101 Children's Book We Love

Dear Fellow Booklovers,   

We are in the process of putting together a guide to the best Indian children’s books…. and we would like to hear from you!
101 Indian Children’s Books We Love seeks suggestions and contributions from children, parents, teachers, grandparents, librarians, resource people and book lovers. If there’s an Indian book that you think is a must-read, this is your chance to tell everyone about it. You can chose up to three titles.

Your entry must include:

Name of book

Author’s name

Illustrator’s name

Publisher’s name and date of publication

A short review of 100-150 words (you can be as enthusiastic as you want!!)

Your name & email ID

If you’re at school, the name of your school and your class

* The best reviews will be printed in the book.

All books must be available (in print) in English in India. Translations from other languages into English as well as bi-lingual books can be included. Please note that the books must be published in India - and not imported
The guide will cover books for a wide age range – from baby’s first picture books to young adult fiction – and will include non-fiction and poetry as well as fiction titles. There will be a section for special format books, including Braille, audio books and touch-and-feel. We will not include textbooks. So, pick your favourite book/s and send in your entries to:

101indianchildrensbookswelove@gmail.com 
The deadline for receiving entries is August 1, 2010.

Review: The Obscure Logic of the Heart

‘The Obscure Logic of the Heart’ is truly one of the most fine and splendid book that I have read in recent times. The book is so wonderfully written and every character in the book well defined. The story though a bit slow paced  manages to keep you engaged till the very end. By the time the book ends you feel sad that the book is over!

‘The Obscure Logic of the Heart’ interleaves two narratives one which is the modern day story of Anil and Lina while the other is a story of an unfulfilled romance between a British woman and a man who she loved but who left her because they belonged to different faiths. The story that runs parallel to the Anil and Lina’s story, though years back, is still so relevant to the choices they make today. Both the stories beautifully and effortlessly merge at the end of the book almost leaving the reader breathless!

The plot is ordinary but Basil’s writing makes the book and the story absolutely extraordinary. This book is a story of love between Lina Merali, who is a Muslim and Anil Mayur a Hindu. Lina comes from a modest background and her parents are devout Muslims living in Birmingham while Anil comes from a very affluent family based in Kenya. Their worlds are far apart from each other but their love is so strong that they believe that they will be able to surpass all troubles that come their way. Lina knowing the opposition that she will face if her parents come to know of her blossoming relationship with Anil, engages in an intricate game of deceit with her parents. While her parents are unaware of the relationship Anil’s parents are supportive. But her parents soon discover her web of lies and they threaten to break off all ties with her if she continues her relationship with Anil. She promises them that she will end the relationship and she would marry a person of their choice. Lina soon moves to New York on an assignment with the UN and despite her pledge to her parents she continues her relationship with Anil. When Anil moves back to Kenya she takes up a posting in Sudan to be closer to Anil. While there, she discovers a few aspects of Anil’s family that make her uncomfortable about the fate of the relationship.

Lina tries her best to maintain a balance between her love for her family and her relationship with Anil. She is afraid that her decision to continue her relationship with Anil could have severe repercussions. Lina’s indecisiveness, her feeling of being a misfit in Anil’s family, her apprehensions is beautifully narrated by the writer. At times you feel sorry for Lina and at times you can’t help but get annoyed with her decisions. On the other hand, you have Anil who is totally supportive of Lina’s choices; he is willing to go to any lengths to keep Lina happy. Anil though he has a few shortcomings, is almost a near perfect partner to have.

What stands apart in the book is when Lina meets her father to request him to accept her relationship with Anil and her father Shareef shares with her a secret he has never shared with anyone. The other poignant moments are when Shareef expresses his inability to accept his daughter’s relationship with a non-Muslim and how it goes against his faith and all that he has believed in. Basil manages to portray such a touching father daughter relationship that almost moves you to tears.

