Sat, 08 Jan 2011 23:22:55 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-t-n-madan-ominbus-418-113815.html For more than half a century, T.N. Madan has been a towering influence on the sociological and anthropological studies of family and kinship, cultural dimensions of development, religion, secularism, and Hindu society and tradition. This Omnibus brings together his seminal writings on marriage, kinship, family, and the household in Hindu society. Family and Kinship: A Study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir, first published in 1965, remains a pioneering ethnographic study of the Kashmiri Pandits, and is considered a classic in the field of world anthropology. The book presents a social history of a people and culture which is currently virtually non-existent in the Kashmir Valley. Drawing upon new theoretical and methodological perspectives, Non-renunciation: Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture provides a nuanced understanding of Hinduism as a lived tradition. It explores aspects of auspiciousness, purity, asceticism, eroticism, altruism, and death while focussing on the householder’s life in Hindu society. The Omnibus also includes additional essays on the Brahmanic gotra, and the Hindu family and development, along with a short piece on aspects of traditional household culture. It features an autobiographical essay—the author’s recollection of growing up in a Pandit home in Srinagar, Kashmir. In the Prologue, T.N. Madan engages with the ‘householder tradition’ across the cultural regions of India, analysing themes of householdership and renunciation in religious philosophy and ethnography.

Author: T.N MADAN  Publisher: OUP]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-stories-the-418-110386.html A collection of short stories

Author: Trevor, William  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/alain-de-botton-bind-418-110387.html Alain De Botton Bind

Author: Botton, Alain de  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/nassim-taleb-bind-up-418-110388.html Nassim Taleb Bind Up

Author: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/complete-adventures-of-feluda-vol-1-418-12.html Puts together 16 gripping tales of suspense and mystery featuring Satyajit Ray's inimitable detective Feluda. All of the Feluda stories that Ray wrote are now available together in a two volume set, of which this is the first. For the first time ever, the stories are arranged in chronological order of composition, and one can note Feluda's development from an unkown amateur detective to a famous professional private investigatior.

Author: Ray, Satyajit  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/complete-adventures-of-feluda-vol-2-418-23.html Complete Adventures of Feluda Vol. 2

Author: Ray, Satyajit  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-short-stories-418-25.html A collection of the short stories which have appeared in: "Over To You", "Kiss Kiss", "Someone Like You", "Switch Bitch" and eight further stories such as "The Umberella man"; "Mr Botibol"; "Vengeance in Mine inc"; "The Butler"; "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life"; "The Bookseller"; and, "The Hitchhiker, The Surgeon".

Author: Dahl, Roald  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/best-of-roald-dahl-418-29.html Contains stories that include "Over To You", "Someone Like You", "Kiss Kiss", "Switch Bitch", "Madame Rosette", "Man from the South", "The Sound Machine", "Taste", "Dip in the Pool", "Skin", "Edwards the Conqueror", "Lamb to the Slaughter", "Galloping Foxley", "The Way up to Heaven", "Parson's Pleasure", "The Landlady", and "William and Mary".

Author: Dahl, Roald  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/selected-short-stories-418-34.html Poet, novelist, painter and musician, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is the grand master of Bengali culture, and in the 1890s he concentrated on creating a new form, the short story. Many of his best stories were written during a period of relative isolation spent managing his family's estates in the riverlands of Bengal and they have been acclaimed as vivid portraits of Bengali life and landscapes, brilliantly polemical in their depiction of peasantry and gentry, casteism, corrupt officialdom and dehumanizing poverty. Yet Tagore is first and foremost India's supreme Romantic poet, and in these stories he can be seen reaching beyond mere documentary realism towards his own profoundly original vision. This edition includes a full introduction, selected letters and a glossary, and forms a companion volume to Tagore's Selected Poems, also edited and translated by William Radice. 'Lyrical, but powered by intensely vivid, largely natural imagery ... The very best of [his verse and short stories] convey a great strength and uplifting courage, while containing some of the finest evocations of childhood and natural beauty to be found in 20th century Romantic writing.' The Times

Author: Tagore, Rabindranath  Publisher: PENG MOD CLASSICS]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-best-of-ruskin-bond-418-44.html The essential Ruskin Bond Delhi Is Not Far brings together the best of Ruskin Bond s prose and poetry. For over four decades, by way of innumerable novels, essays, short stories, and poems, the author has mapped out and peopled a unique literary landscape. This anthology has selections from all of his major books and also features an unpublished novella, Delhi Is Not Far. Bond s sentences are moist with dew and the mountain air, with charm, nostalgia and underplayed humour...(he is) our resident Wordsworth in prose. India Today

Author: Bond, Ruskin  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/selected-poems-418-97043.html  William Radice's selections and translations from the Bengali reintroduce Tagore to a new generation of Western readers.

