Book picks similar to
The Highway Man by J. Alchem


short-stories
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She: Ekla Cholo Re


Santosh Avvannavar - 2015
    Gopal Hosur, Rtd. IPS at Bengaluru ; Mr. Ramana, National Award Nominee and Scientist at Hyderabad ; Dr. Col. Prakash & Dr. Khan at International Conference of Medical Sciences and Social Sciences, Mysuru ; Sri. Somaraju, Prl District and Sessions Judge,Vijayapura ; Dr. M. S. Dayanandaswamy (Principal of Sri Siddhartha Institute of Management Studies), Dr Muddesha B T (Director of Sri Siddhartha Center for Media Studies), Dr B. Azmathulla (Professor and Placement Officer of Sri Siddhartha Institute of Management Studies) at TumkurInvited Speaker - Prajati TV & Community Radio Media coverage - Leading regional (Kannada) newspaper, The Covai PostSet in the backdrop of 1990 Calcutta, She is a story about finding one’s own identity in spite of all odds. The story spins around the life of Kusum, a brave heart whose identity is often untitled and blurred; it does not belong anywhere, definitely not under the ‘he’ or ‘she’ bracket, thanks to our social conditioning. Will she be successful in her mission? Find out in She, an utterly absorbing read that derives inspiration from Tagore’s “Ekla Cholo Re” song, which urges everyone to move on despite the fear of abandonment from others. "She is one of the finest book to read" - Sujeeth Kumar, Project Manager, MNC Bengaluru "A story often untold. Appreciate the team for presenting She in the best possible harmonious way!" - N K Narasimhan, CEO and Co-Founder, Nascor Technologies, Bengaluru "Don't miss the ending!" - Raghunath Babu Are, Employee at Microsoft, Bengaluru

The Big Switch: It's never too late


John Thomas - 2017
    He is a software engineer at a reputable company and has a girlfriend whom he loves a lot.Yet, there is something missing in his life. He is not even close to being happy.Only after losing his girlfriend, he realizes what the reason for his unhappiness is.He realizes that he is caught up in the wrong career.With time running out, he knows that he must switch to a new career — one that makes him happy.But, is 24 too late to do that? Is he making a mistake?Find out as Keith follows his heart in pursuit of an impossible-looking dream.

Teenage Diaries: The Days That Were


Saurabh Sharma - 2016
    You had a fit of breathlessness in front of your crush, When FLAMES said marriage, you couldn't help but blush. Blank calls played Morse codes, Two meant - you missed her loads. You were clumsy as shit, because her presence was sublime, But after your break-up, crying became your favorite pastime. You bunked the classes and said - 'Let the studies rot!' But you never missed Kiran ma'am's class, 'coz she was pretty hot!;) Cricket brought you glory, And planting a bomb in school changed your story. Life screwed you over and killed your spirit, But you're glad that you anyway did it. Told from the eyes of an Indian middle-class teenager, this story will make you wonder what you would have done if you were named Ghanshyam and were born a pessimistic nerd, while your optimistic best friend believed in unicorns and utopia! And to add to your woes, what if you fell in love with the most beautiful girl of your school? Wouldn't you then wait for a miracle to happen?Well, what if that miracle happened?

Unns: The Captivation


Sapan Saxena - 2016
    Lovebirds since adolescence. Bonded by love, separated by circumstances. They part ways only to meet again. But this time, he is on a secret mission... Are they in control of their own destiny, or its their destiny which is making them dance to its tunes? Only time would answer, as Atharva and Meher unwillingly and unknowingly transcend the seven stages of love. A quintessential tale of love and romance marked beautifully by its own rustic old school charm.

The Memory of You


Jamie Beck - 2018
    Recovering from an assault, she returns to her coastal Connecticut hometown to rebuild her life the best way she knows how: with her hands. But starting a remodeling business with one longtime friend puts her in the middle of a rift with another. Worse, being hired by her ex-boyfriend’s mother forces her to confront old regrets.Public defender Ryan Quinn wasn’t shocked when his wife left him, but he was floored when she abandoned their daughter. With his finances up in the air, the newly single dad returns to his childhood home in Sanctuary Sound. The last person he expects, or wants, to see working on his family house is Steffi Lockwood—his first love who shattered his heart.Although Steffi and Ryan are different people now, dormant feelings rekindle. But when Steffi’s secrets begins to surface, will it bring them together…or tear them apart for good?

Latitudes of Longing


Shubhangi Swarup - 2018
    The novel sweeps across India, from an island, to a valley, a city, and a snow desert to tell a love story of epic proportions. We follow a scientist who studies trees and a clairvoyant who speaks to them; a geologist working to end futile wars over a glacier; octogenarian lovers; a mother struggling to free her revolutionary son; a yeti who seeks human companionship; a turtle who transforms first into a boat and then a woman; and the ghost of an evaporated ocean as restless as the continents. Binding them all together is a vision of life as vast as the universe itself. A young writer awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in India for this novel, Shubhangi Swarup is a storyteller of extraordinary talent and insight. Richly imaginative and wryly perceptive, Latitudes of Longing offers a soaring view of humanity: our beauty and ugliness, our capacity to harm and love each other, and our mysterious and sacred relationship with nature.

