New Fiction: Books that caught my eye in 2026

One of the joys of being a booklover, apart from buying and hoarding books, is looking up fiction titles scheduled for release in a particular year, even if it’s not possible to read them all. I frequently read about new or forthcoming books that have generated interest in the media and literary circles. I’m curious to know more about these books and sometimes buy them, depending on whether I read in those genres.

To be honest, though, I don’t buy many physical books these days because I’m running out of storage space and already have more than enough books to read. My collection of comics is another story for another day. So, most of the new books I buy are ebooks, which I read on my tablet.

(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

My first visit to a comic bookstore

It took a long-haul flight from Mumbai to Vancouver for me to finally visit a comic bookstore I’d only read about online and watched with envy on The Big Bang Theory.

The comic bookstore I went to was on Vancouver Island, in a small, charming place called Coombs, within the district of Nanaimo. Coombs, as you might know, is famous for its Old Country Market—more popularly known as Goats on the Roof—where a family of goats actually lives on the low sodded roof. It attracts over a million tourists every year, apparently.

The comic bookstore, as it was simply called, was a single room and not very big. Its walls were lined with storage racks holding dozens of white boxes filled with comics in polyethylene bags, each neatly labelled with the names of superheroes on the side.

When I went in with my family, the place was nearly empty. A young man, presumably the owner, sat at a counter watching something on his phone, while a couple of kids were noisily sifting through trading cards in the centre of the store. I practically had the comic bookstore all to myself. I wandered through the shelves, looking for my favourite characters from DC and Marvel, and other imprints. They were all there, and some not so familiar ones too.

With help from my family—since the boxes were quite heavy—I went through hundreds of backdated comic-books, mostly Superman and Batman (my childhood heroes), the Hulk, Flash, Daredevil, Captain America, Punisher, Justice League, Fantastic Four and the Avengers. I picked out several, put them back and then took them out again. Being spoilt for choice wasn’t easy. There were so many old titles, I wanted them all.

At one point, I decided to collect the multi-part Superman: Funeral for a Friend special series I had always wanted to own. With more help from my family, I spent over an hour searching for all the parts but came up three short. In the end, I dropped the idea and settled for the equally prized Reign of the Supermen! 1993 series instead.

I suppose you could say, “You lose a Superman, you gain a Superman!”

Some three hours later, as I was paying for my stack of comic-books, I suddenly realised I hadn’t seen two other favourite characters from my teens—Tarzan and his son Korak. They were there, all right; I had somehow missed them.

After the owner pointed them out, I got down on my haunches and quickly went through a couple of boxes of early Tarzan issues with their vintage-smelling covers, my comic-book antennae tingling with excitement for a second time that evening. Unfortunately, we were running late, and it was with some reluctance that I put the ape-man back in his box.

Comic-books have brought me endless joy since my school days, and visiting this little haven felt like a dream come true. I’ll be going back to Coombs again, hopefully in the not-too-distant future—for the comic-books and, of course, the goats on the roof.

Confessions of a Book Collector: So Much for Restraint

In the first three months of this year, I bought more books than I did in the whole of 2018. So much for restraint. Any resolve to cut back on book buying quickly disappeared as I walked through book exhibitions and second-hand bookstalls looking for interesting books and comics.

A few titles, including Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, were bought online (I already own his Sapiens and Homo Deus.) I also picked up several guides to better writing, two of which are featured below. And although I ordered Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology for my son, I intend to read it myself at some point.

The highlight of the haul was the discovery of three rare Sudden novels by British author Oliver Strange, including two different Corgi editions of The Range Robbers. The book is the first of ten adventures featuring the Texas outlaw James Green, better known as Sudden for his lightning-fast draw. After Strange's death, English writer Frederick Nolan wrote five more Sudden novels under the pseudonym Frederick H. Christian. They remain my favourite westerns to this day.

(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Having explored humanity's past in Sapiens and its future in Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari turns his attention to some of the most pressing questions facing the modern world in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories shows Agatha Christie at her most versatile, with a mix of mysteries, twists and suspenseful tales featuring both familiar and lesser-known characters. 

In The Wrath of God, Jack Higgins—my favourite writer of all time—combines action, suspense and political intrigue in a gripping tale of revenge set in a troubled South American republic.

The Mating Season is a classic Jeeves and Wooster comedy, filled with Wodehouse's trademark humour, eccentric characters and tangled plots. 

Blind Eagle is one of the many instalments in Don Pendleton's long-running Stony Man series, known for its military action, covert operations and fast-paced storytelling. 

The Wilt Alternative is the second novel in Tom Sharpe's popular Wilt series, known for its sharp satire, eccentric characters and wildly improbable comic situations. 

Captain America: The Secret Story of Marvel's Star-Spangled Super Hero offers a behind-the-scenes look at the character's creators, adventures and cultural significance over the decades. 

 

Norse Mythology is Neil Gaiman's retelling of the classic Norse myths, capturing their humour, wonder, magic and tragedy in his distinctive storytelling style.