The two main characters of the story you can absolutely identify with. There are many times when you will pause during the book and compare the situation with your own experiences. You come across many people in your life but then there are some you instantly connect with. You just know that those are the people who are capable of changing the course of your life. Some stay with you and some move on but not before leaving an impression in your life forever.

The book is beautiful and rich in prose, bold and deeply moving. The story is brilliantly narrated. It has characters that you will remember for days to come. A highly recommended book which you must pick up today, if you haven’t already! This book has to be at the top of your to read list!

About the author:

Priya Basil was born in London and grew up in Kenya. Her first novel, Ishq and Mushq, was longlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, The Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Priya lives in London and Berlin

ISBN: 13 9780385611459
Rs.550

Review :The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle :Haruki Murakami

To say that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an epic novel wouldn’t be an overstatement. Stories within story, plots within plot, heady concoction of surrealism and dreams, stretching over a time period that encompasses World War II and Japan’s military exploits, and deep exploration of the dark recesses of the human psyche –all these elements combine to make it a fascinating and intoxicating read. Haruki Murakami – Japan’s most famous novelist – packs so much in one book that it looks formidably like a tome but don’t get daunted by its thickness. It’s such an easy read – translated into English from the original Japanese – that you don’t feel at all the intrusion of language in the story that unfolds but at the same time it’s deep and reflective and this is where you need to be careful – the simplicity of the language can be deceptive. Murakami spins his yarn and carves an intricate plot that’s guaranteed to submerge you in it.

It is the story of a young man named Toru who is bored with his mundane life and struggling to save a disintegrating marriage until their cat goes missing. He gets an anonymous phone call and there the story leaps off. Toru finds out that his seemingly mundane life is veiled in the opacity of secretiveness and things are not what they seem to be. His life spins out of control and he feels as if a seemingly implacable power is at the helm of his life. The missing cat triggers a chain of events and soon his wife Kumiko goes missing too for unexplained reasons. He embarks on an epic journey to bring back his wife and more so to return the normalcy and sanity to his life shattered by the whirlwind of bizarre events. Like a river meandering along hills and valleys, unaware and uncertain of the obstacles which may come in its way and obstruct its flow but fully certain of its goal - which it has to reach - Toru’s life hobbles forwards from one journey to the other in a maze of mysteries and bizarreness, in search of his wife Kumiko. In the course, he not only learns more about Kumiko and the people around him, meet an aging war veteran permanently scarred by the hideous things he witnessed during military exploits of Japan, a shady politician who is the embodiment of evil, a psychic woman whose life is equally bizarre and complicated and whose father bears an uncanny resemblance to Toru but also about himself, the unexplored attic of his mind and the deep, dark secrets hidden beneath the veneer of ordinariness.

The novel is on the darker side and explores evil and good, human psyche, fatalism and Japan’s obsession with psychic powers and western culture. Murakami’s knack of exploring the ominous and menacing signs in the innocuous, mundane events in life is dizzying. Tension grips, plots give way and secrets are laid bare as the story lurches towards the climax which is a bit disappointing and also depressing because Murakami poses more questions than he answers, creates more puzzles than he solves and builds more mysteries than he reveals but then this is Murakami’s forte. This is the kind of novel Murakami writes where the reader cannot remain impassive and detached. He compels the reader to do introspection and reflect over their own life and seek the answers. The novel is contemplative, historical and deeply reflective. If you love dark novels with huge dollops of reality, if you want to explore yourself and go on soul-searching then this is the book for you. Go for it.

(This book is reviewed by Ajay Kumar. Ajay, is pursuing engineering and is in the fourth year at IIT, Kharagpur .He blogs at http://ajaykgp.wordpress.com)

Dial-a-Book Recommends

It has been our constant endeavor to keep the readers of our blog updated on the latest books, upcoming titles, interesting authors and book events. Taking this a step further we will have Dial-a-Book’s weekly book recommendation that they send out to all their subscribers. They have been kind enough, to let us share their weekly recommended book, with our blog readers as well.

