Tag: book review

  • What is it like to be a bird?

    Can we ever know what it is like to be a bird? As poetic as the question may appear to be, it’s fascinating how the question has captured the attention of a bunch of  scientists, artists and other professionals ranging from neurosurgeons, ecologists, physiologists to bird illustrators and medieval travellers. The fascination with bird flight is…

  • Review of Pankaj Mishra’s “A great clamour”

    I picked up Pankaj Mishra’s latest book “A great clamour: Encounters with China and its neighbours” at the Raipur airport, on my way back to Bangalore from a short consultation on tribal health. I have discovered a deep interest in China, after my month-long stay in Beijing and my conversations with several public health researchers…

  • Aloha Oe: A review

      Aloha Oe is a short story by Jack London, an American author. The story is set in the wharf of a Hawaiian Island, where a ship is just departing with the coterie of a Senator who is just winding up a junketing trip to the island. The senator is accompanied by his daughter, Dorothy. The…

  • The emperor of all maladies: a review

    This is one of the best books I have read. Depressing, intense, detailed, thorough, free-flowing and reflective. The book pulls the people from the history of medicine (or sceince itself) into a living narrative putting together pieces of apparently disjunct and inconspicuous and serendipitous events in the lives of cancer patients, researchers, doctors, surgeons, scientists…