Dreyer's English combines writing tips, grammar guidance and editorial wisdom with a generous dose of humour. Drawing on decades of editorial experience, Benjamin Dreyer provides an entertaining and insightful guide to clearer, more effective writing.

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing distils Gary Provost's years of writing and teaching experience into a practical collection of 100 concise tips to help writers communicate more clearly, effectively and confidently. 

The Range Robbers is the first novel in Oliver Strange's Sudden series, introducing James Green, a mysterious drifter better known as Sudden for his lightning-fast draw. Guided by a strong sense of justice, the western hero repeatedly finds himself confronting outlaws, corruption and lawlessness across the American frontier, while making new friends wherever he goes. The book launched a series of 15 adventures, 10 written by Strange and a further five by Frederick Nolan after the author's death.

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut and other books

“I was the baby of the family. Now I don’t have anybody to show off for anymore.” 
— Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

I bought no more than a dozen secondhand books this year. I’m pretty sure of that. Let me see—a few westerns, thrillers and spy fiction, Lee Child, P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Enid Blyton, Kurt Vonnegut. Yes, that’s about it, though I haven’t read any of the books yet. I seldom buy new fiction.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

I also ordered nonfiction from Amazon, as part of the annual office book allowance I’m entitled to. They’re all there in the picture on the left. I haven’t read any of those either, though I have been leafing through the books on writing. I usually don’t read guide books from cover to cover.

Separately, I also picked up Khushwant Singh’s autobiography Truth, Love & A Little Malice (2002). Singh was a well-known and an outspoken diplomat, journalist, parliamentarian, columnist, and author of scores of books. He was one of India’s most engaging storytellers, and also its most controversial. He had an easy and lucid style. The publication of the politically-sensitive book was held up for five years due to a court case.

© Viking, New Delhi

I also added a handful of comic-books to my collection. These included two graphic adaptations from the popular Warrior Cats multi-series by Erin Hunter, a combined pseudonym of a group of children’s book writers. Besides, I downloaded comics from Amazon under its ‘free comic book day’ attraction. I mostly read these on my tab during office commute.

From among fiction, I intend to read Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake first. It’s not exactly a novel; rather it’s a semi-autobiographical work marketed as a novel. The author, himself, has described the book as a “stew” and his “last novel”.

The following blurbs will tell you more about the book.

“There's been a timequake. And everyone—even you—must live the decade between February 17, 1991, and February 17, 2001, over again. The trick is that we all have to do exactly the same things as we did the first time—minute by minute, hour by hour, year by year, betting on the wrong horse again, marrying the wrong person again. Why? You'll have to ask the old science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout. This was all his idea.” 
— Amazon

© Berkley Books, New York

“Using his science-fictional alter ego Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut talks about a recalcitrant book of Trout's whose premise would have been that ‘a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum’' occurs, creating a 10-year hitch in time in which everyone is forced to live that period of their lives over again, every word and action exactly repeated, from 1991 until 2001, at which point their lives move forward once more. It is a nice conceit, and Vonnegut and Trout have some fun with it, all interwoven with anecdotes about the Vonnegut family, how it feels to be an aging author and suchlike.” 
— Publishers Weekly

“Family is obviously an important anchor for Vonnegut. Through Timequake, he keeps track of a wide variety of siblings, uncles, children, wives and ex-wives, etc. It says a great deal about Vonnegut's view of family that he is close to his family and is also a successful writer while his alter ego, Kilgore Trout, is an unsuccessful author and has no family. When Trout does gain some success in Timequake after the rerun has concluded, he has also gained a family of sorts.” 
— Review on SF Site

The late Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favourite writers mainly because I enjoy his writing to the extent that I'm tempted to imitate his style. He kept it short, almost staccato, and simple. He managed to say a lot without saying much, a tribute to his ability to write with brevity and minimum fuss. He also had a wry sense of humour.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a comics fan!

© Miika Laaksonen/Unsplash

Bill Maher, political commentator and television host, was accused of mocking comic-book fans for mourning the death, November 12, of Marvel legend Stan Lee. He wrote on his blog, “The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning. Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess,” and added, somewhat self-righteously, “Personally, I’m grateful I lived in a world that included oxygen and trees, but to each his own.”

As a comic-book fan, reading and collecting comics for over four decades, I wasn’t offended by the American comedian’s ill-conceived remarks. Maybe he was trying to be funny, except no one felt like laughing. Comics are a serious business, an alternate religion, even for the lighthearted among diehard fans.

Here’s what happened next. Like dirty linen, Lee fans took Maher to the cleaners, to be washed, rinsed, spun and dried on social media. His attempts to clarify that he meant no disrespect to Stan Lee failed to cut ice with his legion of followers.

