By Its Cover

About the book: “The woman of the streets”, “Grande Horizontale”, “Scarlet Woman” are a few of the umpteen disparaging terms we use to address them. Little do we know about the circumstances in which they are battered, that compels them to indulge in paid rape. In this 300-page book, Paulo Coelho sheds light upon the life of an aspiring artist, who ended up being a prostitute.  About the author: Paul Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist & a novelist, known popularly for the best-selling and the most translated book “The Alchemist”. His words are unembellished, and deriving emotions out of it is as easy as falling off a log. Metaphysical and visionary fiction is his specialty. He is known for employing rich symbolism in his depictions of the often spiritually-motivated journeys taken by his characters.  The story in a nutshell: The book revolves around a young Brazilian girl Maria, who wants to live a comfortable and lavish life and ends up selling her body and becoming a prostit...

  I have always been a fan of mythological and historical novels, where the writer, with a mixture of historical facts and mythical characters, brings an era to life – and author Amish Tripathi is a past master at this game. That is why when I saw that he has published a new book – “Legend of Suheldev: The King who saved India” – I did not hesitate before downloading it to Kindle for an immediate read. Nor was I disappointed. About the author: Amish Tripathi specialises in converting mythology to real life stories. His earlier books, which are all about making mythological stories real, include the Shiva trilogy, viz The Immortals of Meluha, Secret of the Nagas and Oath of the Vayuputras, and the Rama trilogy, viz Scion of Ikshvaku, Sita: Warrior of Mithila and Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta . About this book: This 325-page story is distinctly different from Amish’s earlier books on two counts. Firstly, this is not mythology based but history based, Suheldev being a real ki...

  I had just finished reading a mystery fiction novel and was looking for something light and refreshing for my next read, when I stumbled upon the recommendation to read A Man called Ove . This novel by Fredrick Backman fitted the bill to a T. About the author Fredrik Backman is a Swedish columnist, blogger and writer. He is the author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, and Us Against You. About the book A Man Called Ove is a work of fiction by Fredrick Backman published in 2012. This 300-page novel was like a breath of fresh air. Set in Sweden, it is a series of short stories about a man called Ove, that combine into an awesome all-encompassing storyline.  Backman talks on themes of love, loss, family, friendship, and their risks and rewards. Ove is best described as a curmudgeon, a man who had a hard time walking with a smile plastered to this face all the time. So, he might come out as someone wh...

This is a book I wanted to read for some time and I was not disappointed. Large in scope, full of insights and examples, it left me quite enriched. Even if some of the concepts sound novel, they are beievable. I read it like a thriller. About the author: Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli public intellectual, historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Apart from Sapiens, he is the author of some more bestsellers: "Homo Deu s: A Brief History of Tomorrow"  and " 21 Lessons for the 21st Century" .  About the book: This book of around 500 pages cuts a swathe across human history, focussing however on Homo Sapiens, who we are descended from, and their social development over the last 70,000 years. Why did Homo Sapiens suddenly become the king of the earth? What were the turning points? The writer combines facts with theories in a gripping tale that often turns on its head our ideas about our own dominance of the planet. T...