Author: Tagore, Rabindranath  Publisher: PENG MOD CLASSICS]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/a-town-called-malgudi-418-97044.html In a writing career spanning seven decades, R.K. Narayan enthralled and entertained generations of readers with his deftly etched characters, his uniquely stylized language and his wry sense of humour. A storyteller par excellence, Narayan s greatest achievement perhaps lies in creating and peopling the imagined landscapes of a town called Malgudi, located somewhere in South India, which has come alive in story after story in such a way that it has now become a part of modern Indian folklore. This collection brings between two covers some of the most memorable fiction that has emerged from R.K. Narayan s pen. It contains The Man-eater of Malgudi, which tells the story of Nataraj, owner of a small printing press, and his houseguest Vasu, a taxidermist, who moves into Nataraj s attic with a menagerie of dead animals. There is also Talkative Man, a novella that starts off with the arrival on the Delhi train of a stranger in a blue suit who takes up residence in the station waiting room and refuses to budge. Also included here are some of the most popular and striking short stories Narayan has written: from the celebrated A Horse and Two Goats and Salt and Sawdust to gems like An Astrologer s Day , The Shelter and Under the Banyan Tree . Encapsulating the very best of R.K. Narayan s remarkable output, this is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest modern writers in the English language.

Author: Narayan, R. K.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-stories-418-97045.html Full of premonitions and echoes of the larger fiction. Marquez has always been a romantic, and these stories abound with love affairs, ruined beauty, and magical women. It is essence of Marquez Guardian Starting with The Third Resignation and finishing with The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother , it enables the reader to chart Marquez s progress from the...formal experimentation of his early work to the full-blown magical.realism of his major novels. In other words it becomes more and more fun to read . It shows what fabulous really means Time Out A single sentence of Garcia Marquez often has more meat to it than many whole novels. Observer Of all the living authors known to me, only one is undoubtedly touched by genius: Gabriel Garcia Marquez ...The exactitude and felicity of his imagery are so great that reading a five-page story written as a single sentence The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship is a pleasure rather than a chore. Sunday Telegraph Marquez s vision is quite the nearest thing to pure sensual pleasure that prose can offer. Daily Telegraph

Author: Marquez, Gabriel Garcia  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-writings-418-97046.html R.K. Laxman, India's best-loved cartoonist, is also one of our most gifted storytellers. The same acerbic wit and quizzical insights that characterize his cartoons are in ample evidence in his writings as well. This ominous volume contains his two novels, The Hotel Riviera and The Messenger, and The Tunnel of Time, his autobiography.

Author: Laxman, R. K.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/magic-of-malgudi-418-97047.html A master of observation, subtlety and gentle wit, R.K. Narayan has few rivals when it comes to bringing alive people and places. Most of his timeless novels are set in the fictional town of Malgudi, located somewhere in South India, a town as real to his readers as any they will find on the map. This volume contains three quintessential Malgudi novels Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The Vendor of Sweets. Swami and Friends, published in 1935, was the first novel Narayan wrote. Described by Graham Greene as a novel in ten thousand , it recounts the adventures of ten-year-old Swaminathan and his friends Rajam and Mani. The Bachelor of Arts, the second novel in the collection, is a brilliantly realized account of the workings of a young man s mind. It is the story of Chandran, in his final year at college, who falls hopelessly in love and is forced to exile himself from the familiar surroundings of Malgudi until he is able to arrive at a satisfactory resolution to his problems. The Vendor of Sweets showcases a classic cross-generational battle, between Jagan, a widower of firm Ghandian principles, and his modern son Mali, who returns to Malgudi with a half-American wife and a grand plan for selling story-writing machines. The third in the series of Penguin India s collectors editions of the Malgudi novels, The Magic of Malgudi, with an introduction by S. Krishnan, will delight first-time readers as well as devoted Narayan fans. Narayan has a faultless ear for the intricate eccentricities of Indian English. The Times

Author: Narayan, R. K.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/memories-of-malgudi-418-97048.html Excellent reviews of the five novels in this anthology: The Dark Room, The English Teacher, Waiting for the Mahatma, The Guide, the World of Nagaraj. ed by S. irshnan. includes critical introdc.

