Sidharth Vardhan's Blog

(A review of ‘The Undiscovered Self'(1957) by Carl Jung The review first written on August 21, 2022) Modern psychology has little patience with Jung’s ideas because of his refusal to limit himself to parts of experience that can be tested by scientific methods. Its not possible to say how much it loses due to such […]

One of my most valued treasures is a family photograph taken in 2016. A 0.5’ × 2’ frame holding it has remained hanging on the living room wall next to the stairs. Whenever I have some free time and am in the living room, I find myself gravitating toward this photo. It is framed in […]

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 “Shadow of the Eternal Watcher” by Josh Mendoza reminded me—low key—of The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, in that the stories are ostensibly detective fiction but turn out to be something else entirely. Duster Raines is a detective haunted by demons from the past, among other things. Then he starts experiencing […]

(A short story by Sidharth Vardhan First published on May 14, 2025) It’s the year 2065, and all evidence suggests I’m the last soul to roam the planet. I wake up to the familiar expanse of white in all directions and wipe the snow that has gathered on my clothes over the night. I walk […]

(A short story by Sidharth VardhanFirst written on April 15, 2025) You. Yes, I am talking to you directly this time. One to one. Not through proxies or shadows. Not in small, weak hours of night when consciousness is intoxicated by fantasies but in this waking hour. Its high time we talk. Are you even […]

(Author: J. L. Yarrow My ratings: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Review first written on March 18, 2025) Summary Generations from now, the future of humanity is grim. To save their fate, the Time Forward Project pins their hopes on their force-of-nature time agent, Kristen Winters. She’s sent on missions into the past through an unstable wormhole in deep […]

Future Unfolds by John Yarrow (J.L. Yarrow) is a sequel to Future’s Dark Past in his Time Forward trilogy. I enjoy time travel in movies like those from Marvel, but I haven’t read much science fiction that explores it—except, of course, H.G. Wells’ classic The Time Machine. To be frank, this book feels more like […]

(A review by Sidharth Vardhan of‘The Home and the World’ (1916) by Rabindranath TagoreReview first written on August 25, 2017) “I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.” […]

(A review by Sidharth Vardhan ofSamarkand (2003) by Amin MaaloufReview first written on May 5, 2019) “Omar Khayyam mourned his disciple with the same dignity, the same resignation and the same discreet agony as he had mourned other friends. ‘We were drinking the same wine, but they got drunk two or three rounds before me.’” […]

(A review by Sidharth Vardhan ofConvenience Store Woman (2016) by Sayaka MurataFirst written on December 2, 2024My rating 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟) Synopsis Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins […]