OFf the shelf
A gentle colossus
V .N. Datta
Gopal Krishna Gokhale: His Life and Times.
by Govind Talwalkar. Rupa. Pages 507. Rs 575.
Gopal Krishna Gokhale: His Life and Times.
by Govind Talwalkar. Rupa. Pages 507. Rs 575.
This 507-page book is a full-scale biography of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, one of the most outstanding political leaders and social reformers of the country. This work is published in the centenary year of the Servants of India Society of which Gokhale was the founder.

Search for meaning of Hinduism
G.V. Gupta
Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Construction of Hinduism, 1793-1900
by Geoffry A. Oddie; Sage. Pages 274. Rs 450.
In this book Oddie investigates the origin of the term, concept and discourse of Hinduism. Missionaries came to India in the belief that apart from the followers of non-Brahminical religions, the world was pagan or heathen requiring redemption.

Lady with the Potter wand
Publishing wizard Liz Calder, recently on a visit to Kolkata, is much more than the face behind Potter-mania, finds Sujoy Dhar
Liz Calder, 67, the publishing director of Bloomsbury says the next great writer to equal J.K. Rowling’s success can well be found in India. "Another Rowling may be sitting in some cafe in College Street (in north Kolkata)," says Calder who picked up J.K. Rowling after the first ‘Harry Potter’ manuscript met with rejection in other places.

Into the mind of a terrorist
Himmat Singh Gill
Understanding Terrorism in South Asia  
ed. Imtiaz Ahmed. Manohar and Regional Centre For Strategic Studies,Colombo. Pages 418. Rs 900.
Responding to Terrorism in South Asia
ed. S. D. Muni. Manohar and Regional Centre For Strategic Studies,Colombo. Pages 542. Rs 1,095.
As one was reading the two books on terrorism, Mumbai train blasts, timed for maximum effect, exploded in. Grisly killings of the innocent are now not just knocking at our doorsteps, but have entered our homes, and we should respond effectively at every level to this scourge of the twenty-first century. Both books restrict themselves to South Asia, though the vicious ingredients of terrorism are mostly common around the world.

Bangalore unplugged
Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu
Bangalored: The Expat Story
by Eshwar Sundaresan. Pages 328. Rs 350.
First used in 1913 as war jargon, the term Bangalored referred to the process of blowing up wire entanglements by a Bangalore torpedo. This explosive-laden tube was invented in the city, hence the name. In more recent times, it refers to people in the US who have been laid off because their jobs have been outsourced to India. Specifically Bangalore, the Indian equivalent of Silicon Valley, as it has been the prime beneficiary of this move. Read on, however, to discover the author’s take on this term.

Wharton wars
P. K. Vasudeva
The Running of the Bulls  
Nicole Ridgway. Penguin Portfolio. Pages 283. Rs 450.
This is a fascinating book, which takes you inside the Wharton School, where the elite graduates of modern times compete to become the business leaders of tomorrow. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is the prestigious postgraduate business institute in the United States. Its postgraduate programme is considered equivalent to an MBA by most financial institutions.

Punjab treasurehouse of Hindi literature
S.P. Gupta
A major part of Hindi literature in the Gurmukhi script has remained unexplored, inaccessible and unpublished. In addition to the literary works relating to the Nath, Siddha, Sant and Sufi cults and on Rama and Krishna, sufficient literature has been created in Punjab on medicine, prosody, logic, Vedanta, yoga, short story, drama and journalism.

PUNJABI REVIEW
Glimpses of people and history
Surinder Singh Tej
Sajan Des Videsare by Tarlochan Singh
Lokgeet Parkashan. Pages 176. Rs. 180.
Tarlochan Singh is an eminent Sikh statesman. Apart from being a former Chairman of National Commision for Minorities (NCM) and presently a member of Rajya Sabha, he has had a long and fruitful stint on various positions, both within and outside the government. Public Relations has been his forte. This quality brought him many a laurel and reward.

Bond book after 40 years
Forty years after 007’s last outing, he’ll be back once again saving the world in a new James Bond novel to mark the centenary of late author Ian Fleming’s birth.

Bestsellers

Back of the book
The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.
Sceptre Pages 320 £ 8.15
In this humorous and instructive tour of the skies, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society, argues that we don’t appreciate the clouds enough. In Britain, we are blessed with rich and varied cloudscapes — yet the smallest hint of something white and fluffy on the horizon will cast us into a national depression.

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