Author: Narayan, R. K.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/room-on-the-roof-vagrants-in-t-418-97049.html Two classic novels of adolescence by one of India s finest writers. In The Room on the Roof, Rusty, a sixteen-year-old Anglo-Indian boy, decides he has had enough of the tiny, diminshing European community and his tyrannical guardian, and runs away. To his delight, Rusty finds that life on the open road is packed with excitement and high adventure.... In Vagrants in the Valley, which picks up from where the first book ends, Rusty is joined in his travels by Kishen, another runaway . As they venture further into the unknown, they discover new friends and participate in more escapades but also begin to understand the complexities of growing up and the boundaries that circumscribe even the freest spirits... Sharply observed, witty and wise, haunted on every page by the sights, smells and sounds of India, this evocation of youth, innocence and friendship will be read for a long time to come with deep, lasting pleasure. Like an Indian bazaar itself, the book is filled with the smells, sights, sounds, confusion and subtle organization of ordinary Indian life. Santha Rama Rau in The New York Times Book Review Has a special magic of its own Herald Tribune Book Review Considerable charm and spontaneity... San Francisco Chronicle Very engaging... The Guardian Moving in its simplicity and underlying tenderness...a novel of marked originality. The Scotsman Mr Bond is a writer of great gifts... The New Statesman

Author: Bond, Ruskin  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/selected-fiction-418-97050.html A superb collection of fiction from one of India s greatest living writers Some of the stories included in this collection are: The Legends of Khasak The Saga of Dharmapuri The Infinity of Grace O.V. Vijayan is one of the most brilliant and original of the contemporary Indian authors. His fiction, written in Malayalam, is complex and poetic, a sumptuous blend of myth, dark humour, eroticism, mystical insights and a uniquely Indian brand of magic realism. This collection brings together for the first time all four of Vijayan s books translated into English so far. In his much-acclaimed first novel The Legends of Khasak , Ravi, a schoolteacher, arrives in the remote village of Khasak and is gradually engulfed by the dreams and fables of that ancient land. In the controversial political allegory The Saga of Dharmapuri , the tyrannical President of Dharmapuri and Siddhaartha, a travelling mystic and messiah, engage in an unending symbolic battle. In the award-winning The Infinity of Grace , Kunjunni, a journalist, goes to Calcutta to cover the Bangladesh war, and attempts to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter who live there. Through the personal trauma that follows, he arrives at a transcendental understanding of life and the harmony implicit in apparently chaotic events. The final section of this volume comprises twenty-one short stories which include classics such as After the Hanging , Oil , Wind Flowers , Anachronisms and The Foetus . Together, they bear testimony to Vijayan s skills as an unusually innovative and evocative writer of romances, parables and tales of the supernatural. A definitive collection, Selected Fiction is like a good piece of halwa. You ll never want it to end. And by the time you re through with it you will be a member of the Vijayan fan club. The Week

Author: Vijayan, O. V.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/world-of-malgudi-418-97051.html This is R.K. Narayan s classic chronicle of the adventures of a boy named Swami, and his friends Rajam and Mani, in a sleepy and picturesque South Indian town called Malgudi. Swami s days are full of action when he is not creating a ruckus in the classroom or preparing in his inimitable way for exams, he s trying to acquire a hoop from the coachman s son to run down the Malgudi streets, playing tricks on his grandmother, or stoning the school windows, inspired by a swadeshi demonstration. But the greatest feat of Swami and his friends lies in putting together a cricket team for the MCC (the Malgudi Cricket Club) and challenging the neighbouring Young Men s Union to a match. Just before the match, however, things go horribly, horribly wrong, and Swami has no option but to run away from home, wanting never to return to Malgudi again . . . Malgudi Schooldays is a brilliantly evocative and delightfully funny account of the growing-up years from one of the greatest English language writers of our time. Includes a slightly abridged version of the novel Swami and Friends along with two other Swami stories, available together for the first time Features fifteen black-and-white illustrations by R.K. Laxman Attractive design The first in a series of Indian literature classics on the Puffin list

