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Nilanjana Roy

Nilanjana Roy joined the Weekend FT as a columnist in July with a brief to write about life, literature, ideas and much more. She is the author of a fantasy duology, The Hundred Names of Darkness, and a collection of essays on reading, The Girl Who Ate Books. She has edited two anthologies, on Indian food writing and on Indian patriots, poets and prisoners, and has been a columnist for the Business Standard

@nilanjanaroy  on X.com (link opens in a new browser window)
  • Tuesday, 14 October, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    How creating your own Book Bootcamp can transform your literary fitness

    From judging a book prize to taking part in an online challenge, intensive reading is incredibly rewarding — as long as it doesn’t start to feel like homework

    A large group of people sit closely together on outdoor steps, each reading a book during a morning reading party.
  • Tuesday, 30 September, 2025
    Reading the WorldBiography and memoir
    The joys of the Train Wreck Memoir

    Epiphany memoirs promise hope and happy endings. Far more powerful are the unflinching stories of struggle, failure and the human ability to mess up

    Elizabeth Gilbert in a white turtleneck sweater, hear hair shorn, smiles gently against a plain light background.
  • Tuesday, 16 September, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    A word in favour of dictionaries

    Amid the unstoppable shift online, these printed treasuries offer multiple pleasures — and freedom from the endless scroll

    A large dictionary open on a wooden stand in a public library.
  • Monday, 1 September, 2025
    Reading the WorldLife & Arts
    Andrea Camilleri brought Mediterranean light to even the darkest crime stories

    Inspector Montalbano’s creator, who would have been 100 this week, explored the murkier side of his beloved Sicily — alongside the glorious refuges of romance, food and nature

    Andrea Camilleri, a balding man in his seventies with bushy white eyebrows, sits pensively on a veranda, a net curtain pulled aside to reveal a view of the sunny street below.
  • Wednesday, 20 August, 2025
    Books
    The mess, the flaws and the rocky love life of the great James Baldwin

    A biography of the American writer and activist avoids casting him as saintly — and shows that the best portraits of artists are often the least hagiographic

    A grainy black-and-white photo of two men lying on the same bed. On the left, a Black man is covered by bedsheets and talking on the phone. On the right is a white man, only half-covered by sheets, bare-chested and smoking
  • Tuesday, 5 August, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    Seeking refuge in the comic novel

    In a world of instability, war, famine and ecological catastrophe, we need funny fiction more than ever

  • Tuesday, 22 July, 2025
    Reading the WorldNon-Fiction
    The ground beneath our feet — and the books that show its wonders and its warnings

    In their different ways, both ‘Murderland’ and ‘Turning to Stone’ ask readers to reconnect with the Earth

    A pile of stones on a pebble beach, with cloud descending on the promontory in the distance
  • Tuesday, 8 July, 2025
    Reading the WorldNon-Fiction
    Why gardening memoirs are a growing genre

    Writing about our green spaces has taken on a life of its own since the pandemic

  • Tuesday, 24 June, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    The novelists exploring the wonders, terrors and untold possibilities of space

    Writers are responding to earthly anxieties but looking to the skies as a place of creative freedom — and a reflection of our planet’s fragile beauty

    A red disc shape in a black sky
  • Tuesday, 10 June, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    The great family saga is catnip for today’s readers — and writers too

    A new crop of novelists are breathing fresh life into a form as old as time

    Hundreds of photographs of family laid out on a table
  • Wednesday, 28 May, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    Are you reading in sync with the changing seasons?

    From summer hammock to winter fireside, books can chime with the seasonal rhythms lying dormant in our crowded lives

    A photo of a woman lying in a hammock reading and silhouetted against a sunset
  • Thursday, 15 May, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    Gen Z are changing what it means to be a ‘reader’

    Panic about the demise of book reading is overblown — across genres, formats and devices, young people are finding and creating their own storytelling communities

    A young couple walk hand in hand past a stall where a young man looks at the books displayed on a table
  • Wednesday, 23 April, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    Graphic novels are the ideal response to authoritarian regimes

    Why the intimate and flexible genre is favoured by dissidents and political exiles

    Black and white illustrations including a man in a hazmat suit walking through a fence and a forest; a reflection in a pair of sunglasses; and details of a small device
  • Wednesday, 9 April, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    When reality enters the dream state

    Three books that bring real insight into how dreams create a window to our psyches and mirror the anxieties of our times

    Detail of a painting of a woman with long hair and her eyes closed, lying draped over the side of a bed with her arms overhead. She is wearing a long white dress
  • Wednesday, 26 March, 2025
    Reading the WorldFiction
    The return of Jay Gatsby and other literary second lives

    A century on, F Scott Fitzgerald’s lovelorn millionaire is reimagined as a female influencer — the latest beloved character to be reshaped for new readers

    A handsome couple lie on a couch in a marble-floored room. He is in a white singlet, she wears a white satin robe
  • Friday, 14 March, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    Is it time to ditch the book blurb?

    Gushing praise often rewards connections over talent — but a good write-up can still help readers

    A bookshop with two floors and people browsing the shelves
  • Friday, 28 February, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    In praise of the difficult book

    An easy read is like a nursery pudding — it brings comfort. But literature that is hard to digest should also be on every reader’s menu

  • Friday, 14 February, 2025
    Reading the WorldFiction
    A feast for readers: why a good anthology is a gateway to great writing

    The best of these literary collections are like an inviting home, filled with rooms you want to explore

    A crowded room where people look at shelves of books. One shelf is labelled ‘Indian Writing’
  • Tuesday, 4 February, 2025
    ReviewFiction
    We Do Not Part — Han Kang’s tale of a golden thread of friendship

    The Nobel laureate returns with a novel that again explores both human cruelty and our species’ capacity for tenderness

    An illustration of a woman, seen from behind, standing on a path between trees on a windy day. She carries a stick and has a bag slung over her shoulder
  • Wednesday, 29 January, 2025
    Reading the WorldNon-Fiction
    The return of the (original) celebrity philosophers

    The TikTok generation is rediscovering thinkers both ancient and modern who can help them make sense of the world

    A statue of Socrates, who has a beard and is wearing Ancient Greek robes. He is resting his chin on his hand, as if deep in thought
  • Saturday, 18 January, 2025
    Reading the WorldBooks
    When poetry heralds a new presidential era

    Robert Frost improvised, Amanda Gorman became a breakout star — but there will be no inaugural poet for Trump’s victory rally

    A woman stood on a podium speaks into a microphone in front of hundreds of thousands of people
  • Tuesday, 31 December, 2024
    Reading the WorldBooks
    My New Year’s resolution: make reading fun again

    I’ve set up a screen-free reading corner, with a ‘comfort stack’ of books that offer nothing but indulgence

    In a sunny meadow, a young girl in a blue dress sits on a chair, reading a book in the shade of a tree
  • Monday, 9 December, 2024
    Reading the WorldFiction
    Will humanity get lost in translation?

    AI could instantly open up a huge range of books in different languages — but fiction really does require that human touch

    Photograph of a robotic hand flicking through a printed book
  • Thursday, 7 November, 2024
    Reading the WorldBooks
    Do audiobooks count as reading?

    We’re in the midst of a listening revolution — and a new debate over text versus voice

    Two female writers sit on a sofa during a panel session to promote a novel
  • Tuesday, 22 October, 2024
    Reading the WorldBooks
    To keep, or not to keep books . . . 

    That is the question that eventually faces all booklovers when the ever-growing stacks around the house threaten to fall

    A smiling bearded man sits on a step ladder in a room, holding an open book. Behind him are shelves stuffed with books, in front is a desk with multiple books on it.
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