The Accidental Prime Minister : The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh
By: Sanjaya Baru Pages: 320 Publisher: Viking/Penguin Price: Rs 599
As Singh's trusted aide for four years, Sanjaya Baru observed up close his often troubled relations with his ministers, his cautious equation with Sonia Gandhi and how he handled the big crises. In this book, Baru tells all and draws a revelatory picture of what it was like for Singh to work in a government that had two centres of power.
The Past as Present : Forging Contemporary Identities through History
By: Romila Thapar
Pages: 344 Publisher: Aleph Book Company Price: Rs 595
Many popularly held views about the past need to be critically inquired into before they can be taken as historical. Which of us is Aryan or Dravidian? Why is it important for Indian society to be secular? Through the incisive essays in this book, Romila Thapar argues it is of critical importance for the past to be carefully explained.
Post Haste: Quintessential India
By: B G Verghese Pages: 372 Publisher: Tranquebar/Westland Price: Rs 1, 295
Post Haste offers a tour d'horizon of what constitutes Incredible India that is Bharat. This is both a modern nation-state in the making and an ancient civilizational concept that bounds together an amazing heterogeneity of peoples, histories and cultures. The book is a thumbnail account of India which tells readers things they never learnt at school or what they might easily read within single covers in a library.
The Invention of Wings
By: Sue Monk Kidd Pages: 373 Publisher: Hachette Price: Rs 399
Sarah Grimke is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty ‘Handful’ Grimke is taken from the slave quarters, wrapped in lavender ribbons and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows she cannot accept. And so trouble begins..