Stan Lee and Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3. © Sony/Marvel

The outrage against Maher can perhaps be explained in the words of Hollywood actor Chris Evans who, in an unrelated context, said, “The comic book world is so dangerous. You know what I mean? You say one thing and people—they’re ravenous—they are very opinionated fans. But they're great fans.” Who better to tell us than the man who plays Captain America and the Human Torch in Marvel’s Avengers and Fantastic Four?

What Maher probably didn't realise is that, comics, in spite of spawning a global cultural phenomena for nearly a century, is a personal thing. We may share and enjoy comic-books collectively, swear lifelong allegiance to the sequential panels of vivid characters, images and balloons, but we read them as individuals, in the seclusion of our mental cocoons where no outsiders are allowed and trespassers like Maher are prosecuted.

Most of us, and certainly those who grew up in the second half of the 2oth century, have fond memories of spending many a summer holiday borrowing and reading comics, and then exchanging those for new ones from the circulating library. Mine are no different.

Here, I'm going to digress.

I recall the first time I stepped inside the world of comics. I was around eight years old when an uncle from San Diego, California, sent my dad 40 DC and Marvel comics by post. The crisp and glossy Silver Age (1956-1970) and Bronze Age (1970-1985) comics, neatly packed in a carton, travelled nearly 7,000 miles and inspired him to start collecting comics and rope me in as his young co-conspirator.

It was the beginning of a delightful adventure with an eclectic roster of valiant heroes and superheroes—the Pandavas and the Maurya Kings, Justice League and the Avengers, and so many others—dedicated to fighting evil and making the world a better place.

© Amar Chitra Katha

One evening, my dad picked up Gopal and the Cowherd, a popular Bengali folktale from Amar Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Stories)—India’s largest-selling comic-book imprint—and read it out to me.

In the comic-book, Gopal, a poor young lad who lives with his devout mother in a tiny village, must walk alone through a dark forest to get to school on the other side. Naturally, he is afraid to make the journey alone. His mother calmly tells her son, “Whenever you’re scared, call out to your brother. He is a cowherd and his name is also Gopal. He will come and protect you.” Relieved, the boy happily sets off for school. As he is passing through the forest, Gopal calls out to his “brother” who materialises out of nowhere—wearing peacock feathers in his golden crown and playing a flute—and escorts the boy to school and back. When his mother hears about the mysterious brother and the herd of cows with tinkling bells, she realises that her son’s saviour was none other than Lord Krishna. She prays with silent gratitude, “You took care of my son, my Lord. I called and you came.”

It was one of the most beautiful and poignant stories I had heard and read at the time. It was also one of my earliest inspirational lessons in values and virtues. And that’s what comic-books are all about; often, a better teacher than pedantic textbooks.

Over the years, since then, I frequently turned to comic-books, to such brave and self-sacrificing heroes as Arjuna, the maverick archer in the great Indian epic Mahabharata and Captain America, the patriotic super-soldier, for both inspiration and entertainment. I found the richly illustrated panels and speech balloons riveting. In difficult times, comics were a form of escapism, a secret place where you overcame fear and despair, replaced negative emotions with hope, wonder and positive choices, and steered through life’s inevitable challenges with a new strength and optimism.

In that sense, comic-books, notwithstanding their digital avatars and billion-dollar movie franchises, are a liberating medium primarily because of their emotional appeal and visual influence and because, as Peter Parker’s Aunt May tells us so eloquently in Spider-Man 2, “There’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.”

May Parker’s eulogy, in many ways, is a tribute to comic-book fans who yearn to be like the mortal, supernatural and other-world heroes they admire and venerate so much. Actually, the rest of the world isn’t very different. Everyone, at some point, imagines living vicariously through the lives of those they look up to. Even Bill Maher.

Merrick by Ben Boulden, 2017

"Thief, gunman, killer. A hero you'll hate, but root for anyway."
 
Every time I watch a movie about a heist or read a story about a robbery at gunpoint, the first thought that comes to my mind is Something’s going to go wrong. In spite of meticulous planning, things don’t always go as intended. That’s exactly what Merrick—a tough outlaw with a conscience and the hero of this fast-paced Western short story by Ben Boulden—finds out when he teams up with an old partner to ambush an armoured wagon in Texas and make away with a $15,000 payroll.

Merrick, who is brought in as a last-minute replacement, is mindful of the risks involved in the venture. He knows by experience that a holdup is never easy, even if the dough is. Though he is reluctant to accept mastermind Clarence Tilley’s offer at first, the .44 Remington wielding outlaw cannot escape the allure of money and the prospect of moving to the California coast and living it up.

But the outlaw’s getaway plan is dashed to the ground when Spider Robison, a particularly vile, greedy and trigger-happy gang member, double-crosses his accomplices, wallops Merrick in the head and decamps with the loot. After regaining consciousness, Merrick sets out to hunt down Robison, not so much to seek revenge as to retrieve his rightful share of the heist and be on his way.

Merrick is not the quintessential Wild West outlaw. He is an outlaw alright but one with scruples, the kind who’d indulge in unlawful acts but probably won’t go beyond a limit. While he can be tough and dangerous, and shoot to defend himself, he also has a certain vulnerability, a sense of fair play and justice, perhaps even compassion, which sets him apart from others of his kind.

