Advs #4 : HOT NEW RELEASES IN BOOKS TO BUY ON AMAZON

1. A Map of Longings: Life and Works of Agha Shahid Ali

Author:  Manan Kapoor 

Publisher:  Penguin

Print length:  232 pages

Release date:  7 June 2021

Price:  ₹399.00 (price may vary)

Review

Born in a highly educated family, Shahid was brought up in a liberal environment, where he didn't mind dressing up as Krishna in his youth, while at the same time wrote poetry about Christ or Karbala. His love for Ghazal was eternal, and due to his sincerity, his translations were eventually brought to the American audiences, who were alien about the genre. The author calls him a Rumi's heir in South Asia. Despite being celebrated in America in academic traditions, it’s unfortunate that his work is not lamented, by the Kashmiri public the way it should. Infact, by the the late 90s, when Shahid was awarded Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim Foundation grant, and an Ingram Merill fellowship, he had established himself as an acclaimed poet. He read his poetry in prestigious universities like Yale, and Penn State, and attended numerous recognised exhibitions. Still, there are no symposiums on his poetic works in Kashmir, despite producing seminal works like The Country without a Post Office, The Veiled Suite, and The Half Inch Himalayas etc - Naveed Qazi

About the Author

Manan Kapoor is the author of The Lamentations of a Sombre Sky, which was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2017. He was a writer-in-residence at Sangam House writers' residency in 2019. His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, Caravan, The Hindu, Scroll, Firstpost and the Wire, among other publications.

 

2. Syncretic Islam: Life and Times of Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi

Author:  Anil Maheshwari, Richa Singh

Publisher: Bloomsbury India

Print length: 272 pages

Release date: 18 April 2021

Price:  ₹281.00 (price may vary)

Review

Syncretic Islam is a fascinating and brilliant study of the religious thought and career of one of the doyens of Muslim traditionalism in South Asia, Imam Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi. An Islamic scholar, jurist and an Urdu poet, Ahmad Raza Khan was the founder of the Barelvi movement whose defining feature of thought is the active veneration of the Prophet as the most exalted of all beings. This work overviews and analyses the multiple facets constituting Ahmad Raza Khan's intellectual life and, in extension, the Barelvi school of thought in an eminently accessible manner. It is the story of a remarkable revivalist, born in the North Indian town of Bareilly during British India, who grew up to be hailed by his followers as the mujaddid, or reviver, of Islam in nineteenth-century India.

A Pathan by descent, Hanafi by religious mores, Qadiri by disposition and Barelvi by nativity, Syncretic Islam captures the astounding contribution of Ahmad Raza Khan and attempts to explain his spiritual influence that still binds millions of people in the Indian subcontinent.

About the Author

Anil Maheshwari served for about five decades in journalism and retired from the Hindustan Times as Special Correspondent. He was posted at Bareilly during 2000-2006, which gave him a better understanding of the Barelvi movement.

Richa Singh is a research scholar at the University of Delhi.

 

3. The Conscientious Manager: Nurturing Workplace Ethics and Synergies

Author: Bala Phani Chand Medicharla

Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd

Print length: 292 pages

Release date: 15 July 2021

Price: ₹378.00 (price may vary)

Review

‘Conscientious’ comes from the root word ‘conscience’, which gives a person a sense of right and wrong to guide one’s behaviour. We live in challenging times which are likely to put us on horns of dilemma. The Conscientious Manager by Phani Medicharla comes like a breath of fresh air to refresh youngsters, learners and leaders in the context of their life. The stories speak to your heart, the examples tell you it is possible and, importantly, the questions nudge you to action. It is a delight to savour. -- Emmanuel David ― Director, Tata Management Training Centre; Strategic Leader, Influencer and Coach

Phani Medicharla has written a wonderfully readable book full of wisdom which applies to business and life. The book is organized in bite-sized, memorable tales which combine our childhood love of stories with our adult desire to extract knowledge from life experience. The result is guide to interpersonal challenges and organizational dynamics in business that you won’t be able to put down or forget. -- Dr Tanya Menon ― Professor of Management and Human Resources, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University

About the Author

Phani Medicharla is an avid writer (storyteller and poet) in the world of technology consulting. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, and works as a relationship manager, heading a large technology function for TCS. Phani has international exposure working in geographies such as―APAC, North America and Europe―working with several global customers in multiple business domains. In his long career, he has performed several roles, led diverse multicultural teams and interacted with great leaders.

