Round the mulberry bush

FROM KIPPERS TO KARIMEEN: A LIFE (Roli, Rs 295) by Psyche Abraham is the autobiography of an Englishwoman whose discovery of India begins with a love story in a London post office. The book is unsurprising in its foreign wonderment at India’s culture, its traditions, places, flavours and tastes. It veers towards the tediously personal on occasion — endless details of the young Psyche’s many romantic liaisons being one such example. On the whole, it is an interesting read, describing well the writer’s enduring love for her homeland by marriage.

THE BOOK OF HHHMMMM: A DIARY OF THOUGHTS (Leadstart, Rs 125) by Luda Pavlova is just that — a very personal diary. That this book found a publisher is proof enough of the voyeuristic pleasure that people derive from reading about the daily lives of strangers. With the advent of personal weblogs and their rising popularity, this trend is all over the internet today. Clearly, print is trying to catch up. There’s no story here, just arbitrary snippets of opinion about everything ranging from relationships to weight loss. A certain familiarity of thought pervades each chapter, though, perhaps owing to the personalized tone in which this Siberian author writes. We have all been as juvenile at times, as preachy on occasion.

ANATOMY OF AN ABDUCTION: HOW THE INDIAN HOSTAGES IN IRAQ WERE FREED (Penguin, Rs 295) by V. Sudarshan recounts in gripping detail the kidnapping by Iraqi dissidents of three Indian truck drivers (along with three Kenyans and an Egyptian), en route to Iraq from Kuwait, and the furore it raised in the Indian media, forcing the government to send a team of negotiators to Baghdad to press for the release of the hostages. The author, a senior journalist, writes engagingly, breaking down the abduction drama to its bare skeleton. There is a day-by-day account of the crisis, exposing the tricky endeavours of governments in trying to extricate their citizens from becoming pawns in a political powerplay.

GROW ME UP (Trafford, Price not mentioned) by Sumedh Chatterjee contains “hilarious life situations as seen through the eyes of an eleven year old”. Poorly edited, and only mildly humourous, these short stories are no more than the product of parental indulgence of a precocious pre-teen.