All of 25 pages, Merrick is a cracker of a Western story that fans of the genre will enjoy reading. The plot—a stage robbery gone wrong—reminded me of pocket-size black-and-white Western comics I was fond of reading in my youth. I could visualise each scene unfold in the form of a comics panel or frame. In that sense Merrick would make for a very entertaining comic-book.

I hope Ben Boulden—author of Blaze! Red Rock Rampage (15) and Blaze! Spanish Gold (18) in the Blaze! Adult Western Series—casts Merrick in more short stories, perhaps even a novel or two. I’d like to read more about the Utah outlaw’s exploits in the author's crisp narrative style. Recommended.

Available for Kindle, $0.99.

The lure of secondhand books

© Prashant C. Trikannad

Secondhand books are like antique furniture. They have a musty but pleasing smell, great monetary value, and are much sought-after by discerning readers and serious collectors. But just as it's not easy to buy old furniture, it's not that simple to get hold of forgotten and out-of-print books. You have to establish contacts with used booksellers over several years, like a news reporter cultivating his source for a scoop or a cop working an informant for a tip on an elusive gangster. Once you have a mole or two in the used book trade, you can get almost any title you want and tick them off your wish-list.

I remember every secondhand book or comic-book I have bought over the past three decades, and it hasn’t been easy.

Some years ago, I visited a prominent new bookstore in South Mumbai to pick up a 1995 edition of DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favourite Comic Book Heroes by Les Daniels, a well-known historian of comic books. The 256-page hardback—described as "The complete story of America's favourite heroes and their talented and dedicated creators"—was on sale for the magical price of Rs 450 ($9). Naturally, I was elated. However, I resisted the temptation to buy the book. I thought I could use the money for something more useful, and walked away. When it comes to books, you can’t be blind all the time; sometimes you’ve got to be practical, too.

It was just as well.

A few weeks later, I spotted a near-mint edition of the volume at a pavement bookseller in Fort-Fountain area, a central business district about 7 km from the bookstore. It was sandwiched between an airtight stack of academic journals and coffee-table books. "It's yours for Rs 150," said the bookseller who knew his books better than I did. I offered him Rs 100. We finally settled for Rs 125 ($2.5). It was a bargain I would've been a fool to turn down. Of course, it helped that the bookseller was a "friend" of many years.

Not long after, I stumbled across a fine — and rare for me — edition of The Penguin Book of Comics by Englishmen George Perry and Alan Aldrige, 1967—a 272-page volume chronicling the evolution of British and American comic books. While Perry wrote the text, Aldridge designed the cover and the illustrations. The book analyses the rise and fall of comics in mid-20th century in the wake of Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the Comics Code, and the influence of comic strips and comic books on popular culture, and entertainment such as art, films, and television.

Until the mid-nineties, booksellers lined the footpaths in that part of South Mumbai. Today, there are fewer than a dozen, thanks to eviction drives by the municipal corporation. Interestingly, the civic officer in charge of one such operation left the booksellers alone even as he went after other hawkers in the area. "Books are Saraswati (the Hindu goddess of learning and knowledge). I want people to buy and read books," he told me at the time. Since the turn of the century many sellers have dumped books—that few people are reading, let alone buying—for more lucrative goods like mobile phone accessories. Book collectors like me were the losers.

Secondhand books are not as elusive as you think they are. You have to keep your eyes open, know where to look. Sometimes they can be right under your nose, other times you have to sniff them out like a wolf sniffing out its prey. After years of browsing, I can home in on a ‘wanted’ title like some kind of a heat-seeking missile. All it takes is a quick, sweeping glance of stacks upon stacks of pavement books, provided the titles are displayed prominently. With practice, you can hone book-spotting into an art.

Some of the most rewarding secondhand book haunts in my city of 18 million are raddiwalas. These hole-in-the-wall paper marts, dotting the island city and its extended suburbs, are more than dusty repositories of old newspapers, plastic bottles, and assorted junk. You never know what reading treasures you will find there. While a few organised paper marts know the value of good books and pass them on to professional booksellers, most stack up books near the entrance and sell them cheap. 

Like an archaeologist digging for bones, I have been prospecting raddiwalas for well over two decades, and rather successfully too. I once bought a dozen rare Phantom and Mandrake comics, under the Indrajal imprint, from a paper mart close to my home for Rs 10 each ($0.16), almost as good as free.

Obviously, the raddiwala didn't know their real value considering that owner Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd, publishers of The Times of India, stopped printing Indrajal Comics in 1990. The result: booksellers and individual collectors have been quoting obscene figures for the comics which, apart from Lee Falk's Phantom and Mandrake, included Indian artist Abid Surti's hero Bahadur (the Brave), Roy Crane's Buz Sawyer, Allen Saunders' Kerry Drake and Mike Nomad, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby, and Phil Corrigan, and Steve Dowling's Garth.