Phani is a keen observer of the day-to-day workplace interactions and an advocate of experiential learning. He strongly believes that appreciating diversity and inspiring the latent potential in each other with empathy, are the only ways to succeed collectively and deliver sustainable value in any profession. What motivates him the most in the workplace is the opportunity to cultivate a cheerful and embracing environment which promotes holistic growth for everyone. A vegan by choice, Phani believes in a higher purpose for life and that technology/business should be conducted with an ‘ethics first’ attitude.

 

4. Orienting: An Indian in Japan

Author: Pallavi Aiyar

Publisher: HarperCollins India

Print length: 304 pages

Release date: 3 August 2021

Price: ₹399.00 (price may vary)

Review

Pallavi Aiyar has written, especially for Indians, but not only, a revealing, witty, sensitive, empathetic, insightful and highly readable book on understanding the inscrutable Japanese and their opaque society, It is equal to a dozen learned books on this subject.

Pavan K. Varma

Japan has long fascinated Indian political leaders, cultural personalities, administrators and scholars. One of the hit Bollywood films when I was a teenager was called Love in Tokyo. Buddhism has tied the two together. Pallavi Aiyar’s perspective is, however, distinctive. She is an intrepid globe-trotter and a delightful story-teller. Having written earlier about her stints in China, Europe and Indonesia, she now turns her sharp eye for the unusual on Japan. Orienting will be of great value to the serious reader. But it is written in a most engaging manner, making it accessible to anyone seeking to understand the many complexities of Japanese society

About the Author

Award-winning journalist Pallavi Aiyar has spent several years reporting from, and parenting in, China, Europe and Indonesia. She is the author of Smoke and Mirrors, Chinese Whiskers and Punjabi Parmesan. Pallavi is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a former Reuters Fellow at Oxford University.

 

5. Still Life

Author: Sarah Winman

Publisher: Fourth Estate

Print length: 464 pages

Release date: 30 June 2021

Price: ₹360.00 (price may vary)

Review

‘Glorious … This luscious and clever book is at first glance simply a rollicking summer read … It’s a joy to witness several different thoroughly believable models of how lives can be resurrected and changed for the better’ The Times

‘Winman’s pages teem with boisterous, exuberant life … The novel has verve, charm and tremendous heart; its most poignant scenes, set during the 1966 flooding of Florence, recall the darkest hours of last year’s pandemic’ Sunday Times

About the Author

Sarah Winman is author of When God Was a Rabbit, A Year of Marvellous Ways and Tin Man. She lives in London.

 

6. The Secret-Keeper of Jaipur

Author: Alka Joshi

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print length: 352 pages

Release date: 17 July 2021

Price: ₹319.00 (price may vary)

Review

“Alka Joshi is a master storyteller.” CHRISTY LEFTERI, author, The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Songbirds

“An applause-worthy encore.” BOOKLIST

About the Author

Alka Joshi is the New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist. Born in India and raised in the United States since the age of nine, she has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of the Arts. She lives in Pacific Grove, California, with her husband.

 

 

7. Hesitancies: Poems

Author: Sanjeev Sethi

Publisher: CLASSIX

Print length: 100 pages

Release date: 30 June 2021

Review

Hesitancies is Sanjeev Sethi’s fifth book of poems. He is in fine form: he broadens his gaze, looks deeper at himself and his settings. The timbre of a lived life follows his poetic trail. To read him is to recap a glimpse of the hand one is dealt with. His poems throb with edged sequences flirting with the savories of nuance playing footsie with the palette of possibilities. His inflection is irenic. He sutures the lesions with the fine thread of inventiveness. Hesitancies will hasp you to its interiority, urging you to seek oneness with its rhythms and residues.

 

8. Mahasena: Part One of the Murugan Trilogy: Book One of the Murugan Trilogy

Author: Kala Krishnan

Publisher: Context

Print length: 264 pages

Release date: 19 July 2021

Price: ₹340.00 (price may vary)

Review

The Vast: a still, dark, endless field of nothing, in which something broods and gathers, rising and billowing into waves. Everything emerges from these waves of the Vast, including Time, Creation, and the woman and two men known as The Three. From the waves come multitudes of beings, including the Asura, those of untiring breath who seek knowledge, and the Sura, the bright ones who keep order.

