A weekly column on what well-known personalities are reading and planning to read. This week, it is Gopal Guru and Manu Pillai.
I am reading Roy Sorensen’s Seeing Dark Things: The Philosophy of Shadows . I last read, once again, Plato’s Republic Book III which has discussions on the Allegory of the Dark Cave. I have enjoyed reading his allegory of dark caves because it helps understand shadows as the motivating force for those who are pushed into the dark. Next, I am going to critically read Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines .
Gopal Guru is a Professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
I am reading Jerry Brotton’s This Orient Isle , which tells us how political calculations and religious circumstances in Europe brought Elizabethan England unusually close to the Muslim world. I just finished reading a proof copy of Sanjeev Sanyal’s excellent forthcoming book, The Ocean of Churn . Since it has a month before it hits stores, all I should say is that it is a refreshing overview of how much the Indian Ocean, and the exchange of goods, people, and ideas have affected and inspired what we normally consider ‘indigenous’. I want to read Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar. I’ve also acquired a copy of Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red which, from the little I have read so far, I should have picked up years ago.
Manu Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore.
