It’s that season of the year. Snowy evenings, foggy mornings, and early sunsets. Shadows on the streets.

The quiet in the house with the radiator buzzing in the background. The quiet outside as everyone stays in avoiding the cold. The quiet everywhere.

Winter is the time for ghosts to come calling. I know Halloween month is for spooky stories, but where is the fear in silly costumes and golden autumn light. No, it is the ominous grey cloudy wintry days that set the perfect stage for us to crawl into the pages of ghost stories.

So here we go —…

End of the year is a time for cheer and celebrations; it’s also time to catalog another year of our life. What you achieved (staying alive and not catching COVID), places you travelled to (nowhere, because COVID), things you ate (loads of home-cooked meals, because COVID) and books read (so many, coz what else were you gonna to do because COVID!!)

So here are my obligatory ten-books-of-the-year list that literally nobody asked for. It was hard to whittle it down to ten from the 54 books I read (as per goodreads.com), …

Why L.M Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables Remains A Favorite

I originally wrote this for the BAOS Book Club, a bookish community for readers everywhere (do check it out, another winner from Anangsha Alammyan).

And, I was tasked to be the in-house classics expert. Let me start with a confession. Writing about classics is daunting. Classics are books that have stayed in print for many years, studied and analyzed and dissected every which way. As a critic, I am nervous about what can I add to the narrative. …

I have loved reading ever since I can remember. As an introverted child and then an adult, reading provides a natural escape to alternate worlds. But it’s not just what’s on the pages, every excellent book is a puzzle looking to be solved. I am always in search or what’s between the lines, why the author made these plot choices, why the characters behave in a certain way and why write this story at all.

For me, it’s never been possible to truly enjoy any piece of writing without looking into a little deeper. Good critical analysis also requires training…

If there is one thing in the world that I love as much as reading books, it’s travelling.I often combine these two interests, by pairing my travels with novels set in the places I plan to visit. A novel in which a city or region is centrepiece is always a little extra special as it not only entertains but also inspires to see the world.

In Literary Places, Sarah Baxter, a travel writer, compiles a list of famous books that are defined by the places they are set in.

Baxter’s list touches upon both traditional yet global collection of classics…

I just loved this. Last year has been hard and with just the craziness of routine..I find very little time to celebrate the now. And this is such a great guide on sort of slowing down and building habits, that will let me get back the things that made me happy.

Read Matsuo Basho
Create your own poetry.
On this day of Spring!

It’s April 17th, when we celebrate International Haiku Day worldwide because this form of ancient Japanese poetry is that awesome. If you are nerdy about poetry, then I expect your social feeds to be full of haiku memes, forwards, and jokes. On this day, haiku gets a lot of love in the world.

So, What’s A Haiku?

For those who are not familiar, haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. A haiku poem follows a three-line with five-seven-five syllable structure. …

A review of the two movies that wrapped up the Harry Potter movie franchise.

The Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows movies had a lot to live up to when it came to fan expectations. For the book readers, who had been on the journey much longer than the movie fans, it was the final closing chapter of the Harry Potter series. At that point in 2011, no one knew that Rowling would have an equally hard time letting go of the characters and would end up writing a Broadway show.

The Harry Potter movie series had been an uneven…