ME & MY SHELF

Through her work with Marine Life of Mumbai, a citizen-led initiative raising awareness about the city's coastal biodiversity, journalist and editor Sejal Mehta has been making science accessible for lay audiences. She does much the same with her new book, Superpowers on the Shore.

- Sejal Mehta

A Walk in the Woods

BY BILL BRYSON, Vayu Education of India, ₹399

Bryson reminds us how vital humour is in non-fiction in this travelogue that takes us through the author’s insightful, educational, and consistently hilarious journey along the Appalachian Trail. Sequences where he ponders the possibilities of being attacked by bears are laugh-out-loud funny, followed by moments of deep insight about an unfamiliar ecosystem that he ends up feeling a deep kinship with.

Ghachar Ghochar

BY VIVEK SHANBAG, HarperCollins, ₹299

Originally written in Kannada, and translated masterfully by Srinath Perur, this story expertly weaves together family life, the ebb and flow of wealth, class anxiety, and social ambition. The title loosely translates to ‘tangled beyond repair, a nonsense phrase the narrator learns from his wife. It’s the little observations that held me captive—the slight shifts in relationships at home, the way their memories explore life with and without money. Absolutely beautiful.