KhepiAri

Book Review: A Shakespearean Botanical by Margaret Willes Quote: When Tatiana commands her fairies to serve Bottom the weaver with exotic fruits such as apricots, figs, and mulberries in A Midsummer's Night Dream, she is is indulging him with 'banqueting stuffe'. On Saturday afternoon my boss showed me the gift her daughter bought from the Bodleian Library. A library I absolutely drool over, for Harry Potter freaks, that's your Hogwarts Library! And All Souls Trilogy fans that's where Diana met Mathew. I practically waltzed around my boss, nagged her, geeked about the beautiful book to finally make her part with it for the weekend. How many times have we read Shakespeare and gone he knew his stuff too well! Which is the major reason behind the long-standing debate of Mr. William's actual identity and authorship of his plays? This book is aptly described as a marriage between the beautiful words of the Bard and the illustrations of John Gerar...

Book Review: Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini and Dan Williams Quote: First came protest, Then the siege. How does one read a poem? At one go or does one sit through it for a day? Is it the words that matter only or the history behind it? What of an illustrated book? These are the questions I always revisit before I read a book that is illustrated or is a book of poems. So my bossy was gifted this book today by our senior-editor, I grabbed it first to read. I have seen the book in every other book shop and bookfair I drop by, reviews calling it haunting enough to evoke bouts of pathos. The poetry in the book is small but stretched out on 48 pages of illustrations. Beautiful illustrations of loss and fear. If I had read the poetry without the illustrations and on a sepia page, the impact wouldn't have been the same. It's poetry inspired by a three-year-old Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless little body had washed up on shores of Turkey in 2015. A poem layered by Hossein...

Book Review: Black Wind and Other Poems by Deepti Naval. Poetry is an art form I tend to look at with scepticism. I enjoy a Neruda (now with a lot of self-loathing), I enjoy Frank O'Hara, Ginsberg is beau, I weep because of Alice Walker, Anjum Hasan has a special place too. And Ruskin Bond is my comfort food. But poetry is something I will judge strictly. While looking for poetry books for references in office, I stumbled upon this little book. Deepti Naval is an amazing actress I grew up watching on screen. From the sensual village dame to middle-class housewife to murderous old sarpanch, she is striking. Hence it was a surprise to find out that she writes poetry. A collection of poetry she had written in the 90s and early 2000s: the book has long narrative poems, short line poems, middle length musings, and epithets. The primary focus is on: the experience of loss, mental illness, grief, hypersensitivity, childbirth, miscarriage, suicide. Themes well explored yet...