Rating: ***** (5 stars out of 5) I have cried reading books, but this is the first one I can remember shedding tears just three pages in. The story…
Rating: ** (2 stars out of 5) This is a short history of maths. By short, I mean really short. Which is unfortunate, because there can be no justice…
Growing up, I used to watch a lot of dubbed Chinese Kung-Fu movies. Mongoose style against the Snake style and so on. I don’t believe they used to…
Rating: **** (4 stars out of 5) This is a rare Asterix volume that hints at romantic feelings in Asterix and Obelix. Panacea, returning back to the village after her studies, captures Obelix’s heart only to break it when it is revealed that she is already engaged to Tragicomix, who has been drafted by Caesar’s army.…
Rating: ***** (5 stars out of 5) The blood-thirsty Norsemen have a problem. They don’t know what fear is and since they pride themselves on knowing everything, they must learn fear. Besides, “fear lends you wings”, so by learning fear, Normans can fly like birds. So they set out to find someone who can teach them…
Rating: **** (4 stars out of 5) “Asterix in Britain” was one of the earliest Asterix books I read, but even though I remember it with fondness, until I re-read it again, I had forgotten all the details except for the “tea” part of the story. The plot is about a sole village holding out against…
Rating: ***** (5 stars out of 5) This is one of my favorite Asterix stories. It is the first one that puts a significant part of the action in the Gaul village, though it still doesn’t bring many of the villagers, other than Chief Vitalstatistix, into prominence. There is no adventure, but instead a sinister plot…
Rating: *** (3 stars out of 3) Getafix’s prominence varies from one Asterix book to another. In “Asterix the Gaul”, Getafix and Asterix are the only two Gauls with much ink spent on them. But in the second Asterix story, “Asterix and the Golden Sickle”, Getafix exists only as the impetus for the story and Obelix…
Rating: *** (3 stars out of 3) The authors take Asterix and Obelix on a trip across France in this Asterix episode. It all starts when a Roman inspector decides to blockade the Gaul village. Asterix challenges the Romans that as a Gaul, he will go wherever he likes and will prove it by going on…
Rating: *** (3 stars out of 5) In Book 4 of the Asterix series, Asterix and Obelix go to Rome! A Roman Prefect has a crazy idea — why not capture one of the indomitable Gaulish villagers and present them to Julius Caesar for use in the circus. So Cacofonix the bard is captured and taken…
Rating: ***** (5 stars out of 5) This is a masterpiece of a history book by the author, Ramachandra Guha. It is a unique book in that I have not seen any other book cover the period after Indian Independence in any meaningful sense. During my school days, we got to read about ancient Indian civilizations,…
Rating: **** (4 stars out of 5) The Romans in the Asterix series are the villains, but they are usually portrayed as bumbling villains. In this book, we get to see another bunch of antagonists, the Goths, who are a little more evil than they are idiots, though towards the end, they also turn out to…
Rating: ***** (5 stars out of 5) This is one of my favorite Asterix stories. The second in the Asterix series, the creators, Goscinny and Uderzo, have overcome most of the formative problems they had with “Asterix the Gaul”. The volume has a solid plot and strongly establishes the bond between Asterix and Obelix by sending them…