Yogesh Gogwekar's Blog

84, Charing Cross road: A book is nothing but Helen Hanff’s epistolary memoir On 28 th February 2018, Strand Book Stall situated at Fort Mumbai closed down its shutters permanently. After seeing the advertisement in Newspaper, I rushed to the shop to get some outstanding books. At time of searching, I came across an endearing little book which is easy to read named as 84, Charing Cross road. At the time of browsing, I found this book is not a novel or love story or romance book. It is  a correspondence between two book lovers Helen Hanff, a freelancer story writer from New York and Frank Doel, an employee of a used-book dealer at Marks and Company in London from 1949 to 1969 . When I read the first letter, I was curious and amused by the second and third letter. Therefore, I decided to purchase this book for my collection. This book is really interesting even though the letters which have been written in this book are not in an artistic way.  This book was first publish...

Heroes of History: Description of influential events in the History of Mankind written by Will Durant I always like to read the books of Will Durant because of his writing style which is more for a layman than for a scholar. He always explained the events and ideas of history and philosophy in a simple and exciting way and also is approached towards history and is more optimistic. Very recently, I have read his two books names as The case for India and On the meaning of life and written my views about these two books in my blog. Just now, I have completed his one more book, “Heroes of History” which is nothing but the brief history of Civilization from Ancient Times to the dawn of the Modern age.  According to him, it is a mistake to think that the past is dead. In the present, the past is rolled up and has been concentrated in the lifetime. He further said,” You, too, are the past, often your face is your autobiography, you are what you are because of what you have been, of ...

Frith on Cricket: Half a Century of Writing by David Frith “He writes with care and judgment”, these are the words of well-known Cricket commentators and writer John Arlott about David Frith and one can check the validity of these words at the time of reading the book Frith on Cricket. Frith on Cricket is nothing but the broad collections on the history of cricket, cricketers and controversies written by one of the doyens of cricket writers, David Edward John Frith. It is the selection of best of the articles written on cricket right from his school days till the year 2009. It is the creation of a wonderful cricket anthology. It is a unique well researched document which will be helpful to know the history of the game with its colourful personalities and controversies for the last forty years which has been written by painstaking historians, passionate collectors, striving players and trenchant editorialists. Through this author has proved his ability of forward-looking ...

Mee S M: An autobiography of a authentic hero of contemporary Indian History written in Marathi At the time of reading the history of socialist movement in India, I again started reading the books written by socialist leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayprakash Narayan, Madhu Limaye, Nanasaheb Gorey and S M Joshi. I finished reading S M Joshi’s autobiography MEE  S M in Marathi language and found that he was one of the authentic heroes of contemporary history of India who made great acts of courage.  Through this book, S M Joshi has given the account of his struggle in his public life to get communal harmony, social equality, freedom struggle of India, movement of 1942, Maharashtra Movement, working  as trade union leader, working for causes of Dalits, his dynamic role in revolutionary campaign launched by Jayprakash Narayan,  his roles during emergency and above all his contributions as a Chairman of Rashtra Seva Dal for spreading socialist activities throughout...