Story of a Genius
Aradhika Sharma
A Very Strange Man
by Ismat Chughtai. Translated by Tahira Naqvi. Women Unlimited. Pages 231. Rs 250.
 IT has to be a dream come true for a reviewer to get an Ismat Chughtai book to review, and if it is a Bollywood-based novel and the reader a Bollywood buff, well, then the anticipation as well as expectation is high. Chughtai’s A Very Strange Man (Ajeeb Aadmi) has been translated by Tahira Naqvi, a US-based academic, writer and translator, and a known admirer of Chughtai’s work.

Battle of ideas
Arun Gaur
Conciliation of Civilizations
by Arun Joshi. Shabd Books, New Delhi. Pages 239. Price not stated.
HERE Arun Joshi investigates the phenomenon of terrorism and the ways to counter it. When he looks at the globe, he finds numerous infected points like Lebanon, Spain, Germany, Kashmir, Gaza Strip, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria and Angola.

An alluring world
Priyanka Singh
Reflections: The Bollywood Connection
by Dorothea Nurnberg. Promilla. Pages 111. Rs 250.
AN Austrian writer drawing on Bollywood in a manner that it becomes central to her stories is not surprising, what with the Indian film industry showing expansive growth in Europe. What startles is the ease with which she infuses the same illusionary quality in her stories.

Voice of power
Kanchan Mehta
Rudra: The Idea of Shiva
by Nilima Chitgopekar. Penguin. Pages 188. Rs 250.
"Shiva is one deity who straddles in a mythico-embodied form, many of the key signifiers of Indian culture-dance, music, phallicism, yoga, asceticism, Vedanta and the rich tradition of heterodoxy and acculturation," writes Nilima Chigopekar, in her well-researched attempt to decode the god-concept Shiva.

A land far away
Amarinder Sandhu
 Beyond Black Waters
by Joginder Paul. Translated by Vibha S. Chauhan. Penguin. Pages 120. Rs 195.
 Beyond Black Waters is Chauhan’s English translation of Paul’s Urdu novel, Paar Pare. The book is set in the Andaman Islands and deals with the community of people who were sent to Kala Pani on charges of theft, murder, conspiracy and political dissent. A declaration by the English overlords allowed many prisoners to settle on the Island.

Was 9/11 an inside job?
Shyam Chand examines the evidence about the many versions of the attack on the World Trade Center reported in a new book
TO enter Vietnam war, sonar effects were invented showing North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacking US destroyers. Debunking 9/11 Debunking completely destroys the credibility of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Popular Mechanics reports. The NIST report was prepared by Philip Zelikow, a factotum of Bush administration’s Department of Commerce.

Gloomy tones
Aparna M. Sridhar
The Prayer
by Al Raines Undercover Utopia, Irving, Texas, 2007. Rs 249.
FOR a book that comes with a "money-back guarantee" that if you don’t find it the "scariest/darkest book you have ever read," you can ask for your money back, this volume creates not so much fear as melancholy; leaving you not frightened, but depressed. The Prayer aims to deal with the sadness of the human condition and its most poignant expression – death.

Many facets of agriculture
P.P Balan
Institutional Alternatives and Governance of Agriculture
Ed. Vishwa Ballabh. Academic Foundation, in association with Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Pages 337. Rs 795
AT a time, when the agriculture sector faces numerous challenges, there is a need to develop strategies for strengthening institutional mechanisms. This will enable the sector to become more broad based and. Vishwa Ballabh’s edited volume Institutional Alternatives and Governance of Agriculture is an attempt to examine the current issues in agriculture and to identify the role of private, public and cooperative sectors within the framework of new governance.

Same new Bond
The cover of the new Bond novel honours Fleming’s themes of sex and violence, writes Cahal Milmo
FOR fans of the artful images of scantily clad women dancing in shadows that have long adorned the opening titles of James Bond movies, it will be a reassuringly familiar sight. The cover of a new 007 novel published to coincide with the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth will be unveiled today with a suitably – and predictably – curvaceous nude.

SHORT TAKES
Kid-lit and call centres
Randeep Wadehra

  • Bringing Back Grandfather
    by Anjali Banerjee. Puffin Books. Pages viii+165. Rs 165

  • Winning @ Call Centre
    by Madhukar Yadav. Wisdom Tree. Pages 299. Rs 285.

  • Down Memory Lane
    by Hiro Shroff. Spenta Multimedia, Mumbai. Pages 298. Price not mentioned.

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