“All’s Well” by Mona Awad is spellbinding. It is the kind of book that propels you with it’s frenzied energy, while not letting you look away from the protagonist’s suffering. Its Shakespeare references are so clever, and though ‘meta’ is such a cliched and now even more complicated word, the homage is meta in a genius way. It has theater, drama, a tragic heroine, The Scottish Play, All’s Well that Ends Well, magic… Pick it up now!!!

On the occasion of Christmas, let me share a delightful book I recently devoured – The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrees by Agatha Christie. It was the December selection of a fun and lovely book club I’ve been a part of this year. It has been decades since I last read Agatha Christie, so this was a definite departure from the literary fiction and essays that have comprised the majority of my readings over the last several years.
This book was entertaining and light hearted, and such a charming holiday read! I found myself enjoying the cadence of the conversations and the deftness of Poirot’s deductions( and the magic of Miss Marple in the one story that features her!). This particular collection is also vivid and rife with imagery, with prized jewels and delectable Christmas desserts, corpses in chests, clues hidden in changed dinner menus, blackberries bearing answers to mysteries, and imposters and impersonators galore. Due to my line of work, I have an attentional bias towards things involving the psyche, so my favorite from the collection was “The Dream”, in which Poirot is consulted about a recurrent nightmare. This selection of entrees was a refreshing little Christmas adventure of the mind and the spirit!!

I seldom re- read books, but when one of my wonderful book clubs picked Ghachar Ghochar this year, I re-read this old favorite that I had first read in 2017. It was well worth the re-read, plus let it suffice to say that if brevity is the soul of wit, this book is witty indeed😊, perhaps more the length of a novella than a novel. It is written by Vivek Shanbhag in Kannada and has been translated to English by Srinath Perur. It is incredibly paced, riveting, and chilling. Reading it feels like watching a movie or a play – the writing is vivid and cinematic, and the characters come to life and feel eerily familiar. Themes of class, gender, wealth, family dynamics, and more, explored so powerfully. I am so grateful to those who translate, such as my incredible brother Mihir Saswadkar, whose work helps stories and ideas transcend barriers of region and language. This book can be savored in a single sitting like a strong cup of tea or coffee, and the jitters will linger long after… strongly recommend this brew!

I had been meaning to read this for years, and earlier this year, thanks to a wonderful book club, I finally did! Don’t be deceived by the pencil on the cover- even though this book serves as a tribute to the expansion of perspective and shattering of paradigms wrought by what we traditionally label as “education”, it is about so much more! It is about starting to heal from trauma by drawing certain boundaries and the struggle with setting and maintaining those, about what it means when what you were raised to believe to be true gives way to bigger, more inclusive truths. Perhaps that is what it truly means to be “educated”..