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

In an episode of Star Book Talk aired live on Friday, July 9, author-anthropologist Tahmima Anam and DS Books Editor Sarah Anjum Bari discussed Anam’s latest novel, The Startup Wife (Penguin India, 2021). They discuss writing tactics, feminism in literature, and Anam’s influences on the path to becoming an award-winning author.

A launch event titled “Longing and Belonging, a collection of narratives on 1947 partition” was held virtually on Friday, 9 July on the Facebook pages of Goethe-Institut Bangladesh and Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata. Supported by the Goethe-Institut Bangladesh as part of its Inherited Memories project, Longing and Belonging “presents a collection of chronicles, fragments, stories, morsels of reflection from Indian émigrés living in Mirpur and Mohammadpur of Dhaka who or whose families were affected by the 1947 partition”. Friday’s event featured readings, discussions, reflections, and a poetry recitation in commemoration of this project, which spanned from the autumn of 2019 through to the eased COVID-19 lockdowns of late.

The first of the two-day memorial service for publisher emeritus Mohiuddin Ahmed was held at 7 PM on July 9. Family, friends, colleagues, and notable admirers gathered virtually to pay their respects to the late, great founder of the pioneering University Press Limited.

Needless to say, some of the best moments of my life have been spent inside bookstores.

The first of July has always been a busy day. With remembrances, special anniversaries and the beginning of a new financial year, the day also reminds us of how fast time passes, as half of the year flies by at the blink of an eye. Yesterday, however, the day was extra significant, because Dhaka University turned a century old. The only known institution in Bangladesh turning 100 (to my knowledge), and that too an important one both academically and historically, led me to look for books and other published items from the past which would speak at length about the university.

The loss dealt to Bangladesh and its publishing industry this week will be unparalleled—at 12:59 am on Tuesday, June 22, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Emeritus Publisher and founder of University Press Limited (UPL), passed away after surviving Parkinson’s disease for 20 years.

The books we recall today, Ami Birangona Bolchi (1994), Rising from the Ashes (2001), and The Spectral Wound (2015), are among the documentations which highlight women’s voices and their perspectives of 1971.

We here at Daily Star Books enjoy nothing more than a good short story. Composed to be read in one or two sittings, the short story form lends much to the imagination of its makers, whose creativities, according to many a writer, are only emboldened by the strict word limits intrinsic to the form. The world of film, too, shares in this admiring, as can be seen in over a century’s worth of adaptations—some faithful, some not; some insipid, some inspired—that all have been fuelled by the few thousand words set first to page. In this list is a collection of 10 unmissable adaptations.

I was one of those kids at school who could always be found squeezed in between bookshelves at the school library during lunch hour. While my classmates wolfed down actual food in the cafeteria, I devoured the works of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, JK Rowling, and the ghostwriters who penned the Nancy Drew series. It was here, amongst these very shelves that I first chanced upon the works of the one author who would pave the way to my fascination with the horror genre: RL Stine.

As the world continues to battle a devastating pandemic, the significance of healthcare technologies can be felt more so than ever. Rapid technological advancement (particularly in the artificial intelligence domain) has been revolutionising this sector, and contactless human activity analysis is one such promising example.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—or 44 years ago in US cinemas on May 25, to be exact—a phenomenon was born. Today, we know the release as Episode IV: A New Hope but back when it came out in 1977, the film was more prominently known by the title which permeates throughout the world today: Star Wars.

With settler colonialism and apartheid taking place in Palestine—with at least 227 Palestinians, 64 of them children, having been killed over the last 11 days

Away from the festivities and communal interactions that make Ramadan special, this year, books seem like a fitting avenue through which we can explore the lives of Muslims across the world. From biographies to novels, for children and for adults, these authors have penned stories that are both wholesome and enlightening.

The books authored and published during a war always have an archival quality; they capture the time in its crudest form. They are a seamless blend

Satyajit Ray, born on May 2, 1921—a hundred years ago from this day—hails from a long line of Rays. His grandfather, Upendraishore Ray, was the first storyteller of the family, followed by father Sukumar Ray, master of the fun and formally experimental verse fondly remembered as the HaJaBaRaLa, a children’s novella often compared to Alice in Wonderland.

The Commonwealth of Cricket: A Lifelong Love Affair with the Most Subtle and Sophisticated Game Known to Humankind (HarperCollins India, 2020) is Ramachandra Guha’s latest book on cricket. It is his ode to a game his mother introduced him to at the age of four, and his father told him stories of.

In my book, Identity of a Muslim Family in Colonial Bengal: Between Memories and History (Peter Lang, NYC, 2021), I focus on the era of pre-Partition Bengal, trekking through old family recollections, oral anecdotes, memoirs, and other available books and documents on pre-independence India, and blend them with the larger history of British Bengal.

My late grandmother would immerse herself in the rhapsodic melody of Muhammad Iqbal’s poems in Urdu, recite them aloud while taking a stroll around the house and say, “Eta ek alada shaad, banglay er khoj milbe na—this is a different taste, one wouldn’t find it in Bangla”. A few years later, Shankha Ghosh’s masterful translations of Iqbal’s poems would appear in the anthology, Iqbal Theke (Papyrus, 2013). My grandmother was so delighted to be proven wrong. This is one atop a long list of reasons why I am indebted to Ghosh—for the sweetest memory of my grandma.

It happened on a slow morning during my university English literature class. We had just finished reading one of Roald Dahl’s lesser-known short stories, “Skin”, published in The New Yorker in 1952. The lecturer called upon the class to present their analyses of the short story. When it was my turn to speak, I became tongue-tied as my mind slowly went blank. It had been close to four years since I had picked up a book.

All things colourful make up the Bangla New Year—boisterous celebrations of nature, art work, music, food, the quintessential Bangali warmth, and the Mongol Shobhajatra as its crowning jewel