Jane Steele


Lyndsay Faye - 2016
    And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors.A fugitive navigating London's underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots whilst avoiding the noose. Until an advertisement catches her eye. Her aunt has died and the new master at Highgate House, Mr Thornfield, seeks a governess. Anxious to know if she is Highgate's true heir, Jane takes the position and is soon caught up in the household's strange spell. When she falls in love with the mysterious Charles Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: can she possess him - body, soul and secrets - and what if he discovers her murderous past?

The Boy Who Loved


Durjoy Datta - 2017
    And that's how he wants things to seem - normal.Deep down, however, the guilt of letting his closest friend drown in the school's swimming pool gnaws at him. And even as he punishes himself by hiding from the world and shying away from love and friendship, he feels drawn to the fascinating Brahmi - a girl quite like him, yet so different. No matter how hard Radhu tries not to, he begins to care ...Then life throws him into the deep end and he has to face his worst fears.Will love be strong enough to pull him out? The Boy Who Loved , the first of a two-part romance, is warm and dark, edgy and quirky, wonderfully realistic and dangerously unreal.

बकर पुराण


Ajeet Bharti - 2016
    The pages of this book contain stories of every bachelor who fell in love, did stupid things and discussed India's foreign policy at the neighbourhood tea stall.'Bakar Puran' is the past, present and the future of those bachelors which will always be the same. The language and style has the realism of a bachelor pad. Here, there is no garb of elitism in expression. Whatever it is, it just is.

Die Hennakünstlerin: Roman


Alka Joshi
    There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own…Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.

The Toss of a Lemon


Padma Viswanathan - 2008
    Hanumarathnam, a village healer with some renown as an astrologer, has approached her parents with a marriage proposal. In keeping with custom, he provides his prospective in-laws with his horoscope. The problem is that his includes a prediction, albeit a weak one, that he will die in his tenth year of marriage. Despite the ominous horoscope, Sivakami’s parents hesitate only briefly, won over by the young man and his family’s reputation as good, upstanding Brahmins. Once married, Sivikami and Hanumarathnam grow to love one another and the bride, now in her teens, settles into a happy life. But the predictions of Hanumarathnam’s horoscope are never far from her new husband’s mind. When their first child is born, as a strategy for accurately determining his child’s astrological charts, Hanumarathnam insists the midwife toss a lemon from the window of the birthing room the moment his child appears. All is well with their first child, a daughter, Thangam, whose birth has a positive influence on her father’s astrological future. But this influence is fleeting: when a son, Vairum, is born, his horoscope confirms that his father will die within three years.Resigned to his fate, Hanumarathnam sets himself to the unpleasant task of readying his household for his imminent death. Knowing the hardships and social restrictions Sivakami will face as a Brahmin widow, he hires and trains a servant boy called Muchami to help Sivakami manage the household and properties until Vairum is of age.When Sivakami is eighteen, Hanumarathnam dies as predicted. Relentless in her adherence to the traditions that define her Brahmin caste, she shaves her head and dons the white sari of the widow. With some reluctance, she moves to her family home to raise her children under the protection of her brothers, but then realizes that they are not acting in the best interests of her children. With her daughter already married to an unreliable husband of her brothers’ choosing, and Vairum’s future also at risk, Sivakami leaves her brothers and returns to her marital home to raise her family.With the freedom to make decisions for her son’s future, Sivakami defies tradition and chooses to give him a secular education. While her choice ensures that Vairum fulfills his promise, it also sets Sivakami on a collision course with him. Vairum, fatherless in childhood, childless as an adult, rejects the caste identity that is his mother’s mainstay, twisting their fates in fascinating and unbearable ways.

The Picture of Dorian Gray


Oscar Wilde - 1890
    The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.” Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.

The Great Indian Novel


Shashi Tharoor - 1989
    Chronicling the Indian struggle for freedom and independence from Great Britain, Tharoor directs his hilarious satire as much against Indian foibles as the bumbling of the British rulers.

The Man-Eater of Malgudi


R.K. Narayan - 1961
    Nataraj and his close friends, a poet and a journalist, find their congenia l days disturbed when Vasu, a powerful taxidermist, moves in with his stuffed hyenas and pythons, and brings his dancing-women up the printer's private stairs. When Vasu, in search of larger game, threatens the life of a temple elephant that Natara j has befriended, complications ensue that are both laughable and tragic.

The Invisible Man


H.G. Wells - 1897
    This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.

1Q84


Haruki Murakami - 2009
    She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

The Space Between Us


Thrity Umrigar - 2006
    Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years.

रश्मिरथी


Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' - 1981
    It is one of the most appreciated works of Dinkar other than "Kurukshetra".Karna was first born son of Kunti whom she had abandoned at birth as he was an illegitimate son. Karna grew up in a lowly family, yet became one of the best warriors of his time. In the Great Mahabharata war, Karna was obliged to fight from the side of Duryodhana as Duryodhana recognizing his merits had made him a king and adopted him as a close friend. Karna fighting from Kaurava's side was a great worry of Pandavas as he was reputed to be unconquerable in war. The way Dinkar has presented the story of Karna with all hues of human emotions trapped in moral dilemmas, is simply marvelous. The rhythm and meter is lilting. Choice of words and purity of language is exhilarating. The work has a timeless relevance and is a must read.

The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die


Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay - 2017
