Club You To Death


Anuja Chauhan - 2021
    But soon, it becomes clear that one of the members of the DTC – all pickled-in-privilege Dilliwallahs – is a cold-blooded killer.As the capital bristles with speculation and conspiracy theories, Crime Branch veteran ACP Bhavani Singh is appointed to investigate the case. Together with his able deputies – ex-lovers Akash ‘Kashi’ Dogra, hottie crusader for human rights, and Bambi Todi, wealthy girl-about-town – ACP Bhavani sets out to solve a crime that seems simple enough at the surface, but turns out to have roots as deep and spreading as those of New Delhi’s famous Neem trees…Anuja Chauhan returns with a bloody good romance set in the pulsating heart of Lutyen’s Delhi.

Are You Experienced?


William Sutcliffe - 1997
    Dave travels to India because he wants to get Liz into bed.Liz loves India, hugs the beggars, and is well on her way to finding her tantric center. Dave, however, realizes he hates Liz, and has bad karma toward his fellow travelers: Jeremy, whose spiritual journey is aided by checks from Dad; Jonah, who hasn’t worn shoes for a decade; and Fee and Caz, fresh from leper-washing in Udaipur…With refreshing honesty and a healthy dose of cynicism, William Sutcliffe offers a transatlantic, nineties version of On the Road that all readers will enjoy.

Paradise Screwed: Selected Columns


Carl Hiaasen - 2001
    Now they get another slice of Hiaasen heaven in Paradise Screwed: a wide-ranging safari of South Florida's wildlife in its natural habitat-from fat-cat politicians to migrating mobsters, drowning Dolphins to stray chads. This collection of Miami Herald columns-written with a satiric wit and biting humor-offers a glimpse of the facts that inspire, and prove far stranger than, Hiaasen's frenetic fiction.

The End of the World is Flat


Simon Edge - 2021
    Mel Winterbourne is the founder of a small, single-issue charity in the obscure field of mapmaking. Its success in achieving modest aims attracts the attention of handsome tech billionaire Joey Talavera, who evicts Mel and hijacks her charity for his own ends: to convince the world that the earth is flat. Although his chances of doing so seem slim, Flat Earthery is an idea whose time has come. With the historical reputation of Christopher Columbus in free-fall, old-style ‘globularism’ becomes heretical for a new generation of angry, anti-Establishment free-thinkers. Teachers, politicians, and celebrities face ruin if they refuse to sign up to the new orthodoxy. For Mel, something must be done. Teaming up with a pariah tabloid journalist and a faded writer of gross-out movie comedies, she sets out to challenge Talavera and his deranged beliefs. Will history and the billionaire’s own family origins be their unexpected ally? Using his trademark mix of history and satire to poke fun at modern foibles, Simon Edge is at his razor-sharp best in a caper that may be much more relevant than you think.

A Million Ways to Die in the West


Seth MacFarlane - 2014
    Barroom brawls. Poisonous snakes. Cholera-infected drinking water. Tumbleweed abrasion. Something called "toe-foot." Even a trip to the outhouse. Yes, there are a million ways to die in the wild, wild West, and Albert plans to avoid them all. Some people think that makes him a coward. Albert calls it common sense. But when his girlfriend dumps him for the most insufferable guy in town, Albert decides to fight back--even though he can't shoot, ride, or throw a punch. Fortunately, he teams up with a beautiful gunslinger who's tough enough for the both of them. Unfortunately, she's married to the biggest, meanest, most jealous badass on the frontier. Turns out Albert has just discovered a million and one ways to die in the West.

The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity


Amartya Sen - 2005
    The Argumentative Indian is "a bracing sweep through aspects of Indian history and culture, and a tempered analysis of the highly charged disputes surrounding these subjects--the nature of Hindu traditions, Indian identity, the country's huge social and economic disparities, and its current place in the world" (Sunil Khilnani, Financial Times, U.K.).

