readers into its smoothly flowing narration