Some of the other prized books I bought secondhand over two decades ago, and still cherish, are Art Spiegelman’s Maus (I & II), the 160-page The Science Fiction Book: An Illustrated History by Franz Rottensteiner, a hardback illustrated edition of Futuredays: A Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000 by Isaac Asimov, Cows of Our Planet: A Far Side Collection by Gary Larson, Sudden paperbacks by British writer Oliver Strange, a hardback of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Calvin and Hobbes volumes, and dozens of DC and Marvel comics including pocket-size war and western comic-books. Back then, it wasn’t easy to cough up money for a new Gary Larson or a Bill Watterson.

In this age of Amazon and Ebooks, the secondhand book trade is almost dying. Until it does (though I really hope it doesn’t), I will continue to hunt down elusive and priceless fiction and nonfiction. So far I have been lucky, managing to find a few gems every year. The secret to a productive secondhand-book hunt is patience and perseverance—and sometimes luck, when wanted titles leap out at you when you aren't even looking. Those are the ones I like best.

Book Tag: Q&A about reading habits

On June 17, my friend Tracy did a Book Tag post on her popular blog Bitter Tea and Mystery where she answered trivia questions related to books. I found it interesting. She was inspired by book tags at other blogs (links below the post) and I in turn was inspired by her edition of this addictive meme, and especially the variety of books she had read—and continues to read and review across several genres.

I’m not a well-read person. I have a long way to go the book journey. I have many authors to discover, many books to read, and many years before I can sit back and feel good about my reading. So I’m going to be honest. Is there any other way? To twist a famous Kurt Vonnegut line—“We are what we read, so we must be careful about what we pretend to read and the books we pretend to talk about.”

Let’s see how it goes.

What book has been on your shelf the longest?

My paternal grandfather’s 1965 Tudor edition of Shakespeare: Complete Works (The English Library). I’m saving it for retirement, though I bet the bard will have a lot of company by then. I try to read Shakespeare every other year but all I manage to do is brush the dust off the cover, the spine, and the yellowed pages, and put it back in the cabinet.

What is your current read, last read, and the book you plan to read next?

Current Read: The Midden by British satirical novelist Tom Sharpe (one of my favourite writers) and Shall We Tell the President?, an alternative fiction by Jeffrey Archer, one of several bestselling authors I read in college. I like Sharpe’s raw wit and offensive humour. Archer is an old hand at storytelling. Remember Kane and Abel?

Last Read: Past Tense, where prolific writer-blogger Margot Kinberg introduced me to her affable sleuth Joel Williams, former policeman and now academician.

Next Read: To be honest, I have no idea. It’s usually a random choice, though, I’m tempted to read a P.G. Wodehouse or an Agatha Christie from my wife’s formidable collection. It’s been a while since I did. Wodehouse has me in splits even though his humour is stereotyped.

What book do you tell yourself you’ll read, but probably won't?

I’m going to answer this question in a different way. I struggled with the first 30-odd pages of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and almost gave up. I had little idea what was happening. It was one of the most difficult books I read in recent memory. Faulkner seemed to be mocking me at every turn of the page—“My narrative style is not for you. Get off and read something else.” I did not like that.

What book are you saving for retirement?

Well, as I said, giving Shakespeare company will probably be some distinguished Russian authors, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Solzhenitsyn, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (which I never finished), and a few classics. Of course, it’ll all depend on my eyesight and state of mind.

Which book character would you switch places with?
 
James Green, alias Sudden, the Texas outlaw. I have liked the character ever since my paternal uncle introduced me to the cowboy when I was 14.

Sudden, created by British writer Oliver Strange, is my favourite Western. He earns both nickname and notoriety because of his lightning draw; branded outlaw for crimes he didn't commit. In reality, Green the gunman is a gentleman, defending ordinary folks against crooked gamblers, ranchers, rustlers and land-grabbers, even as he quietly hunts for the two men who killed the man who raised him. Sudden also has a badge, a secret identity: Deputy Marshal United States, reporting to the governor of Arizona.

While Strange, who never once travelled to America, wrote ten Sudden novels, fellow English writer Frederick H. Christian (Frederick Nolan in real life) wrote another five. You can’t tell the difference. This is the only series in any genre that I have read more than once.

What book reminds you of a specific place, time or person?

I’m usually so engrossed in a book that I never think of relating the plot, setting or characters to real places and people. Such things seldom occur to me.

Which book has been with you most places?

Plenty of spiritual books but mostly Love Never Faileth by the late Indian spiritual teacher and author, Eknath Easwaran, who established the nonprofit Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in California in 1961. This and most of Easwaran’s forty books serve as a useful and practical guide to leading a fulfilling life, through his simple eight-point programme of passage meditation. You can open any page in any of his books and you’ll be like, “Hey, this is for me!”

Which book have you reread the most?

The only books I reread the most are philosophical and these include books by Easwaran and other mystics, including my spiritual preceptor. They have been my comfort zone, my mental prop, for over three decades.

