Book Reviews

Revisiting forgotten babyhood days with ‘Babuibela’

Every emotion associated with pregnancy and childbirth is amplified...
New online journal ‘Kitchen Sink’ promises an accessible platform for poets

About a month ago, a few friends sent me invites to follow the...
The book that I would like to read

Today I would like to talk about a book that I have been waiting to...

Tahmima Anam’s ‘The Startup Wife’ arrives at Baatighar

Tahmima Anam’s fourth and latest novel, The Startup Wife (Penguin...
Is Netflix’s ‘Ray’ worth the watch?

Netflix’s latest anthology series, Ray, is based on four short...
Who is Ayad Akhtar?

When I began reading Homeland Elegies (Little, Brown and Company,...

Colm Tóibín takes Henry James for a ride

In a detour from all the genres and topics that we review on this...
Ann Patchett’s ‘The Dutch House’: On branches of memories and pain

Even though we moved out of our grandmother’s house in Dhaka more...
A tribute to my father and his bookshelf

Last week, we marked the 10th year of my father’s death, on June...

Unpacking Bangladesh’s obsession with Bollywood

Mrittika Anan Rahman (MAR): What does it say about Bollywood that...
Feminism, activism, and literature: The legacy of Sufia Kamal

Sufia Kamal’s is a name revered in nearly every household in the...
Sensing Bangladesh through art and poetry

In their latest offering, Sensing Bangladesh – A Children’s...

‘The Moment of Lift’: Melinda Gates and the developing world’s untapped female-fuel

Female empowerment is often seen as a luxury reserved for...
Books to read if you miss travelling this summer

I know it’s hard when you want to travel, but life, owing in no...
Of the peasants’ quest for a state and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Afsan Chowdhury’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Bangladesh: The Quest...

For lovers of traveling and history

Shamsul Alam’s From Love Lane to the World: Tales of Travel &...
IFIC Kali O Kolom Young Writers Award 2020 winners announced

Sponsored by IFIC Bank, this year’s Kali O Kolom Torun Kabi O...
Soumitra Chatterjee: The one man behind the many

It is impossible to ascribe any one particular character to...

Forgiveness, growth, and second chances in Sarah Hogle’s ‘Twice Shy’

Reading Sarah Hogle’s Twice Shy (GP Putnam’s Sons, 2021) is like...
My learning from Anne Frank as she turns 92

Not all books fulfil the purpose of exploring metaphors or offering...
Tahmima Anam launches and discusses ‘The Startup Wife’ at Hay Festival

On June 3, 2021, Bangladeshi-born British writer Tahmima Anam...

A truly ‘Invincible’ comic book series

While DC and Marvel, the two big dogs of the comic book industry,...
Relationships lost and found in debut novel ‘Punyaha’.

In the middle of nowhere, among the wide expanse of paddy fields...
A handbook for navigating the social media age in your profession

While the world might seem like a place only made for extroverts,...

Lyricist Gazi Mazharul Anwar launches book, ‘Olpo Kothar Golpo Gaan’

Olpo Kothar Golpo Gaan includes 200 of these iconic songs.
Tahmima Anam, Monica Ali, Leesa Gazi, and Nasima Bee discuss ‘Sultana’s Dream’ for The British Library

On February 22, 2021, The British Library hosted “Sultana’s Dream: Contemporary Fiction of Bangladeshi Origin”, a free virtual session on Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist utopian novella.
Sister Library participants read Ferdousi Priyabashini’s ‘Nindito Nondon’

Fuleshwary Priyanandini recounted the stories she was told by her mother.
Where folktales meet social commentary

I stumbled across a short story written by Aoko Matsuda called “Quite a Catch” in the Wasafiri literary magazine last month.
The (D)Evolution of the Paranoid Android

To write of Radiohead’s 2000 album Kid A is to add to the palimpsest of its criticism, at this stage a glowing, impossibly effusive set of texts.
Razia Khan: Life and Literature Archived

For anyone looking to immerse themself in the literary culture of Bangladesh, Professor Razia Khan Amin’s name and presence are unavoidable.
YA Books to Read on Valentine’s Day

Be it the classical enemies-to-lovers trope, the fake dating trope or the infamous, and endlessly intoxicating, love triangle, the stories below have covered it all.
The Reading Café opens a new branch in Banani

Popular manga, biographies, children’s books, and latest international releases across genres are expected to become available at the store within two weeks of publication.
How 1952 paved the way for 1971

In this second installment, we talk about Purbo Banglar Bhasha Andolon O Totkaleen Rajneeti (The Language Movement of Bengal and Contemporary Politics), in which author and historian Badruddin Umar explains the cultural, economic, and historical context behind the Bangla language movement of 1952.
For the love of books

Similar to the mimicry of life by art, sometimes a book in our hands can acutely imitate the arcs of the love story we are in, ourselves—like the time a ghost lover stole a paperback Frankenstein from the neighborhood café as a last minute birthday gift for me, while our alliance reeked of haunted loneliness and painful assertions, or when one of my friends, a doctor by day and an avid reader by night, spoke about his first encounter with Harry Potter and the “cute, sweet girl across the hall.”