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Interpreting
Guru’s bani
Roopinder Singh
Nanak Bani: Interpreted in
Free Verse
By Harjeet Singh Gill.
Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, Patiala. Volumes I and II.
Pages 1,251. Rs 650 each.
GURU
Nanak’s bani is his living legacy, the very core of the
religion he founded. Even as we admire Guru Nanak for eschewing the
complicated forms of language and embracing not only the common people
but also their idiom, we marvel at the sheer poetry of his expression
that transports those who read it or listen to it on transcendental
level.
Women
and word
Harsh A. Desai
A Jury of Her Peers —
American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx
By Elaine Showalter.
Virago Press.
Pages 512. Rs 1,210.
Elaine
Showalter has written one of the first comprehensive histories
of women writers in America. In her recent book, A Jury of Her
Peers — American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx,
she provides the reader with a panoramic view of America’s leading
women writers — from the devout puritan poet Bradstreet of the 17th
century to Proulx, famous for her Wyoming stories as also her novels, Shipping
News and Postcards, written in the 1990s.
Justice,
the Amartya way
An intellectual who picks up
honorary degrees in his spare time, Amartya Sen believes in reason and
human rights. Just don’t call him idealistic, says Sholto
Byrnes
THE
Idea of Justice is billed as
Amartya Sen’s most ambitious book yet. This is quite a claim for a
man whose publications on famine are acknowledged as having changed
global perceptions on poverty and food production, and whose work on
welfare economics significantly contributed to the United Nations’
Human Development Index.
Ziyang’s secret memoirs
Parshotam Mehra
Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang
By Zhao Ziyang.
Simon and Schuster, London.
Pages xxv+306. £20.
Despite
a little over 20-odd years that separate us from the Tiananmen Square
massacre of June, 1989, it still remains fresh in the memory as a
defining moment in the recent history of Mao’s China.
For
the love of cricket
Vaibhav Sharma
Out Of The Box — Watching
The Game We Love
By Harsha Bhogle.
Penguin Books.
Pages 275. Rs 450.
FOR
a man under a spell of the charm that Indian cricket is, Harsha Bhogle
has managed to still keep his objectivity up and running in all his
years with the microphone. Apart from his TV commentary, Harsha has
been writing a column for the Indian Express, and that is the source
of his book?
Focus
on inter-faith dialogue
Harbans Singh
Why I am a Believer: Personal
Reflections on Nine World Religions
Ed. Arvind Sharma.
Penguin Books India.
Pages 378. Rs 450.
PEOPLE,
especially those living in the subcontinent, are not unfamiliar with
the idea of conversion to a religion different to the one they were
born in. It has happened for a variety of reasons, including the
imposition of superiority of a conqueror’s belief and a genuine
conviction that a different religion satisfies the spiritual cravings
of a person.
In
the midst of surreal world
Aditi Garg
Here be Yaks
By Manosi Lahiri.
Stellar Publications.
Pages 286. Rs 350.
Paradise
on earth—that’s the fabled Shangri-la. It conjures up images of
calm, serene and exquisitely beautiful surroundings where everything
is near perfection. For ages, writers have grappled with bestowing
this honour on different places.
Alternatives
to costly textbooks
Andrea K. Walker
Greer
Begbie is concerned primarily about one thing when shopping for
her son’s college textbooks: price. The southern New Jersey mother,
whose son Chris is a junior finance major at Towson University in
Towson, Md., scours websites, including Half.com and Amazon.com, for
the best deals. She almost always buys used books. She says new,
full-price textbooks are too expensive.
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