There was a softness in the room when I finished this book.   Not silence exactly—more like the kind of quiet that follows a memory you didn’t know you were carrying. I was sitting still longer than needed, aware that something gentle had brushed past me and stayed.   The Three Greens didn’t arrive loudly. It didn’t demand attention. It behaved like a childhood afternoon—unannounced, unhurried, and somehow complete in itself. I didn’t enter the story as an adult reader. I sli

The fatigue arrived before the admiration did. Not physical tiredness — something deeper. The kind that settles in the shoulders when you realize how long power has been carried, argued over, bent, and bruised.   I finished the book late at night. The house had already decided to sleep. I stayed back, sitting upright longer than needed, aware of a quiet inside me that hadn’t been there before. Not stirred. Not inspired. Just… attentive.   Some books inform you. Some books imp

I didn’t read Shukriya Boganviliya in one sitting. Not because it was difficult—but because it kept asking me to stop. A poem would end, and instead of turning the page, I would sit there, feeling oddly addressed. As if someone had spoken my name softly and walked away.   Written by Nitya Shukla, Shukriya Boganviliya is a Hindi poetry collection that doesn’t ask for attention. It earns it quietly. Published by Highbrow Scribes Publications, this book carries an unassuming con

I didn’t open this book looking for courage. I opened it expecting information.   What I found instead was a quiet lineage of bravery—lives lived when there were no safety nets, no hashtags, no reassuring headlines saying things will get better. Over The Rainbow: India’s Queer Heroes doesn’t rush at you with noise. It walks beside you, calmly, carrying stories that were never meant to be erased, only ignored.   Edited by Aditya Tiwari, this anthology brings together nineteen

Some books don’t begin when you open them. They begin much earlier—in the life you are already living.   Small Actions, Big Results: 31 Habits for a Supercharged Life began for me somewhere between an early-morning routine I try hard not to skip, a basketball court that still teaches me discipline at forty-plus, a reading habit that once turned into a world record, and the quiet inheritance of values my father left behind—without ever calling them habits.   I rarely pick up s

Some books don’t begin when you open them.   They begin much earlier— in the quiet fears you carry about love, in the endings you never got to choose, in the stories you were forced to leave unfinished.   The Things We Leave Unfinished met me exactly there.   I picked this book up with assumptions. I’ll admit that upfront. I thought I was walking into a glossy, trope-heavy romance—something indulgent, dramatic, maybe even forgettable. Instead, Rebecca Yarros quietly dismantle

There are books you read, and there are books that read you. I didn’t expect that a quiet-looking hardcover with a nostalgic photograph of Mussoorie nestled on the cover would do that to me—but the moment I cracked open Mussoorie Montage: Tales from the Hills by Divyaroop Bhatnagar, I felt something shift. It was like stepping into a fog-thick morning on Camel’s Back Road where everything feels familiar yet charged with the thrill of what might be waiting around the next bend

They say that if you grow up in Maharashtra, Shivaji Maharaj isn’t just a historical figure — he’s a presence. A pulse. A silhouette carved into your imagination long before you even learn to spell “history.” And over the years, we’ve all read countless books about him: some glorifying him into near-myth, some dissecting his tactics with academic precision, some reducing him to a chapter squeezed between the Mughals and the British. Yet, strangely, very few of those books eve

Some books don’t begin when you open them — they begin somewhere inside you, years earlier, with a question you didn’t know you were carrying. For me, it was a dusty memory of a veteran I once met who said, in a voice that trembled just once, “War is a memory you spend your whole life negotiating with.”I never forgot that line. And the day I opened Kristin Hannah’s The Women, it returned to me, like a hand on my shoulder saying, Pay attention. This one is about the hidden neg

Some books don’t wait politely for your attention — they kick the door open and sweep you into another world before you even realize you’ve crossed a threshold. Circle of Days by Ken Follett did that to me. I wasn’t prepared. One moment I was sinking into my sofa after a long day, absently flipping pages just to unwind, and the next, I was standing barefoot on the Great Plain of prehistoric Britain, tasting dust in the air and feeling the raw ache of ambition and conflict pre

