It is one thing to dream of living a simple, content life in the mountains. But to live the life one writes about, especially of a lifetime spent in deep communion with nature, well, that is something rare and profound. A Bond with the Mountains is a 1998 slim collection of stories, poems and thoughts by Landour’s … Read more
How exciting would it be to receive an wooden crate from nowhere at your doorstep? What would it contain? Who is it from, you would wonder, your hands tingling to rip open its contents. The Visitor begins with the arrival of one such mysterious crate at the narrator’s doorstep. Much to his astonishment, the crate is … Read more
Gifted with an elegance remeniscient of Anita Desai and glowingly compassionate, Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999) still eminates with delicate, beautifully carved keen insights. Indians living overseas are pivotal to most of the gathered tales. A Temporary Matter is about five days of a one-hour power cut and how … Read more
One of the reasons Somerset Maugham was never considered among the greatest novel writers of his lifetime, much to his disappointment, was his dry, satirical approach to novel writing. Maugham was a keen observer of life but with a distant, aloof, often blunted involvement. The Novels Though a very successful writer of his times, Maugham’s novels … Read more
There is a little bit of Walter Mitty in all of us. First published in the New Yorker, this 1939 short story tells of a middle-aged day dreamer who is out shopping with his wife. Walter Mitty wades in and out of dream at the wink of an eye – from manning a ship through … Read more