Glitter and Gloss


Vibha Batra - 2016
    The only hitch in this perfect romance is her prospective sister-in-law who thinks Misha is everything a Bahu shouldn’t be: garrulous, geeky, gawky, gainfully employed (especially the last bit). The questions is will Misha win Didi (and the Kha-Pee Panchayat) over with her Stepford Wife Act? Will she continue to be the poster child for the inherent evils of the Bahu Brigade? Or will she learn to ‘lau’ herself before the whole world and its wife can do the same?

A House Is a Body


Shruti Swamy - 2020
    Henry-prize winner Swamy's debut collection of stories, dreams collide with reality, modernity collides with antiquity, myth with true identity, and women grapple with desire, with ego, with motherhood and mortality. In "Earthly Pleasures," Radika, a young painter living alone in San Francisco, begins a secret romance with one of India's biggest celebrities. In "A Simple Composition," a husband's moment of crisis leads to his wife's discovery of a dark, ecstatic joy and the sense of a new beginning. In the title story, an exhausted mother watches, distracted and paralyzed, as a California wildfire approaches her home. With a knife blade's edge and precision, the stories of A House Is a Body travel from India to America and back again to reveal the small moments of beauty, pain, and power that contain the world.

The Golden House


Salman Rushdie - 2017
    The neighborhood is a bubble within a bubble, and the residents are immediately intrigued by the eccentric newcomer and his family. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya, a brilliant recluse with a tortured mind; Apu, the flamboyant artist, sexually and spiritually omnivorous, famous on twenty blocks; and D, at twenty-two the baby of the family, harboring an explosive secret even from himself. There is no mother, no wife; at least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king—a queen in want of an heir.Our guide to the Goldens’ world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down.Set against the strange and exuberant backdrop of current American culture and politics, The Golden House also marks Salman Rushdie’s triumphant and exciting return to realism. The result is a modern epic of love and terrorism, loss and reinvention—a powerful, timely story told with the daring and panache that make Salman Rushdie a force of light in our dark new age.

Comfort Me with Apples


Catherynne M. Valente - 2021
    Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

Evidence of the Affair


Taylor Jenkins Reid - 2018
    Even though I do not know you…The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here.Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

Mr & Mrs Nambiar


Sudha Nair - 2019
    A cute tale about how a housewife gets her groove back...Indu and Madan Nambiar have lead a well-settled, almost-perfect life for many years — and then, Madan retires.As their seemingly content coexistence is threatened, will they be able to strike a new balance? Will Indu be able to accept this new reality? Or will retirement be a new beginning for both Mr and Mrs Nambiar?Read this funny take on the repercussions of retirement.

Digging In


Loretta Nyhan - 2018
    Since his death, she’s been sleepwalking through life, barely holding on for the sake of her teenage son. Her house is a wreck, the grass is overrun with weeds, and she’s at risk of losing her job. As Paige stares at her neglected lawn, she knows she’s hit rock bottom. So she does something entirely unexpected: she begins to dig.As the hole gets bigger, Paige decides to turn her entire yard into a vegetable garden. The neighbors in her tidy gated community are more than a little alarmed. Paige knows nothing about gardening, and she’s boldly flouting neighborhood-association bylaws. But with the help of new friends, a charming local cop, and the transformative power of the soil, Paige starts to see potential in the chaos of her life. Something big is beginning to take root—both in her garden and in herself.

How I Came to Sparkle Again


Kaya McLaren - 2012
    She’s going to hold out for love.  The only problem is, love might come in the form of her ski bum best friend, who lives next door with his ski bum friends in a trailer known as “the Kennel.” Cassie Jones, at age ten, has lost her mother to cancer and no longer believes in anything anymore.  She knows her father is desperately worried about her, and she constantly looks for messages from her deceased mother through the heart-shaped rocks they once collected in the streams and hills of Sparkle. Three people at the crossroads of heartbreak and healing.  Three lives that will be changed one winter in Sparkle.  One tender, funny, tear-jerking novel you won’t soon forget.

Before and Again


Barbara Delinsky - 2018
    Now she lives in Vermont under the name Maggie Reid, in a small house with her cats and dog. She’s thankful for the new friends she’s made―though she can’t risk telling them too much. And she takes satisfaction in working as a makeup artist at the luxurious local spa, helping clients hide the visible outward signs of their weariness, illnesses, and injuries. Covering up scars is a skill she has mastered.Her only goal is to stay under the radar and make it through her remaining probation. But she isn’t the only one in this peaceful town with secrets. When a friend’s teenage son is thrust into the national spotlight, accused of hacking a powerful man’s Twitter account, Maggie is torn between pulling away and protecting herself―or stepping into the glare to be at their side. As the stunning truth behind their case is slowly revealed, Maggie’s own carefully constructed story begins to unravel as well. She knows all too well that what we need from each other in this difficult world is comfort. But to provide it, sometimes we need to travel far outside our comfort zones.