About Dial-a-Book

Dial-a-Book is a service that lets you order all types of books and services over phone. We also offer book recommendations for buying and gifting books.

To order books call 9650-457-457 or send an email to talk@dialabook.in

The best part is that they deliver books anywhere in India with no additional delivery cost!

Dial-a-Book recommendation for this week is

The book of the week 38 is ‘The Art of Choosing’ by Sheena Iyengar

Book Blurb:  

An Apple Store customer asks for the latest iPhone in black but suddenly changes his preference to white when he sees the choices others are making. A resident of a former communist country is offered a fizzy drink from a wide selection but picks at random; soda is soda, he says. Though the child knows she shouldn't press the big red button (absolutely not!), she finds her hand inching forward. A young man and woman decide to marry -- knowing that the first time they meet will be on their wedding day.

How did these people make their choices? How do any of us make ours? Choice is a powerful tool to define ourselves and mold our lives -- but what do we know about the wants, motivations, biases, and influences that aid or hinder our endeavors?

In The Art of Choosing, Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar, a leading expert on choice, sets herself the Herculean task of helping us become better choosers. She asks fascinating questions: Is the desire for choice innate or created by culture? Why do we sometimes choose against our best interests? How much control do we really have over what we choose? Ultimately, she offers unexpected and profound answers, drawn from her award-winning, discipline-spanning research.

Here you'll learn about the complex relationship between choice and freedom, and why one doesn't always go with the other. You'll see that too much choice can overwhelm us, leading to unpleasant experiences, from "TiVo guilt" over unwatched TV programs to confusion over health insurance plans. Perhaps most important, you'll discover how our choices -- both mundane and momentous -- are shaped by many different forces, visible and invisible. This remarkable book illuminates the joys and challenges of choosing, showing us how we build our lives, one choice at a time.

About The Author: Sheena Iyengar's innovative research on choice has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Security Education Program. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School of Business, and Stanford University. She is a professor at Columbia University and a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award. Her work is regularly cited in such periodicals as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and TIME magazines, and in books such as Blink and The Paradox of Choice. She lives in New York City with her family

Print Price: Rs 499, Our Price: Rs 399 (20% discount)

Here's the summary of Sheena's recent TED talk
 

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/07/14/tedglobal-sheena-iyengar-and-the-paradox-of-choice/

An audio interview with Sheena: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8807000/8807206.stm

To own/gift this book, give us a call on 9650-457-457 or simply reply to this email

Wild Child and Other Stories by TC Boyle

Reviewed by Kiran Manral

This fabulous collection of short stories from author T C Boyle is a study on how the perfect short story needs to be crafted. The stories move from California to South America to France, from the here and now, to Napoleanic France and all connect themselves to each other with the primary element of nature being the principal over riding character across all the stories.

In the story, The Unlucky Mother of Aquiles Maldonaldo, we see how a mother can convert even a band of hardened guerrillas who kidnap her in the hope of a ransom from her Venezualan pitcher son by her taking care of them. His much valued pitching arm comes in handy at the end to lob a grenade in order to rescue her from the bandits. In the end, the mother and son realise that ostentatious display of well

The characters in Boyle’s short stories are everyday people, who are just that little bit strange. We see how a tiny lie, in the short story, The Lie, told by a film editor who just cant bear to get into work changes his entire life. Like the film editor, we see a man who conveniently temporarily discards the values and beliefs he holds good just to get close to the person he lusts after in ‘Bulletproof’. The animal instinct of man to survive against all odds is a recurring motif. In “La Conchita, we have a courier man transporting a liver from a donor to a recipient for a transplant, stuck in a mudslide on the Pacific Coast Highway and concentrate on digging out the victims of the slide rather than seek ways to get around the mudslide and deliver the organ to the critical recipient in hospital. His Glock-9 does not come handy in the face of nature’s fury and he is compelled to accept his competitor coming in to transport the liver to its destination. Finally, the story of the title, Wild Child, is the true tale of a jungle child, eventually named Victor, found in Napoleanic France who was brought into civilization and slowly taught how to be part of society. The narrative is a fascinating account of how he might have been taught the culture and mores of the time, and how his instinctive animal side was eventually subdued to so-called normality.The stories are kaleidoscopic, incisive, empathic and occasionally twisted just enough to keep you hooked. Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. But a compelling one.