What does it mean to race against time—not metaphorically, not poetically, but in the brutal, breath-snatching, pulse-in-your-throat way where every second could save a life or end one? I asked myself that question somewhere around 2 a.m., sitting alone with a cup of ginger tea gone cold, unable to put Jeffrey Archer’s End Game down. It’s funny how books sometimes choose their own reading conditions: silence outside, a faint hum of the ceiling fan, and a story that refuses to

There are books that arrive quietly, like soft rain tapping on a window. And then there are books like Wellness—that kick the door open, sit across from you in the dim light of a late-night café, and ask the kind of questions you’ve been trying very hard not to look at directly. The kind of questions that feel like staring into a mirror for too long.   What if love isn’t something we fall into once, but something we must choose again and again, even when the magic dissolves a

Have you ever sat in a beautifully lit café, sipping a hot cappuccino, watching plates fly out of the kitchen, servers glide between tables, and thought — How hard can it really be to run a restaurant?I have. More times than I can count. And every time, I’ve wildly underestimated the answer.   Because from the customer’s side of the counter, everything looks effortless — the clink of cutlery, the aroma of freshly baked garlic bread, the hum of conversations blending into the

I didn’t pick up The Art of Focus on a calm morning with incense burning and soothing flute music in the background — although that might have made me look more aligned with the title. Instead, I opened it on a messy weekday evening, surrounded by half-finished tasks, buzzing phone notifications, and a mind that felt like 37 browser tabs open at once. Ironically, I reached for a book about focus while being the least focused version of myself.   And maybe that’s exactly why t

There are some books you don’t read — they read you. They peel you open like an orange, sting the soft inner parts you thought you’d hidden well, and leave you sitting in silence long after the final page has closed. The Bell Jar is that kind of book. I picked it up on a tired Tuesday night, expecting a literary classic with polite gloom, maybe a sprinkle of poetic sadness. Instead, it dragged me by the collar straight into the suffocating hush of a mind unravelling — and I’m

Some books don’t knock gently. They kick the door open, drag a chair into the centre of your life, and say, “Sit. We need to talk about the dream you keep postponing.” The Storypreneur’s Playbook: Fifteen Inspiring Stories to Unleash the Entrepreneur in You by Prateek Roy Chowdhury and Nitin Babel is exactly that kind of book — the kind that arrives like a storm and leaves as quiet clarity.   To be honest, I first heard about this book from a close entrepreneur friend — a wom

There are books you read with a cup of tea in hand, letting the warmth seep into your palms while the pages gently turn. And then there are books that snatch the cup right out of your grasp, sending it crashing to the floor because—what just happened? The Mussoorie Murders by Divyaroop Bhatnagar did exactly that to me. I opened it expecting a quiet weekend read. Instead, I found myself wide awake past midnight, staring at the ceiling, replaying clues like a detective who refu

Some stories don’t knock politely before entering your life. They walk straight in, sit across from you like an old friend, and before you know it, they’ve moved something inside you that you didn’t even realize needed shifting. Whispers in the Mist: Tales from a Himalayan Hamlet by Prerna Dewan was one such unexpected visitor. I began reading it on an ordinary evening, thinking I’d finish a chapter or two before bed. But the moment I stepped onto those mist-draped hills of D

There are books you read. And then there are books that read you. I wasn’t expecting that kind of encounter when I opened The Aware Being Code late one night, intending to sample just a few pages before sleep. But somewhere between the author’s quiet invitation and the mirror it held up to parts of myself I rarely sit with, I found myself wide awake at 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling, asking questions I didn’t know I needed to ask. Questions about purpose. About the wounds we

I still remember the first time I heard Piyush Mishra live—his words flowing like a river that refuses to be dammed, each syllable carrying the weight of years, pain, joy, and unrestrained passion. The air itself seemed to hum with his energy, each note and gesture leaving invisible ripples that lingered long after the applause. Holding Tumhari Auqat Kya Hai now, I realize reading this book is like stepping into that same river—letting yourself be carried along, immersed comp