Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 6/12/2013 11:47:47 PM

'Wave details Sonali Deraniyagala’s experience of losing her family in a single instant, and her tug of war between remembering and forgetting in order to make sense of her world.  In 2004, Deraniyagala (an economist at the University of London), her … Continue reading →'

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Vegan Secret Supper by Merida Anderson

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 4/8/2013 3:44:09 PM

'You can keep your membership to the Bilderberg Group; I’ve finally found a club I’d like to join. The Vegan Secret Supper (VSS) is a dining club run by Canadian chef Mérida Anderson, who engineers awe-inspiring vegan meals. Here’s a … Continue reading →'

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Random bookish things: Project Bookmark, Charles Darwin, Captain Marryat.

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 4/2/2013 8:42:02 PM

'Have you heard of Project Bookmark? It’s a Canadian charity that places “text from stories and poems—on plaques, called Bookmarks—in the exact, physical locations where literary scenes take place. The charity has a total of 12 Bookmarks in three provinces, … Continue reading →'

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Moebius Trip: Digressions from India’s Highways by Giti Thadani

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 3/28/2013 11:27:06 PM

'The more I read about Giti Thadani, a scholar based in Berlin and New Delhi, the more intrigued I became. Thadani dropped out of high school (Convent of Jesus and Mary in New Delhi, y’all) when she was fifteen. She … Continue reading →'

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Malarky by Anakana Schofield

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 3/7/2013 5:52:50 PM

'Malarky (Biblioasis, 2012) deals with death and sex and most of all, with grief, and it’ll probably stand as my funniest book of the year. In the opening scene, the mentally disturbed protagonist (“Our Woman”) is confessing to the grief counselor … Continue reading →'

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Recent reads and reviews

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 3/3/2013 3:24:18 PM

'If we met during the Christmas holidays past, odds are I thrust a copy of Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon into your hands, and then held a cleaved sword over your head till you began to read. “But … Continue reading →'

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Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 2/15/2013 2:55:42 AM

'In Salt Sugar Fat, Michael Moss investigates the tactics employed by the processed food industry (Kraft, Pepsico, Nestle, Unilever and their ilk) to ensure that consumers buy increasing quantities of their products. His findings are horrifying but (mostly) unsurprising if … Continue reading →'

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Global Women of Color: Aya by Marguerite Abouet, Clement Oubrerie (Ivory Coast)

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 1/29/2013 4:44:33 PM

'My second read for the Global Women of Color challenge is my first ever book set in the Ivory Coast, and it’s a charmer. Aya, a graphic novel by Marguerite Abouet (illustrated by Clement Oubrerie), was published in France in … Continue reading →'

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The fifth Flavia de Luce: Speaking from Among the Bones

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 1/24/2013 12:27:04 AM

'I’m very fond of novels set in rural England, especially when they’re packed with dead bodies and genteel old ladies and vicars and odd-sounding desserts (the chocolate shape!), and so I follow Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mystery series, set … Continue reading →'

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Reading Global Women of Color: Anita Amirrezvani (Iran)

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 1/18/2013 4:16:51 PM

'Anita Amirrezvani‘s The Blood of Flowers is a fascinating novel, packed with details about carpet weaving in 17th century Iran, but fear not! the story wears its research lightly. The novel’s protagonist  is an unnamed fourteen year old village girl in 1620s … Continue reading →'

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Calvin and Hobbes–and Bacon

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 12/24/2012 1:21:33 AM

'Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes strip stopped running (almost to the day) seventeen years ago, leaving behind a giant Calvin-and-Hobbes hole in the universe. BUT. Pantsareoverrated.com has done four of these strips, and though they aren’t officially endorsed by Watterson, … Continue reading →'

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Books for young readers

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 12/17/2012 4:43:20 PM

'Apricots at Midnight by Adèle Geras has been praised for bringing the “Edwardian age deliciously to life”, but even if you don’t give a damn for Edward or his age, you should read this book. Geras has captured the child’s eye-view … Continue reading →'

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Thomas King on finding humor in intolerable situations

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 11/30/2012 12:45:23 AM

'Before starting this piece, I’ll first clout myself on the head for not reading Thomas King all these years. There. Thomas King is a Canadian (Cherokee) writer and broadcaster who advocates for First Nations causes. Now, I believe the First … Continue reading →'

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Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth by Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 11/26/2012 2:00:27 AM

'Most Hindus have a favorite god or ten, and chances are Ganesha will top the list. He’s worshiped as the remover of obstacles and the lord of beginnings, the god of intellect and wisdom, and he’s invoked as a patron … Continue reading →'

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Tears of Mehndi by Raminder Sidhu

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 11/18/2012 1:00:45 AM

'Raminder Sidhu’s ambitious debut novel Tears of Mehndi (Caitlin Press, 2012) seeks to capture the story of the Indian Sikh community in Vancouver’s Little India over the past thirty-five years. The story begins in 1976, with a shocking racial incident—a small Sikh-owned grocery store is vandalized, … Continue reading →'

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Seeing Salman Rushdie talking Joseph Anton

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 11/2/2012 1:00:37 AM

'It’s hard for me to overstate the eminent position Salman Rushdie holds in my reading of (postcolonial) literature, but I’ll give it a shot–my feelings on seeing him in person were akin to those of a Regency Romance convention beholding … Continue reading →'

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Up and Down by Terry Fallis

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 10/11/2012 9:04:29 PM

'In his third novel, Terry Fallis sticks to the formula of his earlier work–likable young dude champions principled outsider in a setting infested with spin and #conservativerage. And what a formula it is! Fallis’s debut novel The Best-Laid Plans and the sequel … Continue reading →'

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Book Launch: Sleeping Funny by Miranda Hill

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 9/19/2012 6:09:00 PM

'I asked Random House for a review copy of Sleeping Funny for the most ignoble of reasons–I figured my neighborhood would appear in the book. Miranda Hill lives a few streets away from me. I once saw her at my … Continue reading →'

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Happy Roald Dahl Day!

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 9/13/2012 4:59:55 PM

'Were he alive, Dahl would be celebrating his 96th birthday today.  Events galore at www.roalddahlday.info, and here’s a lovely episode from Letters of Note for you to enjoy. “One rainy Sunday afternoon in 1989, with encouragement and much-needed help from her father, … Continue reading →'

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Five fun novels for the 9-12 group

Author : Niranjana      Blog : Brown Paper      Date : 9/10/2012 11:00:03 PM

'Summer demands that you toss aside gravitas-lit in favor of lighter reads. Here are five of the best from my summer’s Middle Grade haul. 1. Joanne Levy’s Small Medium at Large (Bloomsbury, July 2012) gets my vote for Miss Congeniality; it’s … Continue reading →'

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