The Bangalore Review put up this piece of mine on their book recommendations page, on New Year Day 2014, one of my first articles for the year.
I love yesteryear documentations, as also biographies and memoirs. Here are five of my personal favourites.
1. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy
Sofia Tolstoy? Tolstoy’s wife? Wasn’t she a nag? The book, The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy told me otherwise.
These diaries written meticulously for over more than half a century, right from when Sofia Tolstoy was 18, and combined with her late-in-life hobby of photography, documents her life with the great writer. It also shows us the changes in the pre-Czarist Russian country over this period, and Tolstoy’s relationships with the various people around him. This book is different from Sofia’s memoirs, which is titled My Life Continue reading
When The Diary of a Social Butterfly, a collection of Moni Mohsin‘s tongue-in-cheek peppy pieces came out in 2008, the journalist-cum-author acquired quite an unprecedented following among the readers in India. The write-ups were her former columns with the Friday Times, a National weekly in Pakistan. Her hilarious social commentary on Pakistani high society, camouflaged in the chutney-talk narrative of ‘Butterfly’, a socialite, was no mere light stuff, although it appeared to be so at first glance. It was perceptive to the core and reflected the concerns of the educated citizen in Pakistan; a view not easily accessible to one living outside the country. Well, the Bridget Jones of Pakistan is back with a sequel to Butterfly’s exploits, aptly named ‘Tender Hooks’. 
Suneetha Speaks 