Lifelines

I recently bought a copy of Lifelines , an anthology of short stories in English by Bangladeshi women. It is edited by Farah Ghuznavi and pu...

My Book on Sundarban

My photo book on Sundarban is now available from Blurb . The book is called Sundarban - A Photographic Journey. It shows some of the things ...

ebooks, Amazon, Apple

I wrote about the emergence of ebooks in this week's Tangents but there are some things I left out for various reasons. One is the EU (...

Hay You!

There, now that I have your attention... Two attractions for the Dhaka Hay festival tomorrow, Nov 21st: a) Commonwealth Prize winning writer...

Hay Festival

The Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts is coming to Dhaka on 21 November. It is a one day program "bringing together writers and t...

Storyteller

Here is a Bangladeshi writer who is active in the international fiction scene. Farah Ghuznavi's short stories have appeared in two conse...

The Stories of "Killing the Water"

Killing the Water is a collection of twelve short stories by Mahmud Rahman published by Penguin Books. The author is a native of Bangladesh...

At the Book Fair (Ekushey Boi Mela)

Dhaka's largest book fair - Boi Mela in Bengali - happens every February to coincide with February 21st, the Language Day. Some came alo...

Traffic Jam Bestsellers

If you ride in a car in any of Dhaka's major roads, they are bound to run into your window glass: the booksellers selling photocopied ve...

A Book of Photographs

Recently I got a copy of the second edition of The People at Kamalapur Railway Station by Bangladeshi photographer Hasan Saifuddin Chandan....

Bangladesh and Vietnam

I just finished reading Andrew X. Pham's book Catfish and Mandala . When he was ten, Pham and his family escaped from Communist Vietnam ...

Literary Pranks

Recently a story in the Guardian caught my attention. Someone had submitted for publication Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - almost ...

"Oh Yeah, I Read That Book!"

I was talking about flooding with my friend M when he mentioned that the Jamuna had gotten a lot bigger after the big earthquake of 1871(?)....

Why Read Fiction?

A friend complained to me the other day: at bookstores he no longer felt compelled to buy fiction. The reason? He no longer finds value in r...

Books This Trip

During the recent US trip, instead of buying from a prepared list, I bought many books impulsively. Since I buy a lot of books, I prefer bud...

My Meeting With Mr. B.

During my recent visit to Silicon Valley I had coffee with Mr. B, an old friend with a colorful past that included, among other things, capt...

A Voice For Us ... and Us

I just finished reading Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age , and will write down my thoughts while they are still fresh. The book is a novel ba...

E. B. White and Brevity (with some Mujtaba)

The other day I was invited to a gala dinner event. Towards the end of a most inspiring evening, and just before the dinner, the Chief Guest...

Book Talk

My brother brought me Francine Prose's "Reading Like a Writer" which I am reading like a reader, heh-heh. Seriously, the book ...

Boi Mela (Photos)

I went to the Ekushey Boi Mela (book fair) yesterday. It is on Bangla Academy grounds and runs until Feb 28th. What it's all about... ...