The greatest of all the Sura and Asura is Surapadman, who will embody inventiveness, wisdom and statecraft for all time to come. The only one who can counter his might and his challenge to the rules of creation is Karthikeya, child of Shambhu and Uma, and brother to Ganesha, the all-seeing elephant-headed god.

Kala Krishnan has been exploring the Murugan universe for years now. In this first volume of a planned trilogy, she expands the mythologies of the god. Kumara, Karthikeya, Kandhan, Velan, he is the god of Tamizh, the patron of the Great Assembly of poets in Madurai, friend and mentor to the hot-headed and fiercely loyal Aambal, who is known to all as ‘Murugan’s poet’.

A reimagining of the life and exploits of the magnificent young god, Mahasena is resonant with the stories that were, as well as vividly original.

‘Full of charm and delight—as much an homage to a cherished boy-god as it is a stirring panegyric to Tamizh and to poets everywhere.’ Sharanya Manivannan

About the Author

Kala Krishnan works in Bengaluru. She is the author of two books of poetry, He Is Honey, Salt and the Most Perfect Grammar and Offer Him All Things Charred, Burned and Cindered, in which the god Murugan appears in surprising versions.

 

9. Shamal Days: A Novel

Author: Sabin Iqbal

Publisher: HarperCollins India

Print length: 316 pages

Release date: 28 May 2021

Price: ₹258.00 (price may vary)

Review

‘In this study of aloneness, caused as much by one’s isolation in an unfamiliar land as it is by making a living in the production of news, Sabin Iqbal gives us a history of the Indian in West Asia that I have not encountered in the Indian English novel. It is told with what is rare today – the energy of honesty, and affection for those left outside the news.’ – Sumana Roy, author of Missing and How I Became a Tree

‘In this coming-to-terms-with-life story, Sabin has, in this condensation of images into words, invited the reader into a behind- and beyond-the-headlines prism of human happenings. Sabin gifts us with a motif: the Shamal – legendary northwesterly wind the book is named after – that presides over the Gulf region where the story is set.

‘Abbas, our protagonist, is an editor at a small newspaper, the Gulf Mirror. And the publication is the perch from where, with trenchant clarity, he observes and experiences the world. Abbas is just one of the many drawn to a place that is a magnet for those in pursuit of their dreams and opportunities.

About the Author

Sabin Iqbal is a well-established journalist and author of the critically acclaimed The Cliffhangers. He is also festival director and curator of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters.

 

10. Generations

Author: Neela Padmanabhan (Author), Ka. Naa. Subramaniam (Translator)

Publisher: Niyogi Books Pvt. Ltd.

Print length: 244 pages

Release date: 15 May 2021

Price: ₹275.00 (price may vary)

Review

Generations is an intricate tale, simply told by a master of fiction about a community of Tamil speakers who live on the borders of modern-day Kerala. Set in the 1940s, it is a novel of generational change and conflict, and how the boy Diravi grows up to take charge of his family, which embodies a distinct culture. Diravi’s sister, Nagu’s marriage to Perumal is wrecked when the latter, enraged at his own failings, rejects his young wife. Unnacceptable in her own family, Nagu continues to endure Perumal’s cruelty till her brother, Diravi decides on an alternative course of action slashing through outdated social customs that discourage any constructive solutions. Amidst the background of language, myth, and ethnic consciousness, we are offered a sensitively drawn profile of the passing of a traditional way of life into modernity and the nostalgia that comes with change.

About the Author

Neela Padmanabhan was born in Kanyakumari district. He has written 20 novels, 10 short story collections, 4 volumes of poetry and 7 essay collections in Tamil. In Malayalam, he has published a novel, 4 short story collections and a single essay collection. Besides Tamil and Malayalam, he also has a few English works to his credit. During 1985–89 he was the Tamil editor at Sahitya Akademi. In 2007, he was awarded with the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil for his novel Ilai uthir kaalam (Autumn). He had earlier won the Sahitya Akademi Translation award in 2003 for his translation of Ayyappa Paniker’s works into Tamil. In 2010, his debut work, Talaimuraikal, was made into a Tamil film, titled Magizhchi (Happiness). Translator Ka. Naa. Subramanyam (31 January 1912–18 December 1988) was a Tamil writer and critic from Tamil Nadu, India. He is also popularly known by his Tamil initials as Ka. Naa. Su. He also wrote poems using the pseudonym Mayan. He published many literary journals like Ilakkiyavattam, Sooravali, and Chandraodayam. In 1986, he was awarded with the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil for his literary criticism Ilakkiyathukku oru Iyakkam (A Movement for Literature).

