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 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

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

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

I didn’t ease into When I Hit You — it felt more like stumbling into a scene already in motion. The kind where the camera is trembling, the soundtrack has gone silent, and you realise you’ve entered a story that isn’t waiting for you to settle in. Friends had mentioned how intense it was, but nothing prepares you for the way this book grips your collar and says, “Stay. Watch.” A few pages in, I knew I wasn’t reading for leisure; I was witnessing a life being peeled open.   Me

Some books don’t knock — they slip into your life like a whisper behind your ear. Relics was that kind of whisper for me, the kind that makes you turn around in a crowded café even though you know no one is there. I picked it up on an evening when the world felt a little too ordinary, a little too predictable, and within a few pages Tim Lebbon reminded me why I fell in love with fantasy and horror in the first place — because they crack open the mundane and let a little wild

There are days that taste like heartbreak — metallic and cold — and there are days that smell of rain-soaked second chances. The Do-Over by Lynn Painter lives somewhere between the two, looping endlessly in that bittersweet space where pain and hope take turns holding your heart.   I still remember my first Lynn Painter read — Better Than the Movies — a warm, quirky rom-com that made me believe in the healing power of laughter. Painter has that uncanny gift: she writes teen s

It starts like a film with the sound turned low — a ceiling fan humming, rain smudging a window, someone breathing too carefully in the dark. That’s how Solitude opens — not with a scream, but with the kind of silence that makes your skin remember things you’ve tried to forget.   I didn’t pick this book to be scared. I picked it because the title felt eerily familiar. Solitude. That tender, terrifying word. The one that sometimes heals, sometimes destroys. And Shubham Jain, i

It begins, as most real things do, not with fireworks but with a question. “What if marriage isn’t about finding the right person, but about becoming one?” That thought hit me somewhere between a sip of chai and the first few pages of Bhupendra Jain’s Before the Seven Vows: Conversations Every Couple Should Have Before Marriage. It’s not your typical relationship self-help book that tosses you a checklist and bids you good luck. It’s more like a wise friend — grounded, patien

There’s a peculiar kind of madness that only Mumbai can offer — the kind that smells like rain on asphalt, sounds like a thousand horns arguing at once, and feels like hope stubbornly pushing through chaos. Vrushali Samant’s Madness in Mumbai: When Forty Gets Naughty bottles that madness, shakes it up with heartbreak, humour, and heat — and hands it to you with a wink. It’s fizzy, messy, and utterly intoxicating.   Vrushali Samant, who’s known for her sharp wit and eye for em

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