What book outside your comfort zone did you end up loving?

Not one, but two. The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. I read these powerful classics over a decade ago, thanks to my wife’s recommendation. Until then, I’d never read a classic, not counting abridged versions in school.

What are your three bookish confessions?
 
1. I hoard books. I have several unread books that I bought in the eighties and nineties. Though, I have been exercising restraint—so far this year I bought just three books.

2. I will happily miss a bus or a train or an autorickshaw if I see used books on sale, even though I might not buy any and reach home late.

3. I will never lend books I treasure. My Corgi editions of Sudden novels and my comics? Don’t even think about it!

Do you prefer used or brand new books?
 
There is something about being among secondhand books, which comprise 97% of my modest collection. This includes over two dozen used but mint-condition paperbacks of Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: The Executioner. As for new, I buy more Kindle books than paper books.

Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?

Maybe not more than books, but I liked all the movie adaptations of the novels of Jack Higgins (The Eagle Has Landed, A Prayer for the Dying) and Alistair MacLean (The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Ice Station Zebra). I also liked the cinematic versions of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night. And that goes for the Harry Potter series, too.

Last page: read it first, or wait till the end? 

I have never read the last page first, even to end a book sooner, though I was tempted to do so with Irving Wallace’s The Second Lady. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know why. 

Name a book that you acquired in an interesting way.

DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes (Bulfinch, October 1995).

Many years ago, I found this DC collector’s edition on sale for Rs 450 ($9) at a new bookstore. I so badly wanted it. But wisdom prevailed, and I walked away thinking I could use the money to buy something more useful, like groceries. Weeks later, I was on my way to the office in another part of town when I spotted the volume at a roadside bookseller, in mint condition and a tag of Rs 125 ($2.5). I grabbed it and hurried off. Book providence, perhaps.

Final two questions, my own.

Which authors you wish you had read by now?

Most Indian authors. There is such variety in Indian writing in English, that I don't know why I neglected it for so long. Ideally, the focus of my blog should have been desi rather than western fiction. I do plan to review Indian fiction in future.

If you didn’t read books, what would you be doing?

If I didn’t read books, I’d be painting or playing a musical instrument. It’s essential to have a life among the arts and crafts; much of everything else is so mundane.

Bottom line: Now that you’ve read my answers, you can see that I haven’t read a lot of books. The important thing is to read, even if it’s one crawling book at a time.


Other notable Book Tag posts
 
Nancy Elin 

Brona's Books

On Bookes

Howling Frog Books

Mage, Maze, Demon by Charles Allen Gramlich, 2016

A barbarian sent on a mission of no return.

The cover of Mage, Maze, Demon, the latest fantasy story by American writer Charles Allen Gramlich, is so striking that it instantly reminded me of the covers of Conan the Barbarian comics I read as a teenager, and still do sometimes.

I could visualise Bryle the barbarian built like Conan, and like the Cimmerian warrior, filled with raw courage and a grip that never loosens its hold on his mighty blade.

The story begins with the barbarian fleeing a raging forest fire, the howling flames licking his skin and flesh, wolves and deer outrunning him to the safety of dry land and greener pastures.

But Gramlich’s narrative is more poetic than that — “The flames shriek with joy like a fiend.”

He continues in his distinctive style, to recount Bryle’s narrow escape into a dark cavern, where he meets an evil sorcerer who baited the brave protagonist into coming to him.

Bryle is trapped inside the enormous cave. The sorcerer, whose two unseeing eyes are like black holes, offers freedom in exchange for a dangerous task — the barbarian must enter a treacherous maze to retrieve a mysterious talisman and bring it back. To get there, however, Bryle will have to get past a beast guarding the amulet, confront a powerful demon central to the story, and surmount orphic challenges.

Can he trust the necromancer? Will he let him go if he succeeds? Bryle is not sure. But like Conan, he is curious and therefore adventurous even if it means putting his life at risk. Paying no heed to his own safety, Bryle ventures into the depths of the labyrinth, unaware of help from a quiet and unlikely friend.

I think the beautiful part of fantasy and its sub-genre, sword and sorcery, is the uncertainty — neither the protagonist nor the reader are prepared for what is coming next. It’s a literary form where fear and pity have no place. Gramlich, an expert on the phantasmagoric works of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, piles on the suspense and surprise with every narrative line.

Mage, Maze, Demon is the first sword-and-sorcery yarn I read, and liked. However, it was my second fantasy story by Gramlich, the first being his Harvest of War. Both stories are about brave warriors turned survivors.

This story is based on “a concept developed by David Cranmer (publisher of Beat to a Pulp) for the Veridical Dreams Series 3, inspired by the dreams journals of Kyle J. Knapp."

Mage, Maze, Demon is a very readable fast-paced action-adventure that will appeal to readers of fantasy fiction, and particularly sword and sorcery.

