PositiveThe Washington Post... [a] warmhearted, clear-eyed account of the formative years of his life, a book that reaches from Myanmar to Berkeley and that is less about economic theories—or his own later achievements in the field—than about the contours of an early intellectual journey across multiple continents ... It’s lofty stuff, but there is a lightness with which all of this is recounted. Sen’s writing style in Home in the World is even-keeled and gently humorous. He writes poetically ... But there is also a noticeable reticence when it comes to love that isn’t primarily academic or professional ... That’s not to say he ignores the emotional ups and downs of his lived experience altogether. Sen’s fight with oral cancer, which he first diagnosed himself in 1952 using a few volumes from the Calcutta Medical College library, is told in moving detail. He doesn’t shy away from describing his early encounters with racism, either ... But through it all, Sen’s focus is less on hardship than on generative possibility, particularly as it might be applied to difficult problems.
Rafia Zakaria
PositiveThe Washington PostA passionate and provocative new book ... Unhelpfully, in what looks like a bid for seriousness, Zakaria sometimes resorts to overly academic language ... The essential tension Zakaria identifies between well-meaning if at times opportunistic career feminists and those with ordinary \'lived experience\' is an interesting one ... [The] feeling of exclusion and dissonance is the powerful narrative driver of this book. And particularly instructive are the moments when Zakaria explores her profound discomfort in feminist settings ... Against White Feminism at times feels too sweeping in its critique to be constructive, but the heart of what this book demands — a feminism that is less self-satisfied and secure in its power, more curious about the differences in women’s experiences, and more generous and expansive in its reach — is worth fighting for.
Sonia Faleiro
RaveThe Washington Post... a remarkable feat of reporting: What [Faleiro] finds reveals as much about the failings of India’s law enforcement, media and politics as it does about the girls’ deaths ... Faleiro’s prose is restrained, but she allows the occasional colorful simile ... Faleiro lets the suspense build as she carefully uncovers the villagers’ competing motives. Gradually, it becomes clear that in Katra, ultimately one thing is more binding than police codes, medical codes or penal codes: a retrograde but resilient code of honor. This is the force, above all others, that stunted the girls’ lives and hastened their deaths.
Elizabeth Flock
MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewFlock strives mightily to avoid cliché, with mixed success ... And for all its sophistication, the book feels compelled to remind readers of the basics: that caste divisions were said to have originated in ancient India, that Gandhi was father of the nation and so on. Still, on balance, Flock is a careful, diplomatic interpreter of modern Indian life. Distilling large swaths of culture and history into brief, well-deployed asides, she keeps her focus on the couples themselves ... The Heart Is a Shifting Sea is a sober portrait of middle-class yearning — an earnest inquiry into what it is one might reasonably dream of finding in marriage.