Crossword Pune launch of The Counsel of Strangers

On 24 july, Saturday, 6 30 pm to 8 pm at the Senapati Bapat Rd Crossword.


Gouri Dange's latest novel, The Counsel of Strangers will be launched by Tanvi Azmi and Mohan Agashe who will be reading excerpts.
Tthe book is available off the www.omobooks.com site for those of you who are net-inclined, and off amazon and authorhouse for those outside India.

Review : Delhi Calm

  

Vishwajyoti Ghosh's first solo graphic novel Delhi Calm is a book which takes you through a time of uncertainty and turmoil that existed in India during Emergency.It is a story of the grit of the people who fought for their right to democracy despite all odds during these troubled times. If post independence history interests you, this is one book which you must read.I would say this is a book which should be read by those who lived through the Emergency and all those who have only heard about it.

The Emergency imposed in India in 1975 by the then PM Indira Gandhi (Mrs.Moon in the book) regime would definitely be considered one of the darkest episodes in the history of India post Independence. Imagine a life where you wake up to learn that all your rights as a citizen have been suspended, you are told how to talk, when to laugh, how to live, what to speak, when to speak. Such were the restrictions that existed during the Emergency and this was just the beginning to an 18 month ordeal. Across India, people were picked up and put into jails, which included leaders and legislators of parties other than the ruling party. Anyone considered a threat to the ruling party was immediately arrested. Amongst those taken under house arrest was JP Narayan (The Prophet). Narayan was a figure of great moral authority, a hero of the freedom struggle and a highly respected person who started the 'Total Revolution' movement, a movement started to rid the country of misgovernance, corruption, inflation and class disparity. JP’s movement found a lot of support in the youth who were fed up with the state of affairs. The winds of change were blowing; the country was uniting in its stand to oust the corrupt government, fearing this dissent, the PM arbitrarily decided to impose Emergency.

Parvez Alam, in the book is one such youth who has been trying his luck to get suitable employment, but has been unable to get one. He turns to Vivek Kumar (Master) for help. Master asks Parvez to join Shine Tuition Centre to teach English during the week, and in the weekend tour with his team members of the Naya Savera Band into the villages to garner support for the 'The Prophet' and his cause through music and songs. The pragmatic Parvez meets Vibhuti Prasad, a poet and an idealist who is also a part of the band and they strike an uneasy friendship. But soon differences crop up and things start going awry resulting in the three drifting apart. VP soon after moves to Powerpolis (Delhi) and starts working for a newspaper but suddenly one day finds himself jobless, thanks to the media gag ordered by the government once the Emergency is declared. That is when VP meets Parvez and Master, they regroup again to fight for a common cause –the State. Will they escape the ever watchful eyes of the government? Will they realize their dream of an egalitarian, socialist democracy?

This book, part graphic,part text is set in Delhi successfully manages to chronicle the life and times of people during the Emergency. The book has some fabulous artwork and what is amazing is the detailed look and feel of the seventies. The illustrations beautifully convey the state of total government dominance with the unforgettable slogans coined during the period such as ‘Talk Less, Work More’ ‘Keep Distance, Keep Quiet’ ‘The Nation is in Deep crisis ’ cleverly merged in the background of every frame.

The book manages to capture the interest of the reader right from the start and keeps the reader engaged till the very end. The book is absolutely unputdownable.


A bit about the author:


Vishwajyoti Ghosh 's comics are regularly published in various journals and anthologies, both in India and abroad.His recently published work includes contributions in two international anthologies, When Kulbhushan Met Stockli and Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption, and Times New Roman and Countrymen. Delhi Calm is his first solo graphic novel.