Scouting on Two Continents


Frederick Russell Burnham - 1926
     Born on a Dakota Sioux reservation he was taught the ways of the Native Americans from as soon as he could walk. At the tender age of fourteen, having had little formal education, he was supporting himself and learning from some of the last cowboys and frontiersmen of the Old West. These lessons would pay dividend in his later life, first as a tracker for the United States Army in the Apache Wars and later as a scout for the British Army in the Matebele Wars in Southern Africa. Frederick Burnham Russell was a remarkable figure who revolutionized the art of scouting in both the British and United States armies. Indeed his influence would lead his friend, Robert Baden-Powell, to begin the international Scouting Movement. In Scouting on Two Continents Burnham records the details of his brilliant life in fascinating detail and provides insight into the life of an unique adventurer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “Burnham in real life is more interesting than any of my heroes of romance.” Rider Haggard “Burnham is a most delightful companion ... amusing, interesting, and most instructive. Having seen service against the Red Indians he brings quite a new experience to bear on the Scouting work here. And while he talks away there’s not a thing escapes his quick roving eye, whether it is on the horizon or at his feet.” Robert Baden-Powell Frederick Burnham Russell has been described as the “Father of Scouting.” He fought in the Pleasant Valley War, Apache Wars, the First and Second Matabele Wars as well as the Second Boer War. His book Scouting on Two Continents was first published in 1926. He passed away in 1947.

The Captives of Abb's Valley: A Legend of Frontier Life


James Moore Brown - 1854
     The Moore family were early settlers from Ireland, who eventually made their home in Virginia. A branch of the family discovered Abb’s Valley; a remote settlement, isolated but idyllic, and which had once belonged to Cherokee and Shawnee natives. After many years of happiness, forming a successful and religiously-devoted community, the Moore family was brutally attacked. The Shawnees ruthlessly killed the majority of the family, taking the survivors prisoner, including Mary Moore, James Moore Brown’s mother. Mary found herself sold into slavery, and thus began a long and arduous journey to gain back her freedom and return to the home of youth. With unwavering faith in God and a belief that following His path would set her free, Mary was eventually rescued. This remarkable book, long suppressed because of the politically incorrect facts it contains about early frontier life and the interactions between white settlers and Indians, provides a dramatic insight into the sufferings of the early European pioneers in America. Indians regularly captured whites for use as slaves — although those were the lucky ones. The less fortunate were tortured and killed, often for sport. Written with a strong focus on Presbyterianism, the book’s value lies in its dispassionate detailing of the everyday life and dangers for families on the frontier. Born in Rockbridge, Virginia, USA on 1799 to Samuel Brown and Mary Moore (one of the captives of Abb’s Valley), James Moore Brown married Mary Ann Bell and had 6 children. He passed away on 1866 in Virginia, USA. His only book, The Captives of Abb’s Valley was first published in 1854.

The Making of Exile: Sindhi Hindus and the Partition of India


Nandita Bhavnani - 2014
    The Making of Exile hopes to redress this, by turning a spotlight on the specific narratives of the Sindhi Hindu community. Post-Partition, Sindh was relatively free of the inter-communal violence witnessed in Punjab, Bengal and other parts of north India. Consequently, in the first few months of Pakistan's early life, Sindhi Hindus did not migrate and remained the most significant minority in West Pakistan. Starting with the announcement of the Partition of India, The Making of Exile firmly traces the experiences of the community - that went from being a small but powerful minority to becoming the target of communal discrimination, practiced by both the state as well as sections of Pakistani society. This climate of communal antipathy threw into sharp relief the help and sympathy extended to Sindhi Hindus by other Pakistani Muslims, both Sindhi and muhajir. Finally, it was when they became victims of the Karachi pogrom of January 1948 that Sindhi Hindus felt compelled to migrate to India.The second segment of the book examines the resettlement of the community in India - their first brush with squalid refugee camps, their struggle to make sense of rapidly changing governmental policies and the spirit of determination and enterprise with which they rehabilitated themselves in their new homeland. Yet, not all Sindhi Hindus chose to migrate and the specific challenges of those who stayed on in Sindh, as well as the difficulties faced by Sindhi Muslims after the formation of Pakistan, have been sensitively documented in the final chapters. Weaving in a variety of narratives - diary entries and memoirs, press reportage, letters to editors and, advertisements, legends and poetry, dozens of interviews and a wealth of academic literature - Nandita Bhavnani's The Making of Exile is one of the most comprehensive and multifaceted studies of the Sindhi experience of Partition.

