On the racks – July 2020

A Burning

Author                  : Megha Majumdar
Publisher             : Knopf Publishing Group
Pages                    : 304; ₹527

After a careless comment on Facebook, Jivan, a Muslim girl, is accused of a terrorist attack on a train and sent to jail. Her father’s rickshaw is crushed, and her home is ravaged. Staged in present-day Kolkata, the book is narrated by three characters: Jivan, Lovely, a transgender, with acting aspirations and PR Sir, her former gym teacher who is going out of his way to gain political clout. This thriller has communal divide, fate, corruption and justice as its central theme. It highlights through Jivan what it feels like to face obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in an environment of extremism. The novel touched upon income disparities, warped ideas of nationalism, biased media and sinister social media.

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Red, White & Royal Blue

Author                  : Casey McQuiston
Publisher             : St Martin’s Publishing
Pages                    : 423; ₹499

Despite a royal wedding, turns out to be a PR disaster for both Alex Claremont Diaz, the son of the first woman President of America and Henry George Edward James Fox- Prince of England. Up for re-election, Alex’s mother strikes a fake friendship between the two handsome and charismatic men. The fake Instagram friendship soon turns into love and what follows is chaos. With the paparazzi behind them all the time, and an ocean in-between, their correspondence is restricted to emails. Both men realise they have a lot to risk and their relationship holds the power to derail the presidential campaign and cause havoc in two nations. Casey McQuiston speaks about a gay love story, cancel culture, twitter replies, and everything dear to the millennials in this book.

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She Said

Author                  : Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
Publisher             : Penguin Press
Pages                    : 310; ₹550

In this the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, the authors give an account of exposing the Harvey Weinstein scandal in the New York Times; this book talks about how assault and harassment are never really about sex, but about power. It uncovers assaults on women at all levels of the Hollywood industry and how as journalists they learned when to hold back and when to publish a story. A story, that could under the pressure of a producer, be washed down the drain and destroy the lives of the women who entrusted the two with their testimonies. Despite it being a difficult subject to talk about, the book has enough to be a thriller movie. Much more intimate than a report, this book shows respect towards the women involved and their decision to speak up or not while detailing the charges against Weinstein. A celebration of good journalism, this book is a reminder that the #metoo movement is just the beginning of a very long battle for Jodi and Megan.