Musings from my Facebook page

As you can see, I have not been posting much on my blog for a variety of reasons, mainly lack of time and general lethargy. I have been trying to get back into blog and review mode by writing on my Facebook page, where I'm more consistent. I pen my thoughts, and little stories, mostly on sentimental and nostalgic stuff almost every day. I steer clear of controversial topics, politics and religion, about which there is growing intolerance on social media and elsewhere. The forced refrain is: “You have a right to your opinion provided you agree with mine.” There is just too much negativity out there and it is pathetic. 

I'm on Facebook for a bit of fun.

I stick to the simple and ordinary things of life—memories of my childhood years, everyday observations, books I read, movies I'm watching, inner peace, food I love eating, places I visit, life in pictures, and that sort of thing. I write about things that make me feel good—as everything we do, should—and also resonate with others including family and friends.

You’ll get an idea from the following compilation of my most recent Facebook entries published over the past ten days. Some of my blog friends who are also my Facebook friends might have read these before. Others need not be compelled to read at all. It might be dreadfully boring and result in reader mortis. I have edited some of the posts for brevity, if brevity is, indeed, possible these days.

November 8: The Phantom—The Ghost Who Walks and Man Who Cannot Die—married in the mid-80s, a few years before I did. I "attended" his wedding in the Skull Cave. He tied the knot with the beautiful Diana Palmer of New York, in the presence of an odd bunch of guests—Diana's mother and Uncle Dave; Mandrake the Magician and Lothar; the pygmy Bandar led by best man Guran; his adopted son Rex; friend Thal, king of the Little People; Hero and Devil, his white stallion and wolf; and, Hzz, the prehistoric half man-half beast living on his isle of Eden, where all his other animals, including a stegosaurus, eat grass and live peacefully; where lions eat fish.

I thought the Phantom's attire was wholly inappropriate for such an important occasion. But then, he got married as the Phantom and not as Kit Walker, his secret urban identity. If Diana didn't mind, who the hell was I to object? I wore a suit at my wedding. The Guardian of the Eastern Dark didn't show up. Ever since, we haven't been on talking, or reading, terms.

November 6: My dad loved Kapi. He liked his coffee hot and strong with a spot of milk and very little sugar. Sometimes he used to skip dinner and have Kapi and buttered bread or toast, instead. He'd apply a good amount of butter on the bread slices and toast them on an open pan till they were golden brown. He'd then carefully slice each toast into four perfect squares, dip each bit in hot coffee, and pop it into his mouth. He made them for me, too. And was it delicious! The taste of salted buttered toast dunked in coffee or tea, if I may rightly exaggerate, is heavenly. Over the years I have tickled my palate by dipping crisp and crunchy Khara biscuits and Brun-maska in tea.

I'm not fond of coffee unless it is an authentic South Indian brew. Occasionally, I feel like having Kapi when I'm reading about detectives in crime fiction, gulping down mugs of steaming black coffee. I can almost smell it.

November 5: I love slapstick comedy and I'm extremely partial to Laurel and Hardy. They are the best. Such sweet innocence and so much fun. It's a pity there have been such few comedians in that laugh-out-loud category. I left Charles Chaplin out because, while I like him as an actor and have enjoyed many of his films, he is not funny. In fact, he can be quite depressing. When I think of slapstick, I think of mindless comedy. Comedy for the sake of comedy.

November 5: Last evening, I hit pay dirt at one of my secondhand book haunts: a used brand new 4-in-1 collection of Lucky Luke comics. Lucky Luke is a Belgian namesake comic-book series created and drawn by Morris (Maurice De Bevere) and written by Goscinny, who also wrote many of the earliest Asterix comics. I have been reading the adventures of Lucky Luke, the American cowboy known to "shoot faster than his shadow," since early teens. Good fun and absolute value for my Rs.50 (less than $1).

November 5: My reading room on wheels—where I read more Facebook and less book. The 7.45 am siren at the Khar railway yard, en route to work, just went off. A familiar sound back from my childhood. As long as it's not an air raid siren, all's well with our world.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

November 4: At the end of the day

I step out of my air-conditioned coffin.
Street boys hammer drums,
the devil knows why.
Roadside woofers, like black holes,
blast distorted music.
Fuckin' drivers leapfrog signals,
nearly knocking me down.
Crackers go off on my tail,
precursor to the advent of hell.
I rugby my way to the station,
past hawkers and jaywalkers.
I sweat it out in a crammed local.
I sweat it out in a snaky bus queue.
I sweat it out in drunken traffic.
Two hours too late,
I reach home, lose my head.
My pet wags her little tail.
I growl at her, sending her off.
“How was your day, darling?”
My face looks like burnt toast.
A hushed silence descends.
The air-conditioner comes on.
I set off again,
this time on a guilt trip.

November 4: I grew up with images of many iconic films. Of course, I realised they were iconic much later, after I started watching old movies on VCR & VCP and cable in mid-80s and early 90s. Two classics are etched in my mind: the scene where a crop-dusting plane is chasing Cary Grant in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, 1959, and the Burt Lancaster-Deborah Kerr steamy beach kiss in From Here to Eternity, 1953.