The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996


Pranab Mukherjee - 2016
    Sanjay Gandhi is dead under unexpected, tragic circumstances; not many years later, Indira Gandhi is assassinated; Rajiv Gandhi, ‘the reluctant politician’, abruptly becomes India’s Prime Minister.Pranab Mukherjee was witness to (and, sometimes, a participant in) the momentous events of the 1980s and the 1990s, a period that was indisputably the most turbulent in India’s post-Independence history. An insider, he sheds new light on every major political occurrence of the time—from Rajiv Gandhi’s ascendance as India’s Prime Minister to the emergence of P.V. Narasimha Rao as the leader of a nation; from Operation Blue Star to the Babri Masjid fiasco.Equally, Mukherjee is candid about each of the professional crises that marked this period of his career—the rumours that he wanted to elbow aside Rajiv Gandhi for the top post; the possible reasons for his ouster from Rajiv’s Cabinet and, later, the party; and the allegation that he aided and abetted the Left by not imposing President’s rule in West Bengal and Tripura in the late 1980s.The second volume of Mukherjee’s autobiography is not only an honest account of his years in power (and in the wilderness), but also a cogent analysis of the political and social turning points of a key period in the evolution of modern India.

The Indu Sundaresan Collection: The Twentieth Wife, Feast of Roses, and Shadow Princess


Indu Sundaresan - 2013
    Ghias Beg isn’t traveling light; he has with him a pregnant wife and three small children. When his family stops at Qandahar—which is today in modern-day Afghanistan, at that time was on the outer fringe of the Mughal Empire—his wife gives birth to a baby girl named Mehrunnisa. Thirty-four years later, this winter child will become an Emperor’s wife and the most powerful woman in that Mughal dynasty. Mehrunnisa is The Twentieth Wife of Emperor Jahangir, Akbar’s son, a woman so beloved of her husband that he grants her most of the powers of sovereignty. She signs on imperial documents called farmans and mints coins in her name and truly comes into power during the sixteen years of her marriage to Jahangir in The Feast of Roses . Mehrunnisa’s niece (her brother’s daughter and Ghias’ granddaughter) marries one of Jahangir’s sons, Prince Khurram who becomes Emperor Shah Jahan after his father’s death. When this niece dies in childbirth in June of 1631, Shah Jahan builds the Taj Mahal in her memory. But it is Mehrunnisa’s grand-niece (and Ghias’ great-granddaughter) Princess Jahanara who takes center stage in the third novel of the trilogy, Shadow Princess . She’s seventeen years old when her mother dies and her father, in his grief, leans upon her to the extent that she’s never allowed to marry. Throughout her life, Jahanara has to pacify warring brothers who each want the throne after their father, and engages in a rivalry with a sister, Roshanara—in supporting differing brothers politically, and in falling in love with the same noble at court, Najabat Khan. Powerful in her father’s harem, immensely rich with half her mother’s estate bestowed upon her and all of her mother’s yearly income, Jahanara still fails to turn the course of India’s history and has to find love with Najabat Khan in unconventional ways.

Shivaji And His Times


Jadunath Sarkar - 1929
    After a brief introduction to the geography of Maharashtra, and a description of the people of that land, the book traces the rise of Shahji Bhonsle, Shivaji's father in the service of the Adil Shah of Bijapur, Shivaji's boyhood, his early victories and his wars with the Mughals and the Adil Shah are recounted in detail. A major portion of the book is devoted to Shivaji's relations with the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb and his constant struggles to capture Maratha territory. Shivaji's coronation, his subsequent forays into southern India, his efforts to build a strong navy, his relations with foreign powers, all are discussed in the book. The author also makes a critical assessment of Shivaji's contributions and achievements, and his place in history. Using a wide range of sources and historical documents in a variety of languages, the author draws a definitive portrait of the great Maratha ruler and nation.

Only Fatherland


Arun Shourie - 1991
    In the process he uncovers the secret negotiations they conducted and the secret understanding they struck with the British; the reports they submitted to the imperial rulers about the work they were doing to subvert the movement Mahatma Gandhi had launched. He concludes with a review of the reactions of Indian communists to the break-up of the Soviet empire; showing how their mental make-up and habits have not changed in the six decades since independence.

Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian Military


Sushant Singh - 2017
    

The Enemies of the Idea of India


Ramachandra Guha - 2011
    These are right-wing Hindu fundamentalism, leftwing Maoist extremism, and seccessionist movementsseeking up the break-up of India. In recent years, to those three longstanding threats have been added three more: inequality, corruption, and environmental degradation.Guha analyses each of these six threats in turn, explaining their origins and course, and suggesting ways in which they may be tamed or overcome.

Chanakya


Ashok K. Banker - 2018
    Master administrator. Author of the Arthashastra. But before the legend, there was the boy: Vishnu Gupta. Pataliputra, capital of the great Nanda empire, is teeming with crime and corruption. Granted unlimited authority by the hedonistic emperor Mahapadma Nanda, evil mastermind Maha-amatya Kartikeya has the city in a vice-like grip. But another name bubbles up through the chaos; there is talk of a young genius, Vishnu Gupta. When the Maha-amatya investigates the rumours, he recognises a future rival in the boy. He is determined to destroy this competition from the roots – family and all. Vishnu must gather all his wits and his formidable knowledge to protect everything he holds dear. The holy scriptures, his brilliant interpretations of the Vedas and the power of his unmatched mind: these are the only tools he has against the might of the most powerful man in the empire. Epic storyteller Ashok K. Banker imagines the life and formative years of India’s greatest genius, a man whose influence persists down the ages. In this first instalment of a thrilling trilogy, he recreates Chanakya’s early struggles and triumphs.

My Name is Gauhar Jaan!: The Life and Times of a Musician


Vikram Sampath - 2010
    Vikram Sampath, in this remarkable book, brings forth little known details of this fascinating woman who was known for her melodious voice, her multi-lingual skills, poetic sensibility, irresistible personality and her extravagant lifestyle. From her early days in Azamgarh and Banaras to the glory years in Calcutta when Gauhar ruled the world of Indian music, to her sad fall from grace and end in Mysore, the book takes the reader through the roller-coaster ride of this feisty musician. In the process, the author presents a view of the socio-historical context of Indian music and theatre during that period.

Mosquito Point Road: Monroe County Murder & Mayhem


Michael Benson - 2020
    There’s Killer of the Cloth, The Baby in the Convent, Mosquito Point Road, Death of a First Baseman, The Blue Gardenia, and Pure/Evil. Three of the killers are female.

Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers


Ed Nyland - 2015
    Its essence is sharing. Therefore, Bill W. and Dr. Bob are always referred to within the Fellowship as the co-founders. So far, among the majority of A.A. members, the Ohio surgeon has been less well known than his partner. He died in 1950, when A.A. was only 15 years old. But his influence on the whole A.A. program is permanent and profound. This book gives a portrait of Dr. Bob as full-sale and balanced as possible—for the most part, in the words of those who knew him personally. The young man who grew up in Vermont became a hard-drinking college boy, then a medical student fighting the onset of his own alcoholism, a respected physician, a loving but increasingly unreliable family man, and at last a desperately ill drunk. He was without hope until he met a stockbroker from New York—Bill W., who urgently needed a fellow alcoholic to help him maintain his own sobriety. His story then becomes inextricably entwined with that of Alcoholics Anonymous: from a fledgling Fellowship to a powerful spiritual movement with a worldwide reach. Dr. Bob’s story remains instructional and inspiring to those who read it today.

Witness to Blunder: Kargil Story Unfolds


Ashfaq Hussain - 2008
    Published in September 2008, it coincides with the passing of a decade since the military operation was initiated on snow-tipped mountains in the winter of 1998-1999.

Poor Little Rich Girl


Katie Flynn - 2002
    Hester Lowe agrees to act as governess to spoilt, self-willed, little Lonnie Hetherington-Smith when they leave India to live with Lonnie's elderly aunt in Shaw Street, Liverpool. Hester speedily realises that her new employer dislikes her niece and means to make life uncomfortable for both of them. Things improve a little when they meet the poor, but happy, Bailey family who live in a court off Heyworth Street. Hester likes Dick Bailey very much, but her employer does not permit 'followers', whilst Lonnie and young Ben Bailey are deadly enemies. Then, the regime in Shaw Street changes and Hester is forced to leave the comforts of a middle-class household to make her own way in what is, to her, a strange country... Poor Little Rich Girl is sure to please the huge and growing fanbase of one of the most popular saga authors in the country, with more than two million books sold nationwide.