Page 46 - Bs Reads

Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: Rob Sheffield on Taylor Swift's journey

Sheffield writes that Swift "reinvented pop in the fangirl's image," and while he's not a fangirl himself, he has long cultivated an interest in the cultural interests and contributions of girls

'Character Limit' unveils Musk's expensive Twitter buy and its real impact

Mr Trump (then ex-President) also gets a fair share of attention in the book, particularly about how he used Twitter and other social media to make false claims

AI meets art in McNeal: Akhtar's play challenges limits of creativity

In McNeal, Ayad Akhtar explores the way AI is disrupting the literary world and raising questions about creativity

The Siege: Ben Macintyre's book recalls a forgotten Iranian hostage crisis

Mr Macintyre's original aim in writing this book was to showcase the brilliance of the SAS in post-war action

Night of Power: Robert Fisk's war stories spotlight victims, perpetrators

Fisk's didactic fury may have kept him going, but it tainted his fidelity as a witness and narrowed his vision

Hilal Ahmed's book offers a scrutiny of contemporary Muslim identity

The true value of Hilal Ahmed's book on the condition, plight, choices, and compulsions of Muslims in today's India lies in its refusal to see every issue as either black or white

Nationalism and Hindutva: A new era in Indian politics gets explored

In 2019, Hindutva yielded rich results for the BJP. But why did the nationalism plank produce suboptimal results in 2024?

The Trolls of Wall Street: How tech-savvy retail traders changed markets

In sum, this book provides a fair degree of insight into a new breed of traders, who treat financial markets like any other video-game and crowd-source insights

'The Money Trap': How a surfeit of capital created own troubles at SoftBank

The author paints an elaborate portrait of Masa. At one point the world's richest man, he also held the dubious distinction of having lost the most amount of money until surpassed by Elon Musk

The Golden Road: Dalrymple revives a forgotten India for modern readers

This is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in the world of ancient Indian cultures

'The Lucky Ones' captures the intersection of the personal and political

A book about an event from over two decades ago that exposed our darkest instincts serves as a reminder not to let ourselves fall so low again

1965 Indo-Pak war: A Soldier's perspective on lessons for future conflicts

India's next war could be fought on two fronts, with a collusion between Pakistan and China, warns Major General Ian Cardozo, drawing on logic, past experience, and evolving geopolitical reality

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

Vartul Singh's book explores Banaras beyond tourist sites and snapshots

Many things about Banaras remain unknown to tourists that only a Banarasi understands, as the city is their home, not merely an Instagram backdrop. Vartul Singh's book highlights this aspect

A Body Made of Glass: How health anxiety, hypochondria evolved over time

Caroline Crampton's A Body Made of Glass delves into hypochondria's history, revealing its shifting perceptions from ancient to modern times

The Fifteen: How diverse women united to shape free India's Constitution

At a time when the Uniform Civil Code is being widely discussed, the book explores what the women in the Constituent Assembly thought of the idea

Dilip Sinha's book explores how Tibet became an abandoned kingdom in exile

This must-read book minces no words about what is to come

Book Review: Balancing India's strategic goals with development assistance

India's Development Partnership makes a case for broadening the scope of such assistance beyond a government-to-government approach to include the private sector and civil society

Rotem Geva's new book traces Delhi's journey through Partition and beyond

The book traces how the city's growth and "birth" of New Delhi triggered the decline of the Muslim aristocracy, which began with British takeover after 1857

Snyder's on freedom: A call to action amidst global tyranny and conflict

Again and again, his book returns - as Snyder has done himself - to Ukraine, where he sees the conflict between freedom and unfreedom in brutally vivid form