Page 113 - Book Reviews

Babe Ruth, the first modern celebrity

The Big Fella, Jane Leavy's new biography of Babe Ruth, is set amid this rowdy roadshow

Frankenstein at 200: A rare story to pass from literature into common myth

While Frankenstein may have thwarted his creature's desire to procreate, Shelley's novel has birthed a seemingly endless stream of adaptations and riffs

Rockstar Rahman

Book "Notes of a Dream: The authorized biography of A R Rahman" takes you through every phase in the life of this prolific, restless creative genius

Identity and popular politics

Mr Fukuyama describes identity as one's true inner self juxtaposed against the outer world of social norms and rules

Democracy detached from the people

While the book's focus is on western democracies, it will resonate in India

Big cats between state & science

Panna is a dry forest, which at the time wildlife biologist Raghu Chundawat did his most intensive research, 1996 to 2004, saw a substantial recovery of the prey and predator populations

How the United States achieved world leadership

We wouldn't know where to begin recreating something like today's system of international order because we have a flawed understanding of its history

Why Annapurna Devi chose her musical gift over a celebrity husband

Dissonant artistic visions drove Hindustani classical musician Annapurna Devi and her husband, Ravi Shankar, to separation

The banker who hunted Nazis

The book underlines a reality we are discovering today: that even in advanced democracies fascism retains a perilous allure

Murugan's controversial novel 'One Part Woman' now translated into English

For months, Perumal Murugan had been hounded by right-wing Hindu groups that had latched onto an old novel of his, 'One Part Woman' (2010)

And Aadhaar lived happily ever after…

The book is filled with irrelevant gossip about Mr Nilekani's Delhi stint and fails to further critical understanding on Aadhaar

The desi mindset

The most interesting parts of the book constitute sections in which Mr Sardar articulates his love for his homeland, evenings spent gorging gol guppas and paan

Waging war from the Oval Office

Presidents of War is a marvellous narrative that opens with James Madison, the father of the Constitution and a reluctant warrior during the War of 1812

Book review: Ramachandra Guha's meticulous reconstruction of Gandhi's life

The detail in Ramachandra Guha's magisterial biography occasionally comes at the cost of interpretation and meaning

A prime reader on the Indian economy

A review of 'Pre-Liberalisation to GST - Essays in Honour of Raj Kapila'

Why our freedom is in danger

Mr Mounk uses a number of case studies to demonstrate how electoral democracy has, through legitimate means, brought to power populists who claim to speak in the name of people

Hate crimes and healing

Again and again, the essays in the book return to a single question - can a nation so fractured by hate crimes, encounter killings and communal deaths ever be made whole again by love?

The corruption poser

Dr Basu presents the issues through the prism of economic theories - using game theory in abundance, but at a philosophical level these have tremendous resonance in Indian society

The real risks of the Trump presidency

Mr Lewis himself seems to swing from civic optimism to abject nihilism, sometimes within the same perfect sentence

Billion Dollar Whale: Superbly reported book on swindle of the millennium

The story of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fraud highlights the shocking power of those who learn to con the masters of the international finance community, writes Rahul Jacob