Books

Wisdom from The Ramayana: On Life and Relationships

Forever inspirational: Wisdom from The Ramayana

No matter how old you are, if you are Indian, you can probably recall the first time you heard the story of Rama. The memory could be your grandmother’s voice in a room lit only by an oil lamp, or a book such as Rajagopalachari’s rendition, or pictures in the Amar Chitra Katha or the […]

Extraordinary oeuvre

Professor of world history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, the globally acclaimed author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2104), an international phenomenon which was on the Sunday Times (UK) bestseller list for over 25 weeks and has been translated into 40 languages worldwide, is one of the foremost […]

Other side of maths: Tales from the history of mathematics

Tales from the history of mathematics – Archana Sarat
Readomania publishing, Rs.225, Pages 192

If there is one subject that evokes strong feelings in most students, it is mathematics. Simply uttering the word ‘maths’ is enough for someone to claim that they love the subject or more often, how much they hated it in school. But irrespective of […]

Great sketch biographies

Nine Luminaries of Science – Joseph Mani
Notion Press, Rs.200, Pages 188

There’s fascinating history in all men’s lives. One can draw valuable lessons even from histories of unremarkable and ordinary people. But it has to be accepted that reading about the lives and accomplishments of people who have made outstanding contributions in the cause of bettering […]

Timely biography – Gandhi: The years that changed the world

Gandhi: The years that changed the world – Ramachandra Guha,
Penguin random house, Rs.980, Pages 1109

Surprisingly, this monumental 1,109-page biography of Mahatma Gandhi covering the years 1914 — when after having tried and tested the principles of ahimsa and satyagraha to attain political ends in South Africa, he returned to India — and 1948, the year of […]

Republic of Letters anguish – Battling for India: A citizen’s reader

Battling for India: A citizen’s reader – Edited by Githa Hariharan & Salim Yusufji
Speaking Tiger, Rs.399, Pages 338

This book is a necessary compilation that comes from an embattled republic of letters in a nation slowly being desiccated by the philistinism of its politics.

The great merit of the book is its comprehensive nature as it focuses […]

Peninsular history

There are histories of India, and then occasionally we have histories of south India.

K.A. Nilakanta Sastri’s pioneering A History of South India (1955), which soon established itself as a classic, demonstrated the possibility of studying south India as a distinct historical unit encompassing the Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam linguistic regions. Even though his narrative […]

Hinterland story

Author of The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey that won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2015 and The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2017) — a collection of short stories banned by the Jharkhand government which also dismissed him from the state medical service in 2017 — Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s latest oeuvre is My Father’s […]

Living saint’s peace prescription: The Dalai Lama (with Fraz Alt)

An appeal to the world: The way to peace in a time of division, The Dalai Lama (with Fraz Alt), William Collins; Rs.1,622; 172 pp

His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama and revered Buddhist spiritual leader, is one of the most widely-respected voices today for global peace and interfaith understanding. In this book, he […]

Murphy’s Law victim: Paradise at war

Paradise at war: A political history of Kashmir, Radha Kumar, Aleph Book Company; Rs.799; 416 pp

Radha Kumar’s Paradise At War is yet another addition to the large corpus of scholarship on politics. As is par for the course with much of this literature, starting from a discussion on Kashmiri self-understanding of being unique and exceptional, […]

Last testament: The Great Indian School Bazaar

The Great Indian School Bazaar, Dev Lahiri, Rupa publications; Rs.195, Pages 147

This slim book – The Great Indian School Bazaar, authored by the late Dev Lahiri (1951-2018) is an easy read on the complex and multi-layered topic of school education in India. The author draws from his vast experience of over four decades as principal and educator of […]

Alternative interpretations: Searching for a King

Searching for a King — Muslim Non-Violence & the Future of Islam, Jeffry R. Halverson, Potomac Books; Rs.1,622; 172 pp

Whether one likes it or not, and irrespective of the origins and causes, it is a fact that Islam is increasingly being associated with violence worldwide. In this timely book – Searching for a King, Jeffry […]

Poignant journey

Reconciliation: Karwan e Mohabbat’s journey of solidarity through a wounded India, Edited by Harsh Mander, Natasha Badhwar & John Dayal; Westland, Rs.339; 192 pp

This volume is a rushed attempt at investigating the lynchings, hate crimes and rise of cow vigilantes that have stormed the media in India over the past few years. It details the violence that […]

Engaging faction

The Queen’s Last Ssalute: The Story of the Rani of Jhansee & the 1857 Mutiny, Moupia Basu, Juggernaut Books; Rs.399, Pages 359

History lends itself to exciting ways in which it can be shaped, sensationalised and manipulated to create fiction. Certain iconic figures, the Rani of Jhansee for example, are generally identified as good material. In Indian Writing in […]

