Page 51 - Book Reviews

The professor's chronicle of reforms

Former RBI Governor C Rangarajan's memoir is an analytical supplement to the history of the central bank, and useful in understanding the foundational measures for undertaking deep reforms

Messages from the margins

Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India offers a critical understanding of the differential citizenship to which Indian Muslims have been subject, and suggests ways to combat it

Measuring civilisation

The story of humans measuring things is no less than the story of civilisation - a claim that sounds like irritating hyperbole but in this case turns out to be true

Genuflecting to the free market

Famed economist Jacob Soll's book guides readers through 2,000 years of Western free-market thought, but at times, the account is perplexing

A panoramic history of the cell

Pulitzer Prize winner Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Song of The Cell is a beautifully crafted exposition of the author's own lifelong fascination with the subject

A pioneer who danced to her own tune

V R Devika's biography of Muthulakshmi Reddy brings to life not just the story of India's first female student in a medical college. She was a trailblazer in many other ways

HBO: A story of misogyny and violence

HBO gradually shed its reputation as a fratty boys' club, but the network's origins as a vehicle for male licentiousness haunt the pages of It's Not TV

The world of the factory girl

In Mobile Girls Koottam, working class women capture the life of factory workers in India through their conversations and touch upon everything, from universal to personal, in a gently humorous voice

How to be an activist

The Anarchist Cookbook serves as a primer for anyone who wants to engage in activism. Focusing on securing smaller, more manageable goals is the key

Leadership in a time of constant flux

Covid, climate change, misinformation and Fourth Industrial Revolution have created a perfect storm that needs new paradigm for leadership. Faisal Hoque's Lift offers insights into what that would be

Epic endings: Mahabharata's final chapters

Eminent Indologist Wendy Doniger's latest book focuses on the final days of the protagonists of the epic and makes their stories come alive with different meanings

The lives and times of ransomware hunters

A recurring theme across the book is the indifference and incompetence of government, particularly in America

A kick-off for Qatar

The Most Incredible World Cup Stories captures the rambunctious, funny, controversial and the human side of football and offers a great deal of entertainment to football fans ahead of the World Cup

A conversation about economic reform

Gautam Chikarmane's book is a politically intrepid look at India's transformation from an economy 'of the small, by the small, for the small' to one 'of the big, by the big, for the big'

Beautiful minds of the investment world

David M Rubenstein's compilation of interviews with star money managers is a joy to read

Our kind of spy novelist

An anthology, edited by John Le Carre's son, takes us through the bestselling spy novelist's life through a series of revealing, yet delightful, collection of letters

The dynasty of Empire

In The Sassoons, Joseph Sassoon charts his family's triumphs and tragedies across continents and centuries and uncovers a tribe of fascinating figures

The filmy chronicler

The book celebrates Abbas by showing how this "boy from Panipat, land of Sufis, land of battles" introduced the small-town sensibilities to Indian cinema.

Geostrategy 101: Understanding the new normal

Following its retreat from Afghanistan, has the US hauled itself back to the centre of the geostrategic world? A new book argues it has but warns India not to give up its status as a 'Swing State''

A physicist in multiverse

A short but beautifully written book by an Albanian woman physicist delves into the non-mathematical explanations of the existence of multiple universes and where the hypothesis could lead