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

Tea breaks, the perks of a bike ride.

The Department of English and Modern Languages (DEML) at North South University hosted a session of its Colloquium series titled “Zia Haider Rahman in Conversation with Dr Nazia Manzoor” on Tuesday, this week.

Translation is a bridge to connect different cultures and their literatures. It’s a medium to reflect the gems of a country’s literature around the globe.

Accompanying the Booker Prize long-listed novels of this year, Clare Adam’s <I>Love Forms </I>(Faber, 2025) offers an enthralling tale of Dawn, the protagonist of the novel, who is in a lifelong search for her long-lost illegitimate daughter. Although Dawn continues her strides in life from gett

Ogilvie reveals that the method of its construction: a global appeal for words from any and all English speakers, ensured that the language of the periphery flooded the metropole.

Raza Ali will be deeply missed—for his words, his warmth, and his unwavering faith in the power of literature to connect us. His voice, both written and spoken, will continue to guide and inspire all of us who had the privilege of knowing him.

Heathcliff portrays a very unique strain of masculinity. It is not one that comes from being a man in a patriarchal society, nor from one being amongst majority women.

Written in deep striking prose, Saramandi lends her authorial voice to the changing dynamics of her life whose future is described as  “a line that turned out to be a loop” similar to the fate of her homeland.

One of the weirder relics of my early days on the internet—one that I'm certain many if not most of my fellow netizens around my age are quite familiar with—is Creepypasta:

The violence is domestic, institutional, and often unnamed—carried out by people who look nothing like monsters.

"The ghosts still sing in Shantinagar" is one of the winning entries for our Halloween themed writing contest, 'Spooktober: Bhooter Adda'

These stories prove one thing: art theft never goes out of fashion.

He responded to the situation with grace, mentioning “I like people who have a sense of humour".

When Dan Brown finally returned in 2025 with The Secret of Secrets—the sixth Robert Langdon adventure—the world that devoured The Da Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003) had mixed reactions to the story.

When I first learned about Hamlet: Book One of the Post-ApocalypticSpace Shakespeare by American novelist Ted Neill, I was immediately intrigued. While not the first science fiction Shakespeare, Neill’s attempt to produce a complete series represents a noteworthy Shakespeare project. As of September 2025, Neill has published his version of Hamlet, Othello, and Twelfth Night with “many more” listed as planned. He appears to want to produce all 37 plays.

Uketsu, the anonymous writer and a macabre enthusiast, fictionalizes himself as the protagonist in the novel Strange Houses, where he is introduced to a series of unpleasant experiences in several houses through his acquaintances.

It’s very likely that Substack will become the “drawing room” of intellectuals and creative elites.

Through its blend of art, technology, and literature, “Celebrating Kafka” offers more than homage–it invites audiences to confront the absurdities of modern life and recognize that Kafka’s strange, unsettling world is still unmistakably our own.

Review of Abulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Theft’ (Riverhead Books, 2025)

Pandit Haraprasad Shastri read—and was deeply inspired by—Raja Rajendralal Mitra’s seminal work Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, published in 1882. That book was instrumental in inaugurating a whole new age in the history of Bangla language and literature.