Author: Narayan, R. K.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-plays-vol-1-418-97052.html Mahesh Dattani is the first Indian playwright writing in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award. His plays bring Indian drama into the present day in their themes sexuality, religious tension and gender issues while still focussing on human relationships and personal and moral choices which are the classic concerns of world drama. Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man and On a Muggy Night in Mumbai have been staged to critical and public acclaim all over the country and abroad, and his radio plays, Seven Steps Around the Fire and Do the Needful, have been aired on BBC radio. The plays in this collection are prefaced by introductions, which provide fascinating insights into the plays-in-performance in the context of Indian and world theatre. These eight plays, widely varied in thematic and stylistic content, are a tribute to the dramatic vision and skill of a man who has transformed the face of urban theatre in India. [Dattani s work] probes tangled attitudes in contemporary India towards communal differences, consumerism and gender a brilliant contribution to Indian drama in English. Sahitya Akademi award citation At last we have a playwright who gives sixty million English-speaking Indians an identity. Thank you, Mahesh Dattani! Alyque Padamsee

Author: Dattani, Mahesh  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-plays-vol-2-418-97053.html Mahesh Dattani is India s best-known playwright and the first Indian playwright writing in English to have won the Sahitya Akademi award. Collected Plays: Volume II showcases Dattani s talent as a writer and director and his wide thematic and stylistic range. The ten plays in this volume include 30 Days in September, performed extensively in India and abroad to commercial success and critical acclaim, the radio plays aired on BBC Radio and the screen plays of Mango Souffl (winner of the Best Motion Picture Award at the Barcelona Film Festival), Dance Like a Man (winner of the Best Picture in English awarded by the National Panorama), and Morning Raga, premiered at the Cairo Film Festival and winner of the award for best artistic contribution, that established Dattani as the new voice of contemporary Indian cinema. With a general introduction by Jeremy Mortimer of BBC Radio and introductions to individual plays by actors like Lillete Dubey and Shabana Azmi, the plays in this collection provide fascinating insights into the human psyche and reveal just how caught up we are in the complications and contradictions of our values and assumptions. A playwright of world stature Mario Relich, Wasafiri Mr. Dattani is a canny and facile writer . . . Powerful and disturbing Stephen Bruckner, The New York Times Since Salman Rushdie swung open the door to the West, English language Indian novelists have wowed the world. Indian playwrights have been less conspicuous except for Mahesh Dattani Vibhuti Patel, Newsweek International

Author: Dattani, Mahesh  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-poems-418-97054.html The Collected Poems comprises all the volumes of poetry that Vikram Seth has published this far. The books included are Mappings (1981), The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985), All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990), Three Chinese Poets (1992), Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) and Arion and the Dolphin (1994). An introduction by the poet prefaces the volume. Praise for Vikram Seth's poetry The best of his generation The Times Mappings 'Fluent, witty and accomplished writing by a man in full command of the resources of the language the final impression is one of overwhelming mastery.' Indian Review of Books The Humble Administrator's Garden 'Seth combines in a unique way the casual tone and movement usually associated with light verse with a profoundly and controlled passion rarely equaled in his contemporaries.' Indian Review of Books All You Who Sleep Tonight 'These are karmic poems, some throbbing with the tension of pain, others arching and ebbing with the flow of life This collection has no flaws anywhere' The Independent Three Chinese Poets 'Seth translates the (Chinese Poets) with immense felicity, easily outshining earlier renderings the poet's skill is evident in every cadence and rhyme' India Today Beastly Tales from Here and There 'This collection of children's tales for grown-ups will prove in time a modern classic with a variety of literary interpretations and philosophical implications.' The Hindustan Times Arion and Dolphin 'Firmly resident in the realm of wonder.' Economis

