Michael Crichton’s latest novel, Pirate Latitudes, took up one marathon reading session this weekend. It was, to be cliched, unputdownable.
The blurb reads:
An irresistible adventure of swashbuckling pirates in the New World from one of the best-loved and bestselling authors of all time.
Jamaica, in 1655 a lone outpost of British power amid Spanish waters in the sun-baked Caribbean. Its capital, Port Roayl, a cutthroat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses – the last place imaginable fron which to launch an attack on a nearby Spanish stronghold. Yet that is …

Sunday evening was spent rather delightfully, listening to Jeffrey Archer speak. He was at Landmark to promote his new book, a re-write of his top seller, Kane and Abel.
The man is a genius when it came to handling the crowd – he had them eating out of his hand within the first few minutes – he spoke about what a great place India is, and Sachin’s brilliant century in the previous day’s game. It was easy to see how he would have swayed his constituents who sent him to the …

I recall the first time I came across Vikas Swarup’s Q&A in the huge Landmark at Spencer Plaza in Chennai. That was in 2005, and I remember being fascinated by the blurb, though not enough to buy it right away. I made a mental note that I should read it sometime. It got added to the ridiculously long reading list in my head.
Some time ago, I heard about Slumdog Millionaire, and how it was a movie being made out of Q&A. And then, I read the rave reviews it had …

It all started with a gift voucher from Crossword I got for something or the other. Deciding to take advantage of it, off we went to City Center, where, suitably fed and glowing, I went into the aforesaid bookshop (Vidya cleverly slipped into Max to look at clothes, well knowing my propensity to take an inordinately long time in bookshops!). So I started looking around, trying to decide what I would buy, and in the process discovered that Crossword (at least the one at City Center) is one of the …

When I was at school in Coimbatore, I was a member of what must have been one of the first really successful lending libraries in the town – Choose and Read. It used to be owned and run by a chap called Noorul Ameen, who used to smilingly tolerate the incredibly long time