Illuminating biography: Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s reflections on Kashmir

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s reflections on Kashmir – Nyla Ali Khan
Palgrave Macmillan; Rs.9,000; Pages 215

Nyla Ali Khan’s Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s Reflections on Kashmir seeks to restore the centrality of Sheikh Abdullah in Kashmiri identity politics. This at a time when politics in Jammu & Kashmir has been radicalised much beyond his ideology and political values. […]

Okinawa’s secret: Ikigai — The japanese secret to a long and happy life

Ikigai — The japanese secret to a long and happy life, Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles,
Penguin Random House; Rs.1,176 Pages 185

Okinawa, the largest of a group of islands south of the main Japanese archipelago, was the theatre of the bloodiest land combat between American Allied troops and soldiers of imperial Japan in World War […]

Women in Indian media: Refashioning India

Refashioning India: Gender, Media and a transformed public discourse, Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Orient Black Swan; Rs.895; Pages 344

In October 2018, a couple of weeks after the #MeToo Movement hit Indian social media and made its way into mainstream print and broadcast media, a young journalist called this reviewer to ask: ‘How did things come to such […]

Inspiring school reform stories

Not just grades: schools that educate differently, Rajeev Sharma, Penguin Random House; Rs.599; Pages 387

The problem about education reform is that everybody has strong views on education and parenting. After all, we have experience of education as children and later in life of parenting. This book is a useful resource for parents, educators, social workers, and […]

China’s new Chairman Mao: Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping

Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping, Francois Bougon CONTEXT; Rs.599, Pages 181

Xi Jinping is now the all-powerful leader of China. A country of 1.4 billion people, it has some 90 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is the world’s second largest economy with a 2017 GDP estimated at US $12 trillion (Rs.857.33 lakh crore) […]

Nelson’s eye memoir

Of Counsel: The Challenges of the Modi-Jaitley economy, Arvind Subramanian, Penguin Random House, Rs.699, Pages 347

The abrupt manner of his departure and flimsy excuse he proferred for quitting his high office as chief economic adviser (CEA) to the government of India (family matters including the birth of a grandson), for spiriting himself to the bowers of Harvard University, […]

Eloquent tales

Chroniclers of the diasporic Indian experience are many — Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Meena Alexander and Chitra Banerji Divakaruni. Despite this crowded field, that Indian Australian writer Roanna Gonsalves’ debut collection of short stories Sunita De Souza Goes to Sydney and Other Stories, manages to stand out is a testament to the author’s mastery of […]

Interrogating my chandal life: An autobiography of a Dalit

Interrogating my chandal life: An Autobiography of a Dalit, Manoranjan Byapari, Sage -Samya; Rs.550; Pages 356

One of the great enduring injustices of Hinduism (which the ruling dispensation hoping to ride and remain in power does its best to obfuscate) is its varna or caste system. Under the rigid tenets of the Hindu caste system which its proponents […]

Overdue biography

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: India’s iron man, Balraj Krishna, Rupa publications; Rs.995, Pages 316

One of the profound injustices of post-independence India is that the huge role played by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), an important member of the triumvirate or trimurti of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel in the freedom movement, has been obfuscated and obscured.

It’s important to remember that […]

Books

Inherent contradiction fallout

The people vs. democracy, Yascha Mounk, Harvard University Press; Rs.2,220, Pages 400

In 1944 economic historian Karl Polanyi wrote The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Troubled by the collapse of European peace twice in a quarter of a century, Polanyi sought an explanation in his unique, yet intuitive, understanding of the co-dependence between market […]

Books

Depth lacuna

The RSS: A view to the inside,Walter K. Andersen & Shridhar D. Damle, Penguin Viking; Rs.699, Pages 405

When Walter Andersen and Shridhar Damle published their first book on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The RSS and Hindu Revivalism, in 1987, it was welcomed in India and abroad. After all, there was not […]

Books

Scholarship deficiency

Shades of Saffron: from Vajpayee to Modi, Saba Naqvi, Westland Publications; Rs.599, Pages 288

One of the main challenges institutions of Indian democracy are facing is decline of the liberal professions.

Journalists, lawyers, professors were supposed to be the front line of the army fighting for the rights of the governed. Today, they are seen more as collaborators […]

Books

Ecce homo

Sapiens: a brief history of mankind, Yuval Noah Harari, Harvill Secker; Rs.210, Pages 433

This is a truly extraordinary book — a comprehensive history of the origin and evolution of the human race. Inevitably, it hasn’t received the media and public attention it should have in this country where reading and knowledge are of peripheral interest. […]

Books

Politically timely book: Why I am a Hindu

Why I am a Hindu, Shashi Tharoor, Aleph Book Company; Rs.699, Pages 320

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Shashi Tharoor’s timely book: Why I am a Hindu. Not scholarly work, but eminently readable.

