The Idea-smithy

Remember mixtapes? I put together a 2026 version of it for a penpal - a curated list of podcast episodes about books and authors I love.

There is no respect for a woman who isn’t likeable. Somewhere between reading Hooked, The Correspondent, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Butter Honey Pig Bread, I have been pondering the nature of likeability and respect in women.

The latest buzzy book is bringing me back to the gentleness of loving writing and connections. 'The Correspondent' by Virginia Evans is more than a collection of letters.

Food books beyond recipes and restaurant reviews? These 12 novels use food to probe political turmoil, gender violence, grief and adolescent anguish. Pomegranate Soup carried me through lockdown. Like Water for Chocolate sizzled with magic. Butter gutted patriarchy. Each one fed my soul.

My recent reading leapt from the Ibis trilogy’s layered histories to Van Gogh’s famine canvas and a Japanese food-fiction tale. Together they made me think about hunger, grief, and how we find ways to heal what we’ve lost. That’s 3 books, a painting, an art essay and a 12-hour podcast for the feels.

The past few years of consciously chosen books to read and curated book experiences has been reflecting on what they taught me and where they tested me.

Female friendships were once shaped by urgency, competition and emotional overfunctioning. Now I see other women, like me, seeking gentler ways to connect, with room for clarity and calm. Post 40, friendship feels less like survival and more like a choice that honours who we’re becoming.

Friendship with men was all about managing patriarchal egos and predations. The 40s have brought me a clearer sense of self & better boundaries. Maybe that means better friendships too.

A breakdown became my impetus to create boundaries. Not rules but choices rooted in who I want to be. My empathy is not absolution, just witness. Curiosity is costly. So is living honestly. Boundaries aren’t just to protect me, they also honour the right of others to leave what they cannot hold.

Reading a sweeping colonial saga (Sea of Poppies) and a quiet Tibetan memoir, I trace how language, history and the gaze of others shape identity. Book selection becomes a curatorial act to choose the lens that I live by, temporarily.

What if women’s stories are richer not in spite of their flaws, but because of them? From kitchen whispers to church pew confessions, these tales serve spice, sorrow, and fierce truth in every bite.

In Third Places I slip out of the roles that cling too tightly. No one expects anything. I listen, sometimes speak, and leave without needing to be remembered. That lightness stays with me longer than most company ever has.

A police drama. A feminist novel. Both markers in my journey to trusting my judgement again. 'The Rookie’ and Meena Kandasamy’s debut novel were soul mirrors.

A stranger gave me 'The Collected Regrets of Clover' in a rare act of generosity. The book gently looks at the messiness & mundaneity of grief. I didn’t ask if I could inscribe in the book. So instead I made notes in the margins of my mind.

Madwomen on my mind—this month’s reading takes me through cults, kitchens, crimes, and cosmic quests. From feminist fables to literary ragefests, I wander through stories that ask: what if the women weren’t mad, just misunderstood? 6 books that made me ponder this.

How do you reconcile the love of some books with the thought that their authors hate people like you? Gabrielle Zevin makes me ponder this.

April reading was two stories of South India. ‘The Covenant of Water’ by Abraham Verghese and ‘The Painter of Signs’ by RK Narayan. Reading them in tandem made me ponder how South India treats gender & faith.