Elders in the family fondly recalled actors of their generation, who they grew up watching on the big screen. I'm glad they became actors of my generation too. When I look back on their era, I think of absolute class, style, and substance.

November 3: This Christmas-New Year I'm going on a tour of some of the most fascinating places in the world. My global stopovers will include Gotham City, Xanadu, Metropolis and The Daily Planet, Jaigarh, Gaul, the Skull Cave and Denkali, Asgard, Marlinspike Hall, Dwarka, Riverdale, Mongo, Bayport, Rich Mansion, Coast City, Pellucidar, Disney, Atlantis, and Sherwood Forest. S.H.I.E.L.D. is lending me their Quinjet.

Would you like to join me?

© Prashant C. Trikannad

November 3: Spare a thought for my pet...and me: Next week is Diwali, the festival of lights...and loud noise. The next few days are going to be traumatic for Stubs as deafening firecrackers cause her such fear as to make her lose her appetite and spend most of her time under the bed. She and her affectionate kind must curse humans, as I do. Request a reveller to desist from firing bombs, or light them elsewhere, and the smirky response will be, "Uncle, it's Diwali. No fun without crackers!" or it could be something like this, in crass Hindi, "What goes of your father?" effectively telling me to go to hell.

There is growing awareness about the harm firecrackers can cause to animals and people, but it's never going to be enough without a corresponding increase in compassion.

November 6: The World's Finest comic pictured below was one of 40 DC-Marvel comic-books my uncle from San Diego gifted us in the mid-70s. He inspired my dad, and his elder brother, to add to the lot every month. Before long, we had an impressive collection of Amar Chitra Katha, Indrajal, including Phantom, Mandrake, and Flash Gordon, the Harvey bunch, Archie and the Gang, Walt Disney, Tintin and Asterix, Dell, Whitman, and pocket Commando, and Western.

I took the comics baton from dad in the early 80s and widened the collection to include M.A.D., Maus, Classics Illustrated, and DC-Marvel annual editions. Forty years later, I can still smell those 40 brand-new comics. 

If you've read thin A4-size comics from that era, you'll know what I'm talking about. It felt like heaven to this kid.

November 1: Chess has been the single greatest learning experience of my life. This beautiful game beats school, college, and university education by a long mile. Chess is a seamless blend of passion, excitement, concentration, strategy, management, sacrifice, loyalty, patience, and ambition. I like to think of the 16 pieces as members of a close-knit family who look out for each other, like the mafia. They have their strengths and weaknesses but what holds them together on the 64-square board is blood kinship. 

Chess has taught me a lot in life; everything else I learnt on the job.

October 31: Barring Red Sonja, I have read the wild adventures of the other three superwomen—Axa and Modesty Blaise as comic strips and Xena as a comic book. I first read Axa—the forever-nude female Conan written by Donne Avenell and drawn by Romero—in the tabloid magazine, The Sun, known largely for its coverage of music. This was in the early 80s. I think, The Sun bought the rights for Axa from its British namesake where it was originally published. 

Axa bears a striking resemblance to Red Sonja who came before her. The origins of these two sword-sorcerers is interesting. Modesty Blaise was, of course, a three-unit black-and-white comic strip that many Indian newspapers published, alongside a similar James Bond strip. Sometimes, you didn't know which was which. I'm sure most Indians first heard of Xena the Warrior Princess through her television show. I didn't know she had a comic-book until much later.

Have you read any of these femme fatales of the comics world?

October 29: Every morning, a blind couple enters my coach in the 7.49 local and begs for alms. They sing lovely bhakti-geet, or devotional songs. They don't have much of a voice but together they sound good. I find it soothing, even if it is for a brief moment, till they get off at the next station and hop into another coach and start all over again. Singing blind during peak-hour rush can’t be easy.

I was raised on devotional songs, thanks to my dad who sang to my sister and me at bedtime, almost every night in our childhood and early teens. You can't go to sleep with a more secure and comforting feeling.

October 28: I'm seriously thinking of replacing my car with this single-wheel eco-friendly self-propeller. I could get around much faster. But I'm going to have to make sure I look like a formal guy and not a circus clown. Imagine, I could wheel myself right into my office and up to my desk. No pay and park. The more I think of my fuel-efficient idea, the more I'm convinced it'll work.

This weekend I'll hop over to the nearest stone quarry and place an order for a custom-built spoked wheel with a small headlight and a loud horn that I can control with my feet. I"m pretty excited. I must thank Johnny Hart whose B.C. comic strip was my inspiration. Next step: licence.

October 27: When we dogear the pages of our book, the book must feel like someone is twisting its ears. We know how painful that is. A book has life too. Every word on a page is like each breath we take.

That’s all the corniness for now. If you’re on Facebook, I’d be delighted to connect with you.

© Prashant C. Trikannad