His once prosperous landowning family has slipped low down the class ladder. Arif ’s sole ambition in life is to crack the civil service examination and become an IAS officer. He believes this will restore the family’s fortunes and works hard at his studies. Until his first glimpse of Sumitra, a voluptuous long-haired beauty. Married, Hindu and several years older than him, she is wrong for him in every way. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will consume his life.‘Reading Patna Blues is like pedalling your way through a littleknown India. It is certain to fill you with inexplicably candid and absolutely stunning tales. Patna Blues marks an impressive debut and brings us an important voice.’ —Anees Salim‘I am familiar not only with the places where this novel is set, the cramped rooms, the names of shops, or the streets, but, it seems to me, even the people, their little joys, their struggles, their often irrational hopes and desires, their guilt, and their beauty. Part literary novel, part-pulp fiction, Patna Blues is a report from a rarely seen world in Indian writing in English, the contemporary lives of provincial Muslims.’ —Amitava Kumar

    Who is he? What does he want? Is he a vigilante or a psychopath? A delusional hero…Iravan Rajpoot, an Ex-Black Cat Commando with a dark past is receiving letters with names and time limits. It’s no sooner that he learns these people will die within that time frame. He needs to do everything, risk everyone to save them. An ambitious reporter…Swati Kaushik, a widow and a woman who can do anything for success must team up with Iravan to stop the god of death and justice. Will Iravan Rajpoot be able to find Yama while balancing out his personal life? Will Yama be able to fulfill in spreading his twisted message to everyone? With twist and turns in every short chapter, Yama grabs the reader and plunges them in the heart of human consciousness.

    

    She hitchhikes as far as the freeway outside a small Northwestern town. The closest thing within walking distance is a strip club, and Janie finds herself working there, where she falls for Paul Jesse, a drug dealer, and moves in with him as he spirals into addiction and physical abuse. As the violence escalates, Janie finds a job in a bookstore and begins to establish her independence. Leaving Paul after a brutal beating, Janie must reconcile their relationship and make the most difficult, most dangerous choice she’ll ever make.Like Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Little Green examines the psychology of a woman who has experienced violence at the hands of someone she loves and the complexity of leaving with sensitivity and insight. This is a life-affirming story about a woman who finds strength in books, in the promise of education, and in the community of friends who help her find a way out.

    The stories recounts the life of times of the hero Domrudhar in colonial India. The protagonist Domrudhar is portrayed as a dishonest man who rises from a lowly shop-assistant to a land owner.

    The poet Donald Davie writes: 'Vikram Seth's poems should have an impact far beyond much noisier pieces; for when did we last see a volume in which the poet's eye is on what is objectively before him, rather than on the intricacies of his own sensibility?'

    Saadiq Haider, a renowned gene therapist and professor at Stanford University, receives a phone call that changes his life. Abandoning his duties and responsibilities, Saadiq hurriedly boards a flight bound for India, embarking on a journey that spans thousands of miles and pulls him back into a past Saadiq thought long-buried. Seated next to him on the flight, Anne Miller—an intrepid journalist with a nose for headline news—senses the reclusive genius has a story to tell.During the flight, Anne manages to break through Saadiq’s hard exterior and listens, rapt, as he unfurls a tale fraught with love and heartbreak.His story transports Anne back in time to a small, sleepy town nestled in the mountains of northern India, where Saadiq spent his childhood. Through Saadiq’s narrative, Anne meets Maryam and witnesses the friendship between Maryam and Saadiq mature into an intense love; a love that is tested when tragedy strikes and the lovers are separated. Try as they might, their devotion is no match against the workings of fate, and the tighter Saadiq and Maryam cling to one another, the faster they slip apart.Now, after two decades of trying to forget his past with alcohol and drug abuse, Saadiq tells Anne that fate has acted again; Maryam is the hospital, her condition critical. When their plane lands in India, the newfound friends part ways and while Saadiq rushes to Maryam’s side, Anne returns to her life, grateful to have met the enigmatic man.Months later, Anne learns that after wrenching Maryam from the indomitable grip of death, Saadiq took her back to America, where they finally married. But, her assumption that the greatest love story she had ever known would end happily is shattered when Anne receives devastating news.

    But after a minute or two, they too walked away, because looking at the two any longer became unbearable.’A woman who won’t let the shadow of death disrupt her love life, another who falls irrevocably in love with a dead police officer, a devoted wife who steps out twice a week for Narcotics Anonymous meetings, friends who should have been lovers, the woman who offers all her pent-up love to a railway announcer’s voice … Annie Zaidi’s stories are at once warm and distant, violent and gentle – and, above all, untroubled by cynicism. This is a look at love, straight in the eye, to understand the alluring nature of the beast.

