I am writing today’s post in a coffee shop. This fact would not be so interesting were it not for the fact that I am often tempted to do so, but almost never do. Today, circumstances compel me to write away from home and so, here I am. But writing at venues other than myContinue reading “Writing Away From Home”
Category Archives: Writing
Happy Birthday Blog!
My blog turns one today. My first post went up on 13 November 2011 and some three hundred and twenty posts have gone up since then. I started to blog because quite simply, all too often, I’d catch myself saying, ‘Really? I don’t think so!’ or ‘Really? How interesting!’ in response to something I’d readContinue reading “Happy Birthday Blog!”
Book Release Announcement: Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket
As some readers of this blog might be aware, I write on cricket (the sport, not the animal), at my blog The Pitch, on ESPN-Cricinfo. My first book on cricket, Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket has just been released by HarperCollins. The blurb for it says: Cricket as we know it mayContinue reading “Book Release Announcement: Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket”
Flying Solo, As Author, For a Change
Sometime this week or the next, my fourth book, Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket (HarperCollins India 2012), will make its way to bookstores and online book-sellers. My fourth book differs in one crucial regard from those that have preceded it: I have not co-authored it with anyone; its jacket lists but oneContinue reading “Flying Solo, As Author, For a Change”
I See Your Pet Lover and Raise You J.R. Ackerley
Natural disasters, especially hurricanes like Hurricane Sandy, always bring forth, besides flooding, stories of dedicated pet lovers, of dogs, cats and mynah birds rescued and cared for in myriad ways by their doting owners, nay, family members. In that spirit, I bring you J. R. Ackerley and Queenie. Today…Ackerley is remembered primarily as a memoiristContinue reading “I See Your Pet Lover and Raise You J.R. Ackerley”
The Heartbreaking, Transformative Effect of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
This past summer, as my wife and I drove through parts the American West, we visited Badlands National Park in South Dakota. During our brief stay in the park, we made the obligatory visit to the visitor’s center: to pick up maps, refill our water bottles, and perhaps to pick up a book or twoContinue reading “The Heartbreaking, Transformative Effect of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”
Shakespeare, Drayton, and Birdsong, Then and Now
In his The Life and Times of William Shakespeare, Peter Levi wrote, [H]istory and family connection do as much to throw light on Shakespeare as a poet as academic criticism has done, and maybe more. The problem is that England and Stratford and the Elizabethan age are all somehow part of his great mystery, andContinue reading “Shakespeare, Drayton, and Birdsong, Then and Now”
Ronald Reagan and the Casual Invocation of ‘Lynching’
In March 1983, Anne Gorsuch Burford, the chief administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, fired Rita Lavelle on charges of having abused the $1.6 billion Superfund that the US Congress had earmarked for cleaning up chemical spills and hazardous waste dumps. Allegedly, Superfund monies were being steered to Republican officeholders seeking relection. A few weeks later,Continue reading “Ronald Reagan and the Casual Invocation of ‘Lynching’”
Generals and their Strategies: Patton and Napoleon on the Koran
Today, on my new Tumblr (samirchopra.tumblr.com) I posted two quotes on the Koran (or the Quran, take your pick). The first, by George S. Patton: Just finished reading the Koran—a good book and interesting. (George S. Patton Jr., War As I Knew It, Bantam Books, 1981, page 5. War Diary for North Africa landings ‘Operation Torch’,Continue reading “Generals and their Strategies: Patton and Napoleon on the Koran”
The Extravagant, Space-Time Distorting Business of Time Cleaning
This morning Jason Read of the University of Southern Maine posted the following photograph on his Facebook page (due to Tom McGlynn, to whom I owe thanks for letting me reproduce it here). Jason added: Just looking at it makes me want to write a bad science fiction novel about the unglamorous, dangerous, and low-payingContinue reading “The Extravagant, Space-Time Distorting Business of Time Cleaning”
Samir Chopra 