Accidental Blogger
A general interest blog
Category: Books, Authors & Poems
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Warren Jeffs, the leader of a breakaway fundamentalist Mormon sect of Colorado City, AZ, was arrested yesterday during a traffic stop near Las Vegas, Nevada. Jeffs was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for child abuse and faces felony charges on multiple counts of rape and sexual conduct with minors in Utah and Arizona. He…
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This is Part I of a three part book review that I have put off for too long. The longer I wait, the more I forget. So it is time to put it together – to be published in three installments in the coming days (hopefully). All three books are non-fiction and each is about…
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I came across this story about three weeks ago in a South Asian tabloid, Voice of Asia, published in Texas. (I read this paper whenever I visit the local south Indian eatery where it is available to the patrons.) It was a remarkable enough tale and eminently blogworthy. But I didn’t write about it then…
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Curious news about Naveed Haq, the suspect in the Seattle Jewish Center shootings- he was a convert to Christianity, by this account. Just a couple of weeks ago, I finished reading the parable-like novel "God’s Little Soldier" by Kiran Nagarkar (in my opinion, one of the brightest stars in today’s Indian-English literary firmament) in which…
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Ever since the twin towers crumbled in NYC on 9/11/2001 followed by the upheaval and bloodbath in the middle east, Iraq included, the believers in the Biblical prophecies about Armageddon have been all atwitter. The latest standoff between Israel and the Hezbollah and the systematic destruction of Lebanon have only added fuel to the religious…
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Courtesy of Prof. Thomas Nadelhoffer at Leiter Reports, notice of Martha Nussbaum’s review in The Nation of Catharine MacKinnon’s latest collection of essays and articles, Are Women Human?: And Other International Dialogues. MacKinnon remains one of the most important legal scholars, advocates, and activists of our time. Nussbaum’s favorable review captures much of what has…
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Weeks ago, Ruchira invited me to post a message along the lines of the discussion we had here about the relationship of science and art. Thank you, Ruchira, for the generous invitation. The continuation of that discussion, which was the goal of her invitation, awaits another day, because I am frankly not very clear about…
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Having very recently read the ‘Angels and Demons’ I was reminded of the abysmally awful prose that sets out the saga of the ever-astounded(‘stunned’, ‘dumbfounded’,’astonished’…ad nauseam) Robert Langdon when I found this website full of snarky grammatical commentary on Dan Brown’s prose. ‘Angels and Demons’ truly lived up to ( or should I say, aptly…
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IN THE GALLERY Steel shadows Fluid contours Passing into Darkness Within and without ………… Souls wrapped in gunny bags Stiff creases and starched stitches Headless bodies Regimented in rows Chests waiting for bullets Nature’s finishing touches. …
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The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh is a "good" book – note that I don’t say "wonderful," as I do for most of his other books. In his usual style, Ghosh deftly weaves fiction with fact, the past with the present and geography with history. The result while interesting, has a slightly unpolished feel about it.…
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…or maybe it’s just because I have a thing for books. And another for Wales. There’s a review up at the New York Times (sorry, free registration required), covering both the travel and the Welsh book festival: THE tiny town of Hay-on-Wye in southeastern Wales seems like a curious place to hold a major literary…
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The story of Kaavya Viswanathan, the young Harvard sophomore who tripped up on her way to literary super stardom by accusations of plagiarism, is well known by now to the readers. Viswanathan’s book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life contains several passages which appear to have been lifted from another…
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And in the "news out of Georgia" front, at least one concerned lunatic is trying to save the elementary school children of Gwinnett County from the satanic text of J.K. Rowling’s popular Harry Potter series. Why, Georgia? Why are you trying to make me hate you? I doubt this has made the national news, which…
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What I most enjoy writing on this blog are book reviews.(Followed closely by criticisms of the Bush administration). You may have noticed that I publish only positive reviews – books that I would like my readers to read. But these posts are also the hardest to compose. I always feel that I have to tell…
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As promised, here is Book II of the two part book review I had planned some time ago. Who Are the Jews of India? by Nathan Katz Of all the Jewish communities in the Diaspora, the Indian Jews were among the oldest and perhaps the most interesting. They adjusted without assimilating within the larger culture and…
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