Author: Seth, Vikram  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-stories-vol-1-418-97055.html Not many readers of Shashi Deshpande may be aware that her first experiments in writing fiction started with the short story. Over the years, she has published about a hundred stories in literary journals, magazines and newspapers, in between writing her immensely popular novels which are now read all over the world, and taught in universities wherever Indian writing has an audience. In this collection we find Shashi Deshpande at her best, writing with subtlety and a rare sensitivity about men and women trapped in relationships and situations often not of their making. The wife of a successful politician who must look to a long-lost past in order to keep up the pretence of contentment; a little girl who cannot comprehend why the very fact of her being born is a curse; a young man whose fantasy of love drives him to murder; a newly-wed couple with dramatically differing views on what it means to get to know each other every one of the characters here is delineated with lucidity and compassion. Written over the past three decades, the stories in this volume provide an insight into often forgotten aspects of human feelings and relationships, weaving a magical web of emotions that is testimony to the unusual depth and range of Shashi Deshpande s writing. Shashi Deshpande takes us into realms of the female psyche which no writer of the previous generation had dared put into words as candidly Dieter Riemenschneider in The Story Must Be Told Deshpande s finely honed sensibility infuses the delicate interplay of human relationships with a realistic ambience which serves to crystallize our thoughts, and all at once we see in her a natural extension of our own cognitive parameters The Times of India

Author: Deshpande, Shashi  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collected-stories-vol-2-418-97056.html Writing is, to me, a way of exploring the world,’ says best-selling novelist and short-story writer Shashi Deshpande. In this, the second volume of her collected short fiction, we travel with her into a world of characters and situations that are identifiable, and experience emotions that are at once complex and cathartic. Intensely felt and beautifully rendered, these are stories that will stay with you a long, long time.

Author: Deshpande, Shashi  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/indian-identity-418-97057.html An internationally renowned Psychoanalyst and writer, Sudhir Kakar has been a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago, Harvard, McCill, Melbourne, Hawaii and Vienna, and a Fellow at the Institutes of Advanced Study, Princeton and Berlin. Currently, he is Adjunct Professor of Leadership at INSEAD in Fontainbleau, Frane. His many honours include the Bhabha, Nehru and National Fellowship in India, the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, the Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthroplogy of the American Anthropological Association, and Germany's Goethe Medal. About Author : Sudhir Kakar's books, both non-fiction and fiction, have been translated into twenty languages. His non-fiction works include The Indians: Portrait of a People, The Inner World: A Psychoanalytical Study of Childhood and Society in India; Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality; The Analyst and the Mystic; Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism and The Colours of Violence. His three published novels are The Ascetic of Desire, Ecstasy and Mira and the Mahatma. He has also translated (with Wendy Doniger) Vatsyayan's Kamasutra. Contents : Introduction Scenes from Marriages Lovers in the Dark The Sex Wars Husbands and Others Gandi and Women Masculine/eminine: A View from the Couch An Ending

Author: Kakar, Sudhir  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/malgudi-landscapes-418-97058.html The best of a lifetime's work---novels, short stories, essays, travel pieces and short non-fiction-of one of the world's finest writers comes together in one volume inMalgudi Landscapes.  Skillfully edited and introduced by S Krishnan, this selection brings Malgudi, the enchanting little South Indian town that R K Narayan created over half a century ago, to glorious and colourful life.

Author: Narayan, R. K.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/memories-of-madness-:-stories-of-1947-418-97059.html Stories about the human cost of Partition Independence for India, in 1947, came with a price: division on the basis of religion. In the communal riots that followed, hundreds of thousands were killed and millions rendered homeless. And the tragic legacy of Partition haunts the subcontinent even today. "Memories of Madness" brings together works by three leading writers who witnessed the insanity of those months. Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh's debut novel, tells the story of a village in Punjab, Mano Majra, where Muslims and Sikhs have co-existed peacefully, till one night in 1947, when a ghost train arrives from across the new border, bearing corpses of butchered refugees. As mistrust grows into hate and the people of Mano Majra lose their humanity, it is left to an outcast, a Sikh dacoit in love with a Muslim girl, to avert another carnage. Bhisham Sahni's Tamas is a harrowing portrait of a small frontier town in the grip of communal frenzy. Based on the author's own experience of riots in Rawalpindi, this celebrated novel describes the murder and mayhem triggered off by the discovery of a pig's carcass outside a mosque. The matchless stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, the greatest short story writer in the Urdu language, round off this collection. In addition to his most famous story, 'Toba Tek Singh', the selection includes ten other sketches and stories in which Manto turns his unflinching gaze on history's criminals, victims and unlikely heroes. As moving as they are disturbing, the stories in this volume are of immense relevance in these times, for they constitute a chilling reminder of the consequences of communal politics.

