THE SHELF / 6 books that I read at the end of last year… I hated 5 of them

How Haymitch Abernathy and Katniss Everdeen mirror each other’s legacy

How does one write about history? Certainly, there is the straight-forward, head-on approach, where a historical period is confronted directly by populating it with historical/fictional characters and portraying the times through their eyes.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Little, Brown and Company, 1929), a semi-autobiographical novel authored by a German World War I veteran, Erich Maria Remarque, is one of the greatest anti-war works of literature—one that was published nearly a century back and still holds relevance today

Remembering the stateless poet Daud Haider

Review of ‘Reframing My Worth: Memoir of a Bangladeshi-Canadian Woman’ by Habiba Zaman (FriesenPress, 2024)

standing at the bus stop with my shoes full of water

Mother, why is our sky so different?

Begum Rokeya was once described as a “Spider Mother” (makar-mata or makarsha janani) in her biographical account but there is nothing sinister in this metaphor. The image of the spider here symbolises the quiet, patient, and selfless labour of an educator, caring for children who were not her own. Shamsunnahar Mahmud, her close co-worker, wrote: “Day after day in this way, with the blood of her own breast, Spider Mother began to revive hundreds of baby spiders into new life.”

There are any number of ways one can approach Rahat Ara Begum’s collection of short stories, 'Lost Tales from a Bygone Era: An Anthology of Translation of Urdu Stories', assembled, contextualised, and published in this book by her loving grandchildren and their siblings

This year’s World Book Day theme, “Read Your Way,” invites readers to embrace their own paths, rhythms, and preferences regarding books

'A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies'

It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort

A quiet, seniority in its touch, / A tenderness that feels like it's meant to last

‘Fit for the Gods: Greek Mythology Reimagined’ (Vintage, 2023), edited by Jenn Northington and S. Zainab Williams, is a collection of classic myths with a twist

Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal’s 'Instruments of Torture' is a powerful literary collection that delves into the psychological and societal torments individuals endure, particularly focusing on themes of beauty standards and the representation of women. Each story in the collection is named after a medieval torture device, serving as a metaphor for the emotional and societal pressures faced by the characters.

“An Eye and a Leg” has been described as "a darkly humorous and surreal take on the trope of the ‘expiring’ South Asian woman"

Mrs X's parents were not interested in spending money on their daughter's room because they would have to give her new furniture when she got married

Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series has captivated pop culture with its bold take on tyranny, sacrifice, and resistance, spanning Katniss Everdeen’s blazing defiance in The Hunger Games (2008) to her final stand in Mockingjay (2010) against Coriolanus Snow’s cold cruelty.

In the contested notion of creating a ‘nation,’ few ideas provoke as much ire among the everyday citizens of a bordered entity as the concept of a space—one that carries with it the weight of instilling an identity.

Sometimes at early dawn / You overpower my eyelids / And won’t let me wake up