WHAT DELIGHTED me most in reading Heartbreak Passage by Lambert Mascarenhas comes from the recognition of the author’s voice, a cultivated voice tempered with humour, grace, warmth, gentleness and good breeding. It’s a voice I recognise well, having read a couple of times Lambert’s first novel, Sorrowing Lies My Land, published in 1955, and subsequently his column Musings, Moods and Memories first in the Goan Tribune (1956-1961) in Mumbai and later in The Navhind Times (1963-64) where I worked as a reporter.

DO YOU know that it takes 21 days to drop a bad habit (which brings us nothing but pain and heartbreak) and replace it with a good one? At least that’s what new age guru and author, Leo D’Mello, told family, friends, well-wishers and media people who turned up for the release of his book “Fuller Life, The Book, A Journey” (published by the Goa-based Academy of Self Actualisation, paperback, Rs.300) at a function held at Leonoras Restaurant at Verna, on August 18, 2009.

WITH HIS nine books of poems, besides his collected volume, Keki N. Daruwalla is a pivotal figure in the rarefied zone of English poetry in India. Besides his prodigious output of poetry, this retired senior officer of the Indian Police Service has produced a novella, three volumes of short fiction and two collections of poetry for children. For Pepper and Christ is Daruwalla’s first novel, and quite befitting his prolific output and expansive outlook, this is an ambitious work set at the end of the 15th century and a few years later in Europe, Africa and India against the backdrop of the voyages and conquests of the great Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama.

THE CLERGY, too, was known for its tendency to trade. Interestingly enough, the wealth thus acquired by the religious orders was not shared with the Crown. The nuns of the Covent of Santa Monica at Old Goa were accused of conducting commercial activities in competition with the official trade. One of the charges levelled against them was that they lent money to foreign traders.

THE WEAVE of My Life by Urmila Pawar is more than a Dalit woman’s memoirs; it’s a bold yet intelligent critique of casteism coupled with feminist politics in Maharashtra towards the last quarter of the 20th century. And to think that a woman from the Mahar caste could rise above her poor and deprived environment in the Ratnagiri village and survive to tell her story is nothing short of remarkable.

IN HIS introduction to the new collection Just After Sunset, King explains that as a young almost-poor schoolteacher trying to get a writing career started, stories, many of them published in men’s magazines like Dude and Cavalier, were a way to a much needed cheque when the car needed a muffler or his wife’s birthday was coming up.