Author: Singh, Khushwant, Sahni, Bhisham & Manto  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/saratchandra-omnibus-volume-1-418-97060.html Saratchandra Chattopadhyay is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Indian novelists of the twentieth century. His novels, serialized in periodicals and subsequently published in book form, earned Saratchandra immense fame in the early decades of the century, and established him as Bengal s master storyteller. Even today, seven decades after his death, Saratchandra remains one of the most popular novelists in Bengal, and is widely read in translation across India as well. This collector s edition of Saratchandra s works in English translation brings together the writer s most renowned and best-loved novels in two omnibus volumes. The first volume features five novels: Srikanta, Devdas, Parineeta, Palli Samaj and Nishkriti. Srikanta is the story of a wanderer who observes the people around him; through them especially the women he loves and respects, from the sacrificing Annada Didi and the rebellious Abhaya to the housewife Rajlakshmi and the courtesan Pyari Bai he tries to arrive at an understanding of life. Devdas, on the other hand, is the tragic tale of a man who drives himself to drink and debilitation when he is unable to marry his childhood sweetheart Paro. In Parineeta (Espoused), the orphaned Lalita is secretly in love with her guardian Shekhar, but circumstances conspire to drive the two apart. Palli Samaj (The Village Life) has Ramesh, an engineer, returning to the village of his birth to try and rid it of the backwardness that plagues it, even as he tries to revive his childhood ties with Rama, now a widow. In Nishkriti (Deliverance), the strong-willed Shailaja, the youngest daughter-in-law in a joint family, is made an outcast as a result of a misunderstanding; much later, her elders realize their mistake, just in time to save the family from disintegration. Each of the novels showcases the qualities Saratchandra is famous for: everyday stories told in a simple yet gripping style, strong characters, meticulous plotting, true-to-life dialogue, and unforgettable depictions of life in turn-of-the-century Bengal. Translated especially for Penguin, these classic novels will delight those new to Saratchandra s works as well as those who want to return to them again.

Author: Chattopadhyay, Saratchandra  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/selected-fiction-418-97061.html In this collection of twenty-seven short stories, a novelette and a novel, there are many delightful tales, characters and situations to encounter and relish. The stories range from the light-hearted to the sombre. Many are laced with Manoj Das characteristic irony. Told with humour and compassion, wit and sensitivity, this collection brings together the best of the works of one of India s most mature and rewarding writers. Manoj Das [will] take place on my bookshelves beside the stories of Narayan Graham Greene Das's ghosts are people one might like to meet. Das Transports us into a space at once simpler and more entertaining than the world in which we live. The worlds he conjures up are more than welcome in an age of excessive striving after complexity, the direct and chatty writing style refreshing in an era of increased experimentation with language.' Hindustan Times, New Delhi The author is an extremely skilled exponent of the short story, weaving the medium with magic and whimsy.' Deccan Chronicle Manoj Das not only creates a rural, semi-urban environment effortlessly, he also provides an authentic voice which deeply reflects the vernacular, depth, substance and humour. The short stories are very skillful, indeed. Characters are so finely etched. Luminous re-discovery of the quiet life.' The Indian Express, New Delhi

Author: Das, Manoj  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/tagore-omnibus-volume-1-418-97062.html Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore was India s leading litterateur of the early twentieth century. Tagore was one of the country s pioneering novelists, keen to experiment with form and bold in his choice of subjects. His novels are remembered for their innovative narrative structures, profound insights into human relationships, and evocatively lyrical language. This collector s edition of Rabindranath Tagore s novels in English translation brings together the writer s best-known novels in two omnibus volumes. The first volume features three novels Chokher Bali, Ghare Baire and Yogayog and two novellas: Chaturanga and Malancha. Chokher Bali (A Grain of Sand) is a classic exposition of an extramarital affair that takes place within the confines of a joint family. Asha, the simple, demure wife of the rich, flamboyant Mahendra, befriends Binodini, a vivacious young widow who comes to live with them; but both Mahendra and Binodini betray Asha s trust and elope, leaving the marriage in ruins. Set against the backdrop of the Partition of Bengal by the British in 1905, Ghare Baire (Home and the World) is also the tale of a triangular relationship: between the liberal-minded zamindar Nikhilesh, his educated and sensitive wife Bimala, and Sandip, Nikhilesh s friend, a charismatic revolutionary who Bimala becomes attracted to. Chaturanga (Quartet) traces the philosophical and emotional developments between Sachish, a brilliant young atheist who turns ascetic after the untimely death of his mentor, his friend Sribilash, and Damini, a young widow sheltered by the guru Lilananda, who Sachish and Sribilash become devotees of. Set in the historical context of the decline of the landed aristocracy in Bengal and the emergence of the entrepreneur class, Yogayog (Nexus) is the tale of Kumudini, the daughter of a cultured family that has fallen on bad times, who is torn between her loyalties to Madhusudan, her crass and self-serving husband, and Bipradas, her artistic and compassionate brother, as she struggles desperately to find an identity for herself. Finally, Malancha (The Garden) features the loving but childless couple Aditya and Neerja whose calm domestic world is shattered when Neerja is struck down by illness and suspects Sarala, Aditya s childhood friend, of usurping her place both in Aditya s heart and in their beloved garden. Written in Tagore s inimitable style and full of surprising turns of plot and unforgettable studies of the human psyche, each of these novels, available here in modern, lucid translations, will delight all lovers of classic fiction.