America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't


Stephen Colbert - 2012
    You could say we're the #1 nation at being the best at greatness.But as perfect as America is in every single way, America is broken! And we can't exchange it because we're 236 years past the 30-day return window. Look around--we don't make anything anymore, we've mortgaged our future to China, and the Apologist-in-Chief goes on world tours just to bow before foreign leaders. Worse, the L.A. Four Seasons Hotel doesn't even have a dedicated phone button for the Spa. You have to dial an extension! Where did we lose our way?!It's high time we restored America to the greatness it never lost!Luckily, AMERICA AGAIN will singlebookedly pull this country back from the brink. It features everything from chapters, to page numbers, to fonts. Covering subject's ranging from healthcare ("I shudder to think where we'd be without the wide variety of prescription drugs to treat our maladies, such as think-shuddering") to the economy ("Life is giving us lemons, and we're shipping them to the Chinese to make our lemon-flavored leadonade") to food ("Feel free to deep fry this book—it's a rich source of fiber"), Stephen gives America the dose of truth it needs to get back on track.

Shoes of the Dead


Kota Neelima - 2013
    The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it his life’s mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides.Keyur Kashinath of the Democratic Party - first-time member of Parliament from Mityala, and son of Vaishnav Kashinath, the party’s general secretary - is the heir to his father’s power in Delhi politics. He faces his first crisis every suicide in his constituency certified by the committee as debt-related is a blot on the party’s image, and his competence.The brilliant farmer battles his inheritance of despair, the arrogant politician fights for the power he has received as legacy. Their two worlds collide in a conflict that pushes both to the limits of morality from where there is no turning back. At stake is the truth about ‘inherited’ democratic power. And at the end, there can only be one winner. Passionate and startlingly insightful, Shoes of the Dead is a chilling parable of modern-day India.A book that will make you stroll through India’s corridors of power and politics with a perfect portrayal of how its consequences creep into the lives of the farmers forcing them to commit suicide. Get ready to read a gripping tale by Kota Neelima.

The World's 100 Greatest Speeches


Terry O'Brien - 2016
    These speeches−by kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, freedom fighters and political leaders, dictators and writers−have made a mark in world history. These speeches not only give us an insight into the past, but also inspire us with their demands for equality, cries of freedom, a call to arms, rooting for the cause of the individual or the nation.Learn from the inspirational words of King Charles, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Mohandas K. Gandhi, George Washington, Rabindranath Tagore, Anne Besant, Theodore Roosevelt and Subhas Chandra Bose, among many others.

For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs


Robert A. Heinlein - 2003
    

Durbar


Tavleen Singh - 2012
    Within five weeks, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, suspending fundamental rights and imposing press censorship, and soon reckless policies said to be authored by the prime minister's younger son were unleashed on India's citizens. As the country suffered under the iron fist of an elected icon and her chosen heir, Tavleen observed that a small, influential section of Delhi's society people she knew well remained strangely unaffected by the perilous state of the nation. Before long, members of this circle were entrenched in key positions in the Indian government. In 1984, following Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister, fortified by a huge mandate from a nation desperate for change. But, belying its hopes, the young leader chose for himself a group of advisors, friends and acolytes from the drawing rooms of Delhi, as inexperienced as him and just as unaware of the ground realities of a complex nation. It was the beginning of a political culture of favouritism and ineptitude that would take hold at the highest levels of government, stunting India's ambitions and frustrating its people well into the next century. Seasoned reporter and distinguished newspaper columnist Tavleen Singh's Durbar is a sharp account of these turbulent years. Describing the Nehruvian era of her childhood, the Emergency of her youth and the political shifts that followed, Tavleen writes of the birth and evolution of insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir, the blood spilt in assassinations and massacres, of crises internal and external and the clumsy attempts to set things right. A remarkable memoir, vivid with the colour of election campaigns and society dinners, low conspiracies and high corruption, Durbar rewards us with this truth: that if India is to achieve a better future the past can no longer be ignored or forgotten.

The Bostonians


Henry James - 1886
    Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena’s heart and remove her from the limelight? “The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”

How to Be a Canadian


Will Ferguson - 2003
    Asked to write a follow-up to his runaway bestseller Why I Hate Canadians, Ferguson, who’s Canadian himself, recruited his brother Ian — comedy writer and executive producer of the Canadian series Sin City and a Canadian too — to create this ultimate guide to the country's cultural quirks. The result is a hilarious inside look at that unique species, the Canadian, and their thoughts on such diverse subjects as beer, sex, dating rituals, sports, politics, religion, social rules — and, of course, their trademark death-defying search for the middle of any road.

The Florence King Reader


Florence King - 1995
    Reprint.

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems


Randall Munroe - 2019
    How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun.By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.