 

11. Development, Distribution, and Markets

Author: Kaushik Basu (Editor), Eric Verhoogen (Editor), Sudipto Mundle (Editor), Maitreesh Ghatak (Editor), Kenneth Kletzer (Editor)

Publisher: OUP India

Print length: 368 pages

Release date: 9 September 2021

Price: ₹1,384.00 (price may vary)

Review

This volume is a testament to the breadth and policy relevance of development economics today. It grapples with questions on how to design anti-poverty policies and under what conditions we can expect them to be successful. It concentrates on programmes and policies for India and covers international experience with cash transfer programmes. The work in this area applies core theoretical insights to policy discussions surrounding poverty measurement, income inequality, rural unemployment, and compares alternative growth strategies in terms of their impact on poverty and inequality. The book closes with chapters that trespass the boundaries of economics and enter the territory of politics, to engage urgent concerns of the day that are the basis of much dispute and debate. The essays are collected under three broad themes-anti-poverty policies; land, labour, and financial markets; and political economy.

About the Author

Kaushik Basu is Carl Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Eric Verhoogen is Professor, Department of Economics and School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Sudipto Mundle is Distinguished Fellow at National Council for Applied Economic Research, New Delhi . Maitreesh Ghatak is Professor of Economics and Director, Development Economics Programme, STICERD, London School of Economics and Political Science. Kenneth Kletzer is Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz.

 

12. The Elusive Tipping Point: India-China Ties for a New Order

Author: P S Suryanarayana

Publisher: World Scientific

Print length: 276 pages

Release date: 1 January 2021

Price: ₹1,088.00 (price may vary)

Review

The elusive tipping point: India-China ties for a new order is a timely foreign-policy-relevant book. This insightful book delves deep into the reasons for frequent diplomatic and strategic crises between Asia’s two dynamic ancient civilisations with post modern capabilities. Set in the context of seventieth anniversary of china-india diplomacy, the spotlight is turned on their complex search for neighbourliness and global good. Often a mirage, the positive tipping point in their state-to-state relations is traced through the past, the present and the potential future. A controversial missed opportunity in the past and a collective-win approach for the present are explored. For Beijing and Delhi, imaginative all-weather dialogue is the best option if they wish to stabilise their engagement for the uncertain future. Despite their major military crisis, PRC and India are expected to shape a realistic post-covid world order.

13. Skill It, Kill It: Up Your Game

Author: Ronnie Screwvala

Publisher: Penguin Portfolio

Print length: 224 pages

Release date: 5 July 2021

Price: ₹190.00 (price may vary)

Review

Ever wondered why CEOs, leaders and recruiters talk endlessly about soft skills? Job interviews, promotions, appraisals, teamwork, managing workplace challenges, communication skills and a lot more-soft skills give you a sizeable professional edge to ace all of these.

In this book, Ronnie Screwvala shares personal stories and observations from his many failures and few successes to give you an insider's view of the 'invisible' skills, which can cut years off your learning curve. Practical, actionable and peppered with advice from successful leaders, Skill It, Kill It will ensure you're future-proof in these ever-changing times and ready to stand out among your peers.

About the Author

Ronnie Screwvala is a first-generation entrepreneur who failed his Bachelor of Commerce course in college, but that did not deter his intent to set out in the world of business on his own at a time where there was no ecosystem for entrepreneurs. He pioneered cable TV, went on to build one of the largest toothbrush operations in India and thereafter the very successful media and entertainment company UTV. Newsweek termed him the 'Jack Warner of India', Esquire ranked him among the seventy-five most influential people of the twenty-first century and Fortune hailed him as 'Asia's 25 most powerful'. He is the co-founder of upGrad, which is India's largest online higher education company. Ronnie and his wife, Zarina, are founder-trustees of the Swades Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to improving the standard of living in rural areas. This is Ronnie's second book. His first, Dream with Your Eyes Open, was published in 2015. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, daughter, Trishya, and son-in-law, Suhail.