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Tale of a beautiful
mind
Vikramdeep Johal
The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-time
by Mark Haddon.
Vintage Books, New York.
Pages 226. $ 4.99.
There
is a wonderful story by
Latin American writer Jorge Luis Borges, Funes the Memorious,
about a youth who is rendered immobile on being thrown by a horse. The
mishap, however, makes his perception and memory infallible. Funes
starts seeing, hearing and remembering things in such mind-boggling
detail that it makes his life magnificent yet virtually insufferable.
Mission to Forbidden
City
Parshotam Mehra
Duel in the Snows: the
true story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa.
by Charles Allen.
John Murray.
Pages 350. £ 20.
Almost
towards the fag end of the
Great Game, a century and more (circa 1800-1907) of intense rivalry
between the great White Tsar and John Bull for mastery over Central
Asia, the British mounted an armed expedition to Lhasa.
Off the shelf
Nanak in faith and history
V. N. Datta
Janamsakhi Tradition:
An Analytical Study
by Dr Kirpal Singh.
Singh Brothers, Amritsar.
Pages 254. Rs 395.
Guru
Nanak never wrote or left
any record of his life and achievements, while his contemporary, Babur,
bequeathed to posterity his unrivalled autobiography, the Tuzak, which
has become a standard source of authoritative contemporary evidence in
historical knowledge.
Punjabi
review
Rewarding journeys
Shalini Rawat
25 Mulk 75 Gallan
by Gulzar Singh Sandhu. Navyug Publishers, New Delhi. Pages 168.
Price 140.
Dear
reader, what do you say of a
book that is at once a collection of notes, a memoir, a travelogue, a
journal and a souvenir all rolled in one and then denies all these
categorisations in the preface itself?
Iyer-onic view of the
foreign
Rajnish Wattas
Sun After Dark.
by Pico Iyer. Alfred A. Knopf. Pages 223. $12.50.
This
defines what classical
travel writing is all about. And the quintessential Pico Iyer is always
on the move in this quest. Gently observing, analysing and interpreting
what the eye sees; and also what it does not see.
Short
takes
Diplomatic pitch
Randeep Wadehra
Cricketing Ties
Edited by Renuka Chatterjee and Nandita Jaishankar. Roli Books. Pages
143. Price not mentioned.
Once an archetypal English
game, cricket is fast becoming a global phenomenon with a distinctive
subcontinental flavour. The recent Indo-Pakistan Test and one-day series
was watched keenly not only in the traditional cricket-playing nations
but also by diplomatic circles in the United States and elsewhere.
A treat for thrill
seekers
Harish Dhillon
Adventure Sports
by Brig TPS Chowdhury (retd). National Book Trust. Pages 366. Rs 110.
Adventure
Sports
by Brig Chowdhury is a unique book in many ways. It is the first of its
kind published in India. In fact, one wonders if such a comprehensive
book on the subject has been published anywhere in the world.
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