Bot Book Reviews
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / An intellectual debt worth remembering
The history of Bangladesh’s conception is incomplete without recognising the multitudes of sacrifices and labour that academics and intellectuals had poured into their aspirations for Bangladesh, often at the cost of their own safety and livelihood.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Regional cooperation and the challenges Bangladesh faces
Bangladesh is currently going through turbulent times as it tries to find its way out from dictatorial political rule towards an uncertain future. During the past decade, Bangladesh did achieve significant economic progress, but it came with increased economic inequality, unparalleled corruption, and loss of personal freedom.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Taking folk melodies of Bangladesh to the world
Folk Melody of Bangladesh: An Anthology of Bangladesh Folk Music in Standard Notation is a music anthology that compiles 204 carefully chosen folk songs of Bangladesh that date from the 16th century.
BOOK REVIEW: GRAPHIC NOVEL / Down the rabbit hole of science and art
The city of Prague, now the capital of the Czech Republic, was once the breeding hotspot of the 20th century’s greatest writers, scientists, scholars, and activists.
THE SHELF / Post-July remembrance
With the departure of an autocrat and the period of semi-expected-still-frightening chaos after, comes the period when we have to sit down to think of what comes ahead, know what we must not do, and get some direction on how we are supposed to go on. In light of this, the following articles and/or chapters have been curated for perspectives that might be needed in this unprecedented situation we’ve found ourselves in.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Sad men behaving badly
In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime.
THE SHELF / 5 books posed as literary cannibalism
Literary cannibalism refers to the retellings of Western classics written by colonised or formerly colonised countries. These authors aim to decolonise the mindset of the readers of the popular literary classics. Decolonisation is a violent process, and by comparing this genre with cannibalism it demonstrates the brutality of it.
Susanna Clarke's 'Piranesi': How real is the world we imagine?
In the 1700s, there lived an Italian artist, architect, and archaeologist who saw in the world far more than what was in it. Giovanni Battista Piranesi captured his world, among other things, through prints: the most famous of which are the Views, an imitation of the classical remains of Rome, and the imaginary renditions of the Prisons.
Jalal-Ud-Din Ahmad: A headmaster’s memoir
Pursuit of Excellence in Teaching: A Memoir (University Press Limited, 2021) chronicles the life and legacy of Jalal-Ud-Din Ahmad, a gifted educator who grew up to be the first graduate in his village in Feni, East Pakistan, and whose humble beginnings culminated in his winning the Presidential Award for “Best Headmaster in Pakistan” in 1967.
Radhika Singha's 'The Coolie's Great War': The forgotten ones of World War I
As of December 31, 1919, a total of 1.4 million Indians were recruited to various theatres of the First World War. Among them, approximately 563,369 were “followers or non-combatants”.
Elif Shafak’s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’: Fragments of an uprooted people
The people we meet in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees (Viking, 2021) are haunted by terrible tragedies from several years past, by a beautiful island divided into two.
Taran Khan maps Kabul through memory in 'Shadow City'
In Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul (Vintage Books, 2019), Khan delineates a personal map of Kabul, taking the reader through the “shadow city” that can be found in its still-standing monuments, libraries, pleasure gardens, theatres, shopping malls, wedding halls and graveyards.
Around the world with Tilmund and the travel bug
Samai Haider’s Tilmund’s Travel Tales (Guba Books, 2020) is a story about a little boy named Tilmund who has a great wish to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and travel the world.
The legacy of blood
Henry Kissinger is infamous in Bangladesh for allegedly terming the newly-independent country a “bottomless basket”, but this statement appears to be the least of his crimes against the people of Bangladesh.
The universality of solitude and good books in Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Whereabouts'
Whereabouts (Penguin India, 2021) is Jhumpa Lahiri’s third novel, published originally as Dove mi trovo (2018) in Italian and translated to English by the author herself, as she did with her work of nonfiction, In Other Words (2015).
'The Last Queen' by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: A fierce queen overlooked by the history books
Little has been written about Maharani Jindan Kaur, the youngest and last queen of the Sikh empire. Born as the humble daughter of the royal kennel keeper, Jindan saw a life of massive upheaval, living as the youngest queen to a regent and then ultimately a rebel and an exile.
Join our reading challenge with Bookcentric!
Daily Star Books is excited to be teaming up with Dhaka’s Bookcentric library for their monthly reading challenge, which encourages readers to read books following each month’s theme and write their own book reviews. Starting from August, reader reviews stand a chance to be published online on The Daily Star.