    An inquiry is promptly launched and Ravi, the suspect is placed under an elaborate regime of surveillance. The investigation subsequently throws up a huge amount of evidence, showing the suspect stealing sensitive data. As panic sets in, investigators acrimoniously debate whether to allow the suspect to walk free or physically force him to own up his crime. For Jeevnathan, the problem also is how to keep the tiring watchers going and persuade an edgy Chief to stay on course. As the story enters 96th Day, paradoxical consequences follow.Loosely inspired by a true incident that took place in 2004 when a senior intelligence officer suspected of being a spy for decades vanished, the story also treats us to a rare insight into the state of security awareness of employees in the Agency, constrains in conducting aggressive operations, pitfalls in liaison relationship, competing interests of intelligence services, hazards in co-ordination of intelligence inputs and the Kashmir imbroglio.

    Set in a middle-class housing colony, this is the story of stay-at-home mum Monalisa, who cannot clean the kitchen counter enough times; Meera, who is bullied constantly by her traditional mother-in-law; college-going Abeer, who isnt sure how to impress the glamorous Mandy; academic Aparajita, who has no takers on the marriage mart; philosopher Ananda, whom no one takes seriously; and Treeza, a former school secretary now sunk in gloom. Into their midst arrives Oxford-returned Sandhya: half hippie, half saadhvi, full spiritual guru. Under her aegis is formed The Weight Loss Club, throwing the lives of our heroes and heroines into utter and delightful disarray. But while chemistry brews and equations change, one question remains: who is Brahmacharini Sandhya, and why on earth has she moved into Nancy Housing Cooperative?

    War, secrets and betrayal cast a shadow over the Maclarens from the battlefield to the drawing-room. Young Andrew Maclaren, a brave yet sensitive soldier, faces the danger of conflicts in India and China. He must choose between the regiment he serves and the woman he loves. Willie Bruce, Andrew's childhood friend and fellow soldier, discovers loyalty is not always rewarded. Maud Westburn, beautiful but damaged, is the woman who loves them both. Will this love tear a family, and a regiment, apart? A sweeping saga about passion and honour, and the senseless brutality of war.

    Another super collection of naughty and not-so-naughty jokes, humorous anecdotes, comic interludes, hilarious situations and bitchy remarks, selected by Khushwant Singh from amongst the thousands contributed by his readers and fans - and some manufactured by him.

    But as Rachel tends to the escalating physical and emotional needs of each, she notices the striking similarities in their aging processes, and realizes these two souls whom she loves deeply are on the same journey.With time working against her, Rachel must find a way to transform their uneasy truce into a trusting companionship. In doing so, she hopes to make their shared journey less lonely and frightening--and more bearable for those who must someday let them go.

    Made-to-order for those with a taste for inventive idiosyncrasy, this book promises to provoke and entertain in equal measure. About the author: Ishavasyam took a sabbatical from her career in marketing to fulfil her childhood dream of writing a book. Besides weaving tall tales, she loves playing board games and belly dancing. She is a hoarder of art supplies, and has an alarming number of incomplete DIY projects. Ishavasyam lives with her husband, whom she adores to bits, to the point where she may soon give in to his incessant plea to get a dog.

    The book starts during the reign of Emperor Ashoka and ends in 1947, when India gains independence.The core of The Tenth Unknown revolves around a race between different individuals to acquire a set of nine books. The books are some of the world’s best kept secrets, and it is believed that the person who gets the entire set will gain information that can lead to unlimited power and wealth.The books mentioned in this novel have been protected down the ages by a secret society of men appointed by Emperor Ashoka. They are scattered around the world and hidden, and the clues about their location are hidden in the ruins of the ancient Nalanda University.The attempts to trace the books take on a new pace when the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler manages to lay his hands on one of the books. This causes panic across the world. The British are worried at the prospect of empowering the dictator with unlimited wealth and power.The task of tracing the remaining books and ensuring their safety falls on Prithvi Rathore, who is more English than Indian. Prithvi is quite happy with his comfortable existence and his regular game of cricket. However, his grandfather, who was a member of the secret society formed to protect the books, insists that it is Prithvi’s duty to trace the remaining books and keep them safe. A reluctant Prithvi agrees to take up the task. His main opponent in this task is Joseph Heidler, a rather untypical Nazi officer who has been ordered by Adolf Hitler to get the remaining books.As the two men try to fulfill their assigned tasks, the race becomes intensely action packed. Will the good men win over the bad? Who will be able to decrypt the clues hidden amidst the broken ruins of Nalanda?