krishnendu's reviews
42 reviews

A 270 page-long reminder that correlation != causality

If Freakonomics was an amusing panel discussion, then SuperFreakonomics is the cafeteria gossip session that makes you fake a phone call to escape.

3.5/5
This is a heartbreakingly beautiful narrative of class and caste struggle, exploitation under capitalism and the appalling conditions of colonial India.

You can't help but be grateful for the gift of literacy when faced with something like

The warmth of those words, the comfort of them as they insinuated their way into his soul, as the air, subtly, invisibly insinuates itself into the body, the glow of those words, like the protracted joy of sympathy ringing through the space in soft music unconsciously transmitted by a rapt singer to a dimly aware audience, the magic of those words was an inheritance of this woman, through centuries of motherhood. Munoo never forgot those words, cherishing them throughout his life, cherishing them among all the irrecoverable memories of his childhood, as perhaps the most beautiful, the most painful, and the most delightful.

However, despite being an important pre-independence piece of literature, the novel does fall short in some areas, particularly in its representation of women. It resorts to stereotypes and objectification, which disappoints you and detracts from the novel's otherwise powerful social message. The story initially lags, but picks up pace eventually.

Coolie remains relevant after 88 years for its call for societal reform, with the conditions of the protagonists remaining sickening.

"Your childhood is your homeland."

"The Lighthouse Family" fills your heart and then breaks it into smithereens. The little boy uprooted from his homeland stays with you long after you close the book. The tall white lighthouse by the deep blue sea, a symbol of isolation and hope, stands tall from beginning to end.

Heavy with Anatolian history, the book tells the story of a family of six in the Turkish village of Sarpincik, uptooted from their homelands due to the Turkish-Greek ethno-political tensions and the Second World War. It is an incredibly intimate look into how intergenerational trauma caused by war shapes lives long after the whistles are blown. We follow a happy, carefree boy who ends up a despondent writer thousands of miles away, experiencing a life of death, longing, and nationalism along the way.

Sunel’s writing is deeply personal, almost like a memoir. It’s the kind of writing that pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re living the story alongside the characters. You feel their pain, their hope, and their struggles as if they were your own.

It's a highly recommended read for people who enjoy historical fiction. This book definitely deserves more attention than it gets.

This volume lays bare how Israeli occupation goes beyond territorial control, distressing the average Palestinian life through control over water, agriculture, transport, taxes, employment, hospitals, schools, and even funerals, enforced through pervasive, prying IDF eyes and guns. Some find Joe Sacco's Palestine biased precisely because it is unbiased.

Turned out to be a horrifying book without it trying to be one. A holistic record of how globalised (read americanized), unsustainable, hazardous food production systems driven by callous profit-greedy monopolies are powerful enough to threaten lives and livelihoods across the Global South. It addresses how modern agribusiness dreamscapes like monocultures, genetically modified organisms (living modified organisms, my bad) and their presumed irrelevance of the natural ecological balance threaten our very existence as a species.

Not surprisingly, none of this is part of those genetic engineering chapters in biology textbooks, although being important enough to be essential readings.

The book had immense potential with its themes of colonialism and conflict migration, but it doesn’t quite deliver. The story centers on Farid, a Libyan refugee (and his mom), and Vito, an unaffected Italian boy (and his mom), against the backdrop of Italy’s colonisation of Libya and Gaddafi’s regime—yet it never fully comes together. The plot feels thin, and the characters lack the depth needed to engage with its weighty themes. The prose, which could have been powerful, feels flat, but it may be that the translation stripped away its emotional impact. The overuse of absurd, forced similes and metaphors doesn't help either.
Overall, the book felt like a missed opportunity.