Tharoor demolishes the facile right-wing hindutva assumption that the only criterion for ‘hinduness’, is subscribing to their Talibanised ideology. He delves into the many centuries […]

Books

Victim of his virtues

On my terms: from the grassroots to the corridors of power by Sharad Pawar tiger publishing; Price: Rs.699; Pages: 264

One of post-independence India’s most durable and dominant figures in national politics is Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar. In his long — and still enduring — career as an MP/MLA which began in 1967, Pawar has never lost an […]

Books

Extraordinary memoir

Dreaming Big by Sam Pitroda with David Chanoff ; penguin; Price: Rs.699; Pages: 331

Within a society given to worshipping at the altars of political, business and even cinema dynasties, it’s unsurprising that Dreaming Big: My Journey to Connect India, the autobiography of Satyen (‘Sam’) Pitroda, the US-based self-made millionaire who catalysed post-independence India’s cruelly-delayed telecom revolution, […]

Books

Unwarranted prejudice

Quiet — The Power Of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Dr. Susan Cain penguin books; Price: Rs.309: Pages: 333

One way of categorising people according to personality types is to gauge where they fall on the introversion-extroversion spectrum. Introverts are more often drawn to the inner world of thought and sentiment, while […]

Books

Model icon™s story

Playing it my way Sachin Tendulkar & Hodder & stoughton; Pice: Rs.899; Pages: 486
Arguably the greatest test cricket batsman in the history of the game which has replaced hockey as the nation™s favourite field sport ” although his test average of 53.98 runs per innings pales in comparison with that of Australian legend Sir […]

Books

Israel’s supercops

Mossad by Michael Bar-Zohar & Nissim Mishal HARPER COLLINS; Price: Rs.999; Pages 390

Contrary to the fervid and over-blown imagination of Hollywood movie directors, the lives of spies and counter-spies, intelligence and counter-intelligence agents are nasty, brutal and usually short. The voyage of their lives comprises dangerous clandestine meetings, long hours of surveillance, interrogation, torture, isolation […]

Books

Unequal lives

The Lives of Others; Neel Mukherjee random house); Price: Rs.425; 528pp

Though bested against all expectations by Richard Flanagan in the final round of assessment for Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize 2014, Neel Mukherjee’s second novel The Lives of Others made literary headlines as the front-runner until the last mile. In recent years, the […]

Books

Perfidious old boy

A spy among friends: kim philby by Ben Macintyre; Bloomsbury; Price: Rs.399; Pages 352

THE SECOND WORLD WAR and the Cold War which followed were the great eras of spies and secret agents glorified by Ian Fleming™s James Bond and John le Carre™s Smiley. A Spy Among Friends details the cloak and dagger activities of three […]

Books

Rising inequality warning

Capital in the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Piketty; Harvard Business Publishing; Price: Rs.1,495; Pages 577

THE OUTSTANDING characteristic of this extraordinary outcome of 15 years of intensive research and scholarship is that although ex facie Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an economics text which brings great clarity to the increasingly divisive and confusing issue of wealth […]

Books

Purposive travelogue

A Great Clamour by Pankaj Mishra; Penguin Books; Rs.400; Pages 325

DURING THE PAST century Indian politicians and intellectuals suffering the humiliations heaped upon the people of Asia by Western colonial powers, have sporadically attempted to reach out to the people of China and Japan to make common cause on the basis of shared values and cultural […]

Books

Myths busting compendium

David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.599; Pages 305

A STAFF WRITER of the well-known New Yorker magazine, Malcolm Gladwell is among the most original and innovative of contemporary thinkers. During the past decade or so, he has written several stimulating books traversing politics, sociology, psychology and anthropology which have refreshingly challenged conventional […]

Books

Morality tale

The Descent of Air India by Jitender Bhargava; Bloomsbury India; Price: Rs.499; 243 pp

Right until the mid-1980s, Air India was universally acknowledged as one of the world’s top 10 airlines and unquestionably the best national carrier of the developing nations of the post-colonial order. Today it is a byword for unreliability, unpunctuality, indifferent if not rude […]

Books

Samir’s success

The TOI Story: How a newspaper changed the rules of the game by Sangita P. Menon Malhan; Harper Collins; Price: Rs.350; 261 pp

Of the four great estates of post-independence India — legislature, executive, judiciary and the press — the one that has most substantially fulfilled the expectations of the founding fathers of the Constitution is the […]

Page 4 of 5«1 2 345 »