There’s something different about returning to a writer.   The first time you read someone, you observe them. The second time, you listen more closely.   Having reviewed earlier work by Bindu Unnikrishnan, I didn’t walk into Spilled Coffee and Some Laughs as a stranger. I walked in with memory. With familiarity. With a quiet expectation of honesty.   And this book met me there.   Some books arrive like loud announcements. This one feels like sitting across from someone who do

There are some books you don’t “start.” You gather the courage to open them.   When I picked up Coping With Cancer by Ramendra Kumar, I wasn’t just holding a Kindle edition. I was holding the possibility of fear. Cancer is not an abstract word for me. I know a couple of survivors personally. I’ve seen hospital corridors. I’ve heard the silence after a diagnosis. So yes, it took something in me to turn those first few pages.   And within minutes, I realized this wasn’t a book

The “aha” moments in life rarely arrive with fireworks. They arrive quietly — in the pause after a meeting, in the silence after a mistake, in the thought you can’t shake off. That quiet space is where A-HA! : The more you reflect, The more you become! by Sorbojeet Chatterjee operates.   From the very first pages, I sensed this wasn’t trying to be “another self-help book.” In fact, it almost resists that label. It doesn’t hand you a ten-step formula or a loud motivational ant

There’s a particular kind of silence that follows a question you cannot answer — not because you lack intelligence, but because the pieces simply refuse to sit still. That is the silence I carried while reading Salt and Blood by Amit D'Souza. Not a loud, heart-racing thriller silence. A slower one. The kind that lingers like humidity before a storm that may or may not arrive.   At first glance, this is the story of Inspector Sheela Sawant investigating a body found under unse

There is a particular kind of love that does not begin with conversation. It begins with watching.   While reading Heart Overruled – A Bengali-Tamil Romance by Debanjana Mukherjee, I kept returning to the image of a sixteen-year-old girl at her sister’s wedding, standing amidst marigold garlands and ritual chants, quietly memorising the face of a man who barely registers her presence. That first encounter is brief, almost fragile. For Parineeta, it is seismic. For Aravind, it

There is a particular kind of silence that follows the collapse of something once believed to be eternal. Not the thunder of war, but the quieter, more dangerous hush—the kind that settles into abandoned halls, unsettled bloodlines, and inherited guilt. In The Shattered Empire, Atul Arjun Mohite chooses to begin there. Not at the height of glory, but in the aftermath of certainty.   The thousand-year-old Samrat Empire is already in ruins. A ruler dies without naming an heir.

Some people are afraid of heights. Some are afraid of failure. And some are afraid of the one moment where everything is supposed to look perfect.   The Landing begins in the cockpit, but it quickly makes it clear that the real descent is internal.   First Officer Anvi Singh is the kind of woman our culture celebrates without hesitation — disciplined, decorated, precise. A rising star trusted with lives thousands of feet above ground. She is trained for chaos. She knows her c

There’s something quietly unsettling about a tree that watches you. Not in a mythical, larger-than-life way — but in the way an old house watches its inhabitants age, fracture, betray, and forgive. That was the feeling I carried through The Parijat Tree and Other Stories by Sameer Nagarajan — the sense that these stories are not merely told, they are observed. Closely. Patiently. Almost clinically at times.   This collection moves across decades of Indian life — from the 70s

Some love stories don’t explode. They simmer. And Musafir Café feels exactly like that—two cups of chai growing cold between conversations that were never fully finished.   Divya Prakash Dubey places us gently into the lives of Sudha and Chander, two people introduced through the most traditional route possible—a parental matrimonial setup—only to find themselves questioning the very institution that brought them together. Sudha, a divorce lawyer who has watched marriages unr

I opened The United Nations Conspiracy late at night with the casual confidence of someone who believes they control their reading habits. One chapter, maybe two, I told myself. Somewhere between the first disappearance and the first coded warning, I glanced at the clock. Ten minutes had passed. It felt like an hour. My cup of warm water went cold beside me, unnoticed, as New York City stopped being a setting and turned into a living countdown. This book doesn’t unfold gently

I keep thinking about how casually we take photographs now. A thumb tap. A half-smile. A moment frozen without intention. Kachri Kamble: Selfie That Rewrote Politics made me uneasy about that casualness. It reminded me that in the age of spectacle, innocence doesn’t need to be loud to be punished—it only needs to be visible.   I read this book slowly, not because the narrative drags, but because it presses against something tender. Sandeep Sinha begins with an act so ordinary

I opened Stories of Courage on a day when nothing dramatic was happening in my life—and that’s exactly why it unsettled me. No crisis. No breaking news. Just an ordinary day. Yet within a few pages, the ground under that ordinariness began to shift. Not violently. Gently. The way perspective changes when you overhear someone else’s truth on a bus or at a café table. You keep reading, but part of you has already gone inward, recalibrating what you complain about, what you fear

I read The River Woman and Other Poems slowly, the way one reads something that does not want to be rushed. A few poems at night. One in the quiet between two tasks. Sometimes just a single page, because the lines had a way of lingering—like the aftersound of water moving past stones long after the river itself has slipped out of view.   Renu Roy’s poetry does not announce itself loudly. It arrives softly, almost tentatively, and then stays. This is a collection that lives in

Somewhere between stretching my back before the day began and pausing longer than usual in front of the mirror, I realized I am standing at a strange, quiet threshold. Fifty is no longer an abstract number. It’s a door I can see now. So when I picked up 50 Things to Realize Before It’s Too Late by Manoj Chenthamarakshan, it didn’t feel like a casual read—it felt like an appointment with myself.   This is not a book you read with a highlighter hunting for genius lines. It’s mo

Some books announce themselves with a thesis. This one arrived like humidity on skin—quiet, unavoidable, already inside the room before I knew it. I was reading, but I was also standing on a riverbank at night, ash cooling, water moving, the world refusing to pause for grief. That opening feeling never really left me. Dhara doesn’t ask for attention. It assumes you will eventually slow down enough to listen.   Bal Krishna Thakur’s Dhara: A Journey of Grief, Continuity, and In

Some books arrive like an invitation you didn’t know you were waiting for. You open the first page expecting light chatter, a pleasant distraction, maybe a few smiles between sips of coffee—and then, somewhere between one chapter and the next, you realise you’ve been quietly pulled into a room full of lives that feel oddly familiar. The Secrets of Floor Five did that to me. It didn’t knock. It simply slid into the seat across from me and began talking, softly, honestly, until

Some books announce themselves loudly. They clear their throat, adjust their spectacles, and declare, “I have something important to say.” The Daughters of Shantiniketan doesn’t do that. It sits beside you quietly, like someone at a café who doesn’t interrupt your thoughts—until, suddenly, you realise they know exactly what you’ve been thinking all along.   I began this novel expecting a family saga steeped in Bengali tradition and Tagore’s legacy. I did not expect it to feel

Some books arrive in your life like a loud motivational speaker with a mic that’s a notch too high. Others slip in quietly, pull out a chair, order cutting chai, and say, “Listen, try this one small thing today.” One Habit a Day belongs firmly to the second category.   I remember reading it late one evening, phone on silent, the house finally exhaling after a long day. No dramatic before-and-after promises. No “change your life by tomorrow” bravado. Just a steady, calm voice

I remember finishing this book on an ordinary afternoon—and feeling unexpectedly still.   Not the triumphant stillness of motivation, but the quieter kind. The kind that comes when someone has spoken honestly enough that your defences don’t know where to stand anymore. I was seated, book resting face-down, noticing my shoulders had dropped. As if something inside me had been allowed to exhale.   Limitless didn’t rush toward me waving answers. It waited. And then, very calmly,

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