by Aashisha Chakraborty | Reviews
Zadie Smith has called On Beauty an “homage” to E.M. Forster’s Howards End, though not in a plot-by-plot sense. Zadie Smith has used Forster’s structure as “scaffolding” – as a way to learn to write an English novel, something that made her feel like she’d...
by Aashisha Chakraborty | Reviews
Zadie Smith’s On Beauty is a novel about family, art, and class but mostly, it’s about the exquisite awkwardness of believing in ideas that no longer seem to work. “The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” — On Beauty, Zadie Smith Have you ever...
by Aashisha Chakraborty | Reviews
So many years have passed since I read The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham and yet his words seem more relevant today than ever. “He had a feeling that he was on the threshold of a discovery which he must make for himself.” – W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s...
by Peter Scotchmer | Reviews
Novella Review by Peter A. Scotchmer, featuring themes like literary fiction, loneliness, poetic novels, Canadian literature, escapist characters, modern novellas A novella by the Quebecois writer Denis Theriault called Le Facteur Emotif in French was recently...
by Peter Scotchmer | Reviews
Peter Scotchmer dives into two great reads- Saroo Brierley’s contemporary true story ‘Lion’ and Rudyard Kipling’s classic novel ‘Kim’ during his own travels through the Indian subcontinent. While in India on family business, I...
by Peter Scotchmer | Reviews
The story is told by his son Dylan of a memorable exchange between Dylan’s father, the Canadian writer William Bell, famous for his novel Forbidden City, and Dylan’s sister Megan. Megan had been reprimanded for some unspecified childish misdemeanour or other, and had...
