Annotation 35: Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

May 1, 2023

I first read Sophie’s Choice in 1985, when I was eighteen years old. It was a birthday gift from my fifteen-year-old sister. Later, my sister, an English major in college, got the same paperback signed by Mr. Styron to whom she served dinner while he was on campus. She also...

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

April 24, 2023

Elena Ferrante’s third book of the series, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, reads much longer than the first two. It continues the up and down waves in the lives of the major characters Lina and Elena, just like the first two books. The story begins with a scene...

Elena Ferrante The Story Continues

April 17, 2023

Ferrante’s second book, The Story of a New Name begins with an important reveal that goes on to shape the voices in this book. While Ferrante still uses Elena’s voice as the primary one, in first person, she opens the door to delve a little into Lina’s head by centering...

Elena Ferrante The Master Storyteller

April 10, 2023

My sister first introduced me to Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan Novels, told me that it was quick, light reading that would fit around my work schedule. I bought the four books and set upon them whenever I needed a distraction. The first book, My Brilliant Friend, introduces the reader to...

What you see is what you touch and smell…

April 3, 2023

Anthony Doerr is a writer who started his writing career with short stories and progressed to novels.He has written several, About Grace, his Pulitzer Prize winning All the Light We Cannot See, Four Seasons in Rome and his most recent wonder – Cloud Cuckoo Land. All the Light We Cannot...

This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey

March 15, 2023

This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, essays on writing by Steve Almond is a very flavorful set of small plates, each tempered with humor and just a little bit of angst. Almond, in his role as a teacher of Creative Writing in an MFA program, has pulled the nuts...

Bharati Mukherjee, A Writer of Incredible Stories

March 13, 2023

Bharati Mukherjee, born on July 27th, 1940, in Calcutta is considered the matriarch of diaspora fiction. Her book, The Middleman and Other Stories has been used as required reading for Freshmen at Drexel and many other universities. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, a first for a naturalized...

When Breath Becomes Air And We Die

March 6, 2023

Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon and Chief Resident at Stanford University Hospital, a graduate of Stanford University with multiple degrees, including two from Cambridge – he was everything hard driving, first generation Indian parents could have asked for. Then, lung cancer struck and he was dead within two years of...

The Pale Blue Eye

January 23, 2023

The film The Pale Blue Eye, starring Christian Bale and Harry Melling (as Edgar Allen Poe) is a story that takes place during Poe’s brief tenure at West Point Military Academy in 1830. The film is based on a novel of the same name by Louis Bayard, written in 2003....

The Indian art of giving away

October 1, 2022

Indians are not well known for their philanthropy, except when it comes to religion. But there are exceptions, and large ones. The Azim Premji Foundation is the best known, supporting causes ranging from Gender Justice to Constitutional Values and Democracy. Tata Trusts have been in the limelight in recent times,...