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Who will kill him?
Roopinder Singh
The Broker
by John Grisham. Arrow Books. Pages 467. £ 2.75 (special Indian
edition).
John
Grisham took a vacation in Italy, gained 10 pounds during an interesting
gastronomically rich journey and wrote a book. By no means his best
work, the latest offering from America's top storyteller makes one think
that the book was not quite a priority with him this time.
Gripping
tale of magnificent warrior
Parshotam Mehra
Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World
by Justin Marozzi. HarperCollins, London. Pages XXIV+449. £ 25.
Whatever
way one renders him—Temur, Timur, Tamburlaine, Tamerlane—the Tatar
ruler ranks alongside the Greek Alexander and the Mongol Ghenghis Khan
as the world’s most devastating war king.
Tribute to crusaders extraordinaire
Kanchan Mehta
Icons of Social Change
by Scharada Bail. Puffin Books, New Delhi. Pages 130. Rs 175.
Icons
of Social Change is a suitable
tribute to the ten agents of social change who took upon themselves the
uphill task of improving the lot of destitute. With firm resolution and
spirited efforts, these icons brought relief to the victims of poverty
and misfortune.
Some
good answers to many questions
Jaswant Singh
The Vitality of India edited by Gopal Krishan.
Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh.
Pages 366. Rs 795.
Vitality
is defined in dictionaries as "the state of being strong and
active"; "the power of giving continuance of life, present in
all living things"; "exuberant physical strength or mental
vigour"; "capacity for survival or for the continuation of a
meaningful or purposeful existence"; "power to live and
grow".
Dark
side of Soviet history
M. Rajivlochan
Gulag: A History of the Soviet
Camps
by Anne Applebaum. London: Allen Lane. Pages 610. £20.
Journalists
merrily go into territory where historians fear to tread. Their daring
often results in books of the sort that Anne Applebaum has written.
Readable, informative and moralistic, it recounts the history of the
Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei or the GULAG, the Main Camp Administration.
Mission
statement
Shastri Ramachandaran
War and Peace: Armed Struggle
and Peace Efforts of Liberation Tigers.
by Anton Balasingham. Fairmax Publishing, England. Pages 514. Price £
15.
The
tsunami that struck Sri Lanka, far from washing away the battle lines in
the war-torn nation, has actually sharpened antagonism between the
Sinhala majority and the separatist Tamil guerrillas in the North East.
Immediately after the embattled island was battered by the terrible
tides of December 26, there was a glimmer of hope: that nature’s fury
would bond the two communities and their political leadership to get on
with life more harmoniously.
Bleak
snapshots
Gitanjali Sharma
Under an Indian sky
Ten years in a Bihar village By Janet Ganguli. Penguin Books. Pages 203.
Price Rs250
Mention
any Indian village, and, particularly if it happens to be in Bihar,
images of stark poverty, absence of basic amenities, acute shortage of
food, and almost non-existent healthcare facilities come to mind.
Magical
realism of Bollywood
The
timing could not be more opportune. In keeping with the rising
popularity of Hindi cinema abroad, a new book on film industry, Bollywood
Unplugged-Deconstructing Cinema in Black and White, has just been
released in Mumbai.
An
American original
Ron McLarty has joined the
ranks of writers of the quirky hero with The Memory of Running.
His hero, Smithy Ide, is in the grand tradition of Ignatius J. Reilly of
a Confederacy of Dunces and Quoyle of The Shipping News.
The
case against free trade
Prakash Singh
Globalisation or Colonisation
By Kalayan Ray. Deep and Deep Publications. Pages 301. Price Rs 480
Kalyan Ray’s book is a
collection of socio-economic articles written with clarity, continuity
and lucidity. As the title suggests, his book offers a link between
globalisation and colonisation.
short takes
Lyrical yearnings
Randeep Wadehra
Impressions
by Sheeba Singh. Unistar, Chandigarh. Pages: 96. Price: Rs 95.
Poetry comes in varied forms,
its contents generally shaped by the poet’s age, circumstance and
experience. Auden had described poetry as a verbal art that is
reflective.
-
Poetic Musings
by Dr Jagdish Chandra
Sharma
Concept, N. Delhi. Pages: 64. Price: Rs 100.
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The Inner Chord
by Vibhuti Gupta
RRG Publications, Ambala Cantt. Pages: 69. Price: Rs 75.
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