nonfiction
THE SHELF / 6 Books to add to your summer reading list
As summer rolls around and our lifestyle changes to adjust to the heat, so do a lot of our books! So here are a few books that might make a good addition to this year’s summer reading list.
THE SHELF / 5 short books you can read and finish on Eid day
Here is a list of 5 short and swift books for fellow bookworms (people who would much rather stay in than socialise) to nestle in with on this Eid day.
THE SHELF / 5 of your favourite iftar items as books
The youthful adventurers in the story spare no effort in unravelling a mystery that proves as elusive as the unyielding strands of jilapi, while also exploring deeper, sweeter themes such as friendship.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / A peripatetic poet’s pleasing musings
The title of this book suggests that it is based in Bengal but it really meanders deftly across time and space, more often than not in “mazy motion”.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / The ‘new oil’ transforming the world
Chip War, a highly praised book written by Chris Miller who teaches International history at Tuft University’s Fletcher School, USA, is a New York Times bestseller.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Bangladesh beyond geopolitics in a new multipolar world: what’s new in foreign policy trajectory?
Both the China and India factors in Bangladesh’s foreign policy decisions, as identified in Li Jianjun and Deb Mukharji’s chapters, will be continuously evolving and contributing factors that would perhaps influence Bangladesh’s policies with other countries as well.
ESSAY / “Dostoevsky” by Ahmed Sofa
A translation of Ahmed Sofa's essay on Dostoyevsky
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / A tale of forced displacement and uncertain futures
Review of ‘The Displaced Rohingyas: A Tale Of A Vulnerable Community’ (Routledge, 2024), edited by SK Tawfique M Haque, Bulbul Siddiqi, and Mahmudur Rahman Bhuiyan.
REFLECTIONS / The stories that nonfictions tell
Dense textbooks with words more twisted than the shapes my lips could contort themselves into—for the longest time, my perception of non-fiction didn’t deviate from this singular image.
A writer’s odyssey
Review of ‘Save The Cat! Writes a Novel’ (Ten Speed Press, 2018) by Jessica Brody
10 political biographies to read during the general elections
While history has never been a one-man show, viewing it through the eyes of influential leaders can lend us a bigger picture.
2023 in Review
Some of these works have inspected the complex lives of modern Bangalis while some have traced the contours of our past often not examined. Here’s your chance to read some of the releases of this year by Bangladeshi authors, if you haven’t read them yet.
‘Shohoj Kothai Orthoniti’ A localised flavour of economics
Flipping the pages of a textbook often makes me feel like I’m trapped in the US. We studied economics from an American lens, using American textbooks,
‘History and Heritage’: Reading Bengal in a series
Even at this moment when Google is under threat of being taken over by Artificial Intelligence and you may search for anything online,
Homeward
When I was born, my skin was dark, like my grandfather’s, in whose arms I discovered my first home. Relatives old and new, whose disappointment was being nursed by my parents’ fair complexions, looked from afar as my rotund cheeks melted into the sleeves of my dada’s discolored half-sleeve shirt.
War still rages on
We might never know how it feels when your whole existence is denied or the loss of homeland, but we can get a little glimpse of their suffering.
Of love, longing, and music that make us
My mother’s house is beside a lake that separates the rich and mighty of the city from a little isle of people who work for them.
The sound of Dhaka city
Once on a particularly smothering hot day, on a CNG ride to work, I was stuck in the most heinous traffic for over two hours. Over the yelling drivers, honking cars, and incessant cursing over why the CNGs were trying to overtake the expensive cars, I was listening to my usual cycle of songs. As coincidence would have it, David Gilmour in his seraphic voice posed the question: “So, so you think you can tell/ Heaven from hell?”
What you call your own
As an Anglophone writer in Bangladesh, I’ve frequently faced the rather inane question of why I write in English.