Author: Tagore, Rabindranath  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/variety-of-absences-:-collected-memoirs-418-97063.html This omnibus edition, A Variety Of Absences is a collection of memoirs by Dom Moraes and brings together three classic autobiographical books. Gone Away, My Son's Father and Never at Home, each published to immense critical acclaim, constitute a fascinating story of a young man's passage from a traumatic childhood and adolescence to manhood, surviving early fame, alcohol, strange exiles and difficult loves. In the tradition of the great literary biographies, these memoirs, available for the first time in a single volume, transform remembered fact into memorable art.

Author: Moraes, Dom  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/tiger-at-twilight-cyclones-a-418-58124.html ‘Manoj Das . . . [will] take a place on my shelves beside the stories of Narayan’—Graham Greene This volume presents two celebrated novels by Manoj Das, one of India’s most illustrious authors, who has been writing in English and Oriya for over six decades. In A Tiger at Twilight the erstwhile raja of Samargarh returns to his abandoned palace in Nijanpur, after years of self-exile, with his sick daughter and his supposed half-sister, and immediately assumes the responsibility of killing a man-eating tiger. Assisting him are a few noted men of the valley including Dev the owner and manager of a resort. But as the hunt intensifies Dev realizes that things aren’t as they seem: Heera, the raja’s sister, has an inexplicable power over the men in the hunting party and a strange connection with the tiger. As the men get closer to killing the beast, bizarre things begin to happen, hinting at the influence of the supernatural. Cyclones is set in Kusumpur, a small coastal village, during the struggle for Independence. The village is devastated by a cyclone and Sandip, the scion of the zamindari family, helps restore it. The war-time colonial government, though, wants to turn the sleepy hamlet into a busy port town. They plan to fill up the river that flows by it, in the process angering all the villagers, including Sandip. But when the contractor for the project is found murdered, Sandip is accused of the crime, forcing him to flee from the authorities. This is the start of a series of adventures that take him from a remote ashram in a forest to the city where communal violence is rife. Cyclones is a powerful novel about the metaphorical storms that gripped the nation during the most turbulent period of its modern history.

Author: Das, Manoj  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Sun, 09 May 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/classic-lewis-carroll-418-50742.html Nonsense stories, verses, puzzles and games from the world of Lewis Carroll Here are the nonsense classics and the unforgettable characters created by that witty, enigmatic mathematician who wrote under the name of Lewis Carroll. This omnibus edition contains a treasure-house of stories, poems, games and puzzles, many of which were originally devised for children but are irresistible to readers of all ages. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Through the Looking-Glass The Hunting of the Snark Sylvie and Bruno Phantasmagoria and Other Stories

Author: Carroll, Lewis  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/classic-sherlock-holmes-418-50743.html In four novels and fifty-six short stories, the exciting adventures of Baker Street’s most famous resident -Sherlock Holmes Known and loved for over a century, this shrewd amateur detective, with the faithful Watson by his side, has delighted readers across the world. This handsome omnibus edition stands as a lasting tribute to the indestructible sleuth and his famous creator. A Study in Scarlet The Sign of Four The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes The Return of Sherlock Holmes The Hound of Baskervilles The Valley of Fear His Last Bow The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:30:00 +0100