Books

The Facebook Bait

Sohini Chattopadhyay

The biggest of ideas can emerge from the smallest of desires. In the case of Facebook, it was about a geek who wanted to be popular with the girls.

The ‘If Only’ History of India

Hartosh Singh Bal

Jaswant Singh cites Gokhale to sell Jinnah as ‘an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity’. So, Hitler was a painter, right?

Subcontinental Drift

Rahul Jayaram

Is your dominant image of Bangladesh floods and immigrants? Well, here’s another one from Shazia Omar’s debut novel: youth and drugs

Grunge in Bangladesh

Arindam Mukherjee

This debut novel gives you a kick. A quick one

Iron Lady of Manipur

Shivam Vij

Irom Sharmila believes a book has power. She’s right, the story of her life does carry the power to torment our conscience.

Che and the Art of Revolution

Rahul Pandita

Behind the burning eyes of Che Guevara on a million T-shirts is a fearless, determined man who once killed a horse to eat it. This is him, in his own words

Soul Safari

Jay Mazoomdaar

Even less than two weeks in Kenya’s stunning wilderness makes for a coffee table book and a case for conservation. Could we expect anything less from India’s most eloquent tiger watcher?

The Beast Inside

Vineetha Mokkil

The Booker Prize winning author writes brutally honest stories about love, loss and loneliness

Nectar in a Sieve

Vijay Nambisan

A slim but fine anthology captures the essential achievements of Tamil poetry from the Sangam period to contemporary times

Last Light

Palash Krishna Mehrotra

In Updike’s final collection of stories, published posthumously, death is a constant presence and it seems to have played an active role in his imagination