Mango Cheeks, Metal Teeth


Aruna Nambiar - 2013
    Humour flows effortlessly for her, which is the biggest strength of the novel.' The Hindu‘I am very grateful to have my faith in new Indian fiction restored. This is a classic, timeless book that illuminates and entertains by turn.’ Suchi Govindarajan‘A delightful read from start to finish. There were places where I was grinning so much as I read it that my kids were looking at me strangely. But under the humour, the frivolity, the nostalgia of an Eighties life, there are several growing-up lessons taking place. Yet, the book never gets maudlin… although it does leave you with an ache for things that could have been. Brilliant writing.’ Andaleeb WajidSet in small-town Kerala of the 1980s, Mango Cheeks, Metal Teeth is part coming-of-age story, part social satire and part comedy of errors. Geetha, elevenish, is off for the annual family vacation in Kerala and is looking forward to all the fun with her cousins – visits to the beach and trips to the market to buy glass bangles and kites and shuttlecocks, evenings in the veranda listening to her grandfather’s ridiculous ghost stories which he swears are all true, marathon card games and ferocious boys-versus-girls battles with the bristles of brooms made from coconut fibre… But as the summer unfolds, Geetha finds herself spending more time instead at the back of the house with the free-spirited cook, the hypochondriac cleaner, the virile gardener, a cheeky helper girl… ...And Babu, son of Koovait Kannan, the bumbling plumber who made good. Babu’s family is immersed, meanwhile, in the wedding preparations for Babu’s sister, who is marrying the most eligible bachelor in the neighbourhood: Constable Venu, an expert thrasher of suspects and son of that wealthy black-marketer of supplies, Ration Raaman. But Babu’s mind is otherwise occupied… with thoughts of a face as rounded as a Malgova mango, of an oiled plait as thick as the ropes used to tie the fishing boats, of eyes that sparkle like the sea on a sunlit morn… As Geetha and Babu’s closely linked but widely divergent lives intersect, both are about to lose some of the blissful ignorance and innocence of childhood. Charmingly quirky and often laugh-out-loud hilarious, Mango Cheeks, Metal Teeth gently explores the themes of growing up, loss of innocence and the intimate yet aloof nature of upstairs-downstairs relationships.

So You Want to Know About Economics


Roopa Pai - 2017
    Why doesn’t the government simply print more money so that everyone has enough? Who decides that seventy Indian rupees equal one American dollar? How do you figure out what to price a glass of lemonade at the Diwali mela? Are economists really as boring as they look? For answers to these and other mystifying questions, look no further than this fun book! (Psst! You may even catch your adults sneaking a peek inside!).

Dating the Coach: An Instalove Single Mom Matchmaker Romance


Ava Pearl - 2022
    

Emotion


Sadhguru - 2018
    In a literal sense also, emotions are a chemical cocktail that course through our bodies. But while we have no problems with pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions are the source of much angst in our lives. In Emotion: The Juice of Life, Sadhguru looks at the gamut of human emotions and how to turn them into stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks.Sadhguru is a yogi and profound mystic of our times. An absolute clarity of perception places him in a unique space in not only matters spiritual but in business, environmental and international affairs, and opens a new door on all that he touches.

Fighting for Tara


Sunanda J. Chatterjee - 2016
    Get rid of her tonight!” He towered over her as she cringed in fear. But Hansa, a thirteen-year-old child-bride in rural India, refuses to remain a victim of the oppressive society where a female child is an unwanted burden. Instead of drowning her baby, Hansa escapes from her village with three-month-old Tara.Hansa soon discovers that life as a teenage mother is fraught with danger. But a single lie opens the door to a promising opportunity far from home.Just seven years later, Hansa finds herself fighting for Tara’s life once more, this time in an American court, with a woman she calls ‘Mother.’Will the lie upon which Hansa built her life, defeat its own purpose? How can she succeed when no one believes the truth? A story of two mothers, two daughters and a fight to save a child, Fighting for Tara explores the depth of love and motherhood.

Love Un-Stuck


Sudha Nair - 2020
    As their paths collide, Kyra can’t help falling in love, not only with her little adventure but also with the man who’s probably all wrong for her.Irfan is stuck in LIFE. Kyra is stuck in a RUT.Only LOVE can get them un-stuck! They just don’t know it yet.Love Un-Stuck is a sweet romance novel about finding the love and the life of one’s dreams...Irfan and Kyra's story will leave you smiling and rooting for this mismatched pair.

Dear Sakhi: The Lost Journals of the Ladies of Hastinapur (Mahabharata Companion, #4)


Sharath Komarraju - 2015
    Listen in on the words of Ganga, Satyavati, Kunti, Gandhari, Amba and Draupadi as they open their hearts to their companions. - What did Draupadi think during her last moments of life? - How did Kunti feel on the day she abandoned Karna? - Why did Amba burn with revenge so, and did it satiate her when she got it? - What is it like to be mother to the greatest hero of the age? - What is Satyavati's secret? Find out answers to these and many more questions when you read 'Dear Sakhi'. If you're a mythology fan, this is a must-have.

Girls Burn Brighter


Shobha Rao - 2018
    Poornima's father hires Savitha to work one of their sari looms, and the two girls are quickly drawn to one another. Savitha is even more impoverished than Poornima, but she is full of passion and energy. She shows Poornima how to find beauty in a bolt of indigo cloth, a bowl of yogurt rice and bananas, the warmth of friendship. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond the arranged marriage her father is desperate to lock down for her. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend again. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face relentless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within them. In breathtaking prose, Shobha Rao tackles the most urgent issues facing women today: domestic abuse, human trafficking, immigration, and feminism. At once a propulsive page-turner and a heart-wrenching meditation on friendship, Rao's debut novel is a literary tour de force.

Between The Lines: Volumes of Words Unspoken


Céline Zabad - 2018
     Written with incredible honesty and self-knowledge, Between the Lines is a stunning collection of poems from Céline Zabad. Ranging in length from a single line to full pages, her poems mimic at once the brevity and vastness of feeling. Her verse is at times as free as a cloud, other times as solid as stone. Her words are philosophies and feelings in their own rights, on love, loss, loyalty, betrayal, hope, and disappointment—on life. Zabad encapsulates the thrill of love’s first blush and the freezing burn of heartbreak. Her feelings flow freely throughout the collection, lending her poetry uncommon authenticity and power. Nature thrives between the lines of her verse, reminding the reader that tears are as natural as raindrops. Whether you’re looking for new ways to think about your own feelings or are simply passionate about poetry, you’ll find plenty to love in this collection. To better understand the complexities of emotion in yourself and others, you must read Between the Lines.

Sweet Destiny: A Small Town Sweet Romance: A small town silver romance (Silver Fox Book 1)


Dean Hodel - 2019
    One thought love wasn't for him.Together they'll find an unconditional love that heals.Robert Parker has been in the army and traveled the world. He comes back to retire in a place called home. He is resolved to live his life alone, but fate has other plans. He meets a widow named Delilah Cade-- whose poise and quiet grace make him abandon any plan of bachelorhood.Delilah Cade has already known the love of a lifetime. When her husband passed, she dedicates her life to her family. Now her grandchildren need her to help out in the family business. She pairs up with Robert Parker-- a private and enigmatic man who reminds her that she's still very much a woman.When these two meet, their core values and beliefs will be put to the test. They will have to decide if it's worth putting aside their old ways to embrace a new life and a new love.Buy Sweet Destiny today!

The World of Nagaraj


R.K. Narayan - 1990
    Living in his family's spacious house with only his wife Sita for company, he fills his day writing letters, drinking coffee, doing some leisurely book keeping for his friend Coomar's Boeing Sari Company, and sitting on his veranda watching the world and planning the book he intends to write about the life of the great sage Narada. But everything is disturbed when Tim, the son of his ambitious landowing brother Gopu, decides to leave home and come to live with Nagaraj. Forced to take responsibility for the boy, puzzled by his secret late-night activities and by the strong smell of sprits which lingers behind him, Nagaraj finds his days, suddenly filled with unwelcome complication and turbulence, which threaten to alter for ever the contented tranquility of his world. The latest of R.K.Narayan's magnificent Malgudi books, The World of Nagaraj is beautifully written, funny and haunting , evoking in marvelously rich detail the atmosphere of a small town in southern India and creating a magical world into which the reader is instantly drawn.

The Mountain of Light


Indu Sundaresan - 2013
    It is the “Mountain of Light”—the Kohinoor diamond—and its facets reflect a sweeping story of love, adventure, conquest, and betrayal. Its origins are the stuff of myth, but for centuries this spectacular gem changes hands from one ruler to another in India, Persia, and Afghanistan. In 1850, the ancient stone is sent halfway around the world where it will play a pivotal role in the intertwined destinies of a boy-king of India and a young queen of England—a queen who claims the Mountain of Light and India itself for her own burgeoning empire, the most brilliant jewels in her imperial crown.The Mountain of Light is a magnificent story of loss and recovery, sweeping change and enduring truth, wrapped around the glowing heart of one of the world’s most famous diamonds.

To a Fault


Nick Laird - 2005
    Journeying between his native Ulster and his adopted London, he balances ideas of home and flight, the need for belonging and the need to remain outside. Formally deft, rhetorically fresh, these poems never shy from difficult choices, exploring cruelty and vengeance wherever they may be found: in love, in work and against political backdrops. But these are brave, resolute writings that resist despair at all times, affirming instead the need to rebuild and to right oneself, to dust down and carry on.

Mosquito and Ant: Poems


Kimiko Hahn - 1999
    Here in this exciting and totally original book of poems the narrator corresponds with L. about her hidden passions, her relationship with her husband and adolescent daughters, lost loves, and erotic fantasies. Kimiko Hahn's collection takes shape as a series of wide-ranging correspondences that are in turn precocious and wise, angry and wistful. Borrowing from both Japanese and Chinese traditions, Hahn offers us an authentic and complex narrator struggling with the sorrows and pleasures of being a woman against the backdrop of her Japanese-American roots.

Making Excellence A Habit: The Secret to Building a World-Class Healthcare System in India


V. Mohan - 2021
    While hard work, passion and focus emerge as winning lessons, delicate and tender learnings from Dr Mohan's life, such as empathy or spirituality, are not forgotten.Written in Dr Mohan's sagacious and affable voice, and peppered with examples of his bold and unusual ideas such as planning a diabetes expo or conducting a country-wide diabetes study, this book is a behind-the-scenes account of a person honoured internationally for delivering path-breaking care to hundreds of thousands of people with diabetes.