Bot Book Reviews

Bot Book Reviews

ESSAY / Between tradition and taboo: The arranged marriage trope in Bangla dark romance literature

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not endorse or condone any form of abuse or exploitation.

4m ago

EVENT REPORT / Celebrating diversity and language at “Bhasha Utshob 2025”

Gulshan Society held a two-day language festival at the Gulshan Lake Park, curated by Sadaf Saaz and Jatrik. The event took place over the weekend of 21-22 February that saw discussion panels, original musical performances, and poetry recitations, surrounded by an array of book stalls and food courts.

4m ago

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Rediscovering Reading: How ‘Fragments of Riversong’ helped me heal

Harvard killed my love for reading. When my advisor took me out for a celebratory dinner an hour after my doctoral defense in July 2012, I struggled to read the menu.

5m ago

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Murakami and the limits of an artist’s imagination

Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls, its English translation published last November, plunges the reader into a kind of metaphysical vertigo that never reaches a concluding synthesis.

5m ago

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Shards of clarity

Beginning to read Fine Gråbøl’s What Kingdom, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitkin, is like sitting in a silent room, alone, and a voice begins to speak as though from beside you.

5m ago

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Accounts of a joyless life

Izumi Suzuki was little known outside of Japan during her short lifetime. The Japanese author and actress had remained a cult figure most of her life.

5m ago

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Through folklore and fantasy: An ode to Bangla mythological characters

The book invites you to revel in the world of legends, to dream as you once did as a child.

6m ago

EVENT REPORT / ‘Catfish and Avatars’: Discussions on cyber lives and cyber safety

The phrases “cyber safety” and “cyber lives” may seem vague and not very well understood among Bangladesh’s netizens.

6m ago

Colm Tóibín takes Henry James for a ride

In a detour from all the genres and topics that we review on this page, this monthly column on short stories is a little treat to ourselves—a short and delicious reminder of what the simple act of storytelling can accomplish.

4y ago

Mohiuddin Ahmed and the industry he pioneered

The loss dealt to Bangladesh and its publishing industry this week will be unparalleled—at 12:59 am on Tuesday, June 22, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Emeritus Publisher and founder of University Press Limited (UPL), passed away after surviving Parkinson’s disease for 20 years.

4y ago

Who is Ayad Akhtar?

When I began reading Homeland Elegies (Little, Brown and Company, 2020), all I knew about it was that it was a memoir; an account of the life of the author, Ayad Akhtar—a second-generation Muslim immigrant with Pakistani parents who migrated to America to further their careers as doctors.

4y ago

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

Reading Sarah Hogle’s Twice Shy (GP Putnam’s Sons, 2021) is like biting into the cool freshness of summer fruits in the scorching Bangladeshi heat.

4y ago

Remembering the Birangona: The power of personal narratives

The books we recall today, Ami Birangona Bolchi (1994), Rising from the Ashes (2001), and The Spectral Wound (2015), are among the documentations which highlight women’s voices and their perspectives of 1971.

4y ago

For lovers of traveling and history

Shamsul Alam’s From Love Lane to the World: Tales of Travel & More (Sea Sands, 2021) is a selection of his magazine and newspaper articles, based on his many travels over the years.

4y ago

Of the peasants’ quest for a state and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Afsan Chowdhury’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Bangladesh: The Quest for a State (1937-71), published in 2020 by Shrabon Prokashani, studies Bangabandhu in the context of the peasants’ resistance against colonialism and their quest for a state in South Asia.

4y ago

A handbook for navigating the social media age in your profession

While the world might seem like a place only made for extroverts, who get ahead with the volume of their voices alone, Personal Branding (Odommo Prokash, 2021) is a book that is here to permanently lay that idea to rest. Authors Md Tajdin Hassan, Md Sohan Haidear, and Rafeed Elahi Chowdhury provide a meticulous blueprint for an aspiring professional to make themselves noticed.

4y ago

Tahmima Anam launches and discusses ‘The Startup Wife’ at Hay Festival

On June 3, 2021, Bangladeshi-born British writer Tahmima Anam published her fifth book, The Startup Wife (Canongate, 2021), a novel about coding, entrepreneurship, human relationships, and finding one’s voice.

4y ago

Soumitra Chatterjee: The one man behind the many

It is impossible to ascribe any one particular character to Soumitra Chaterjee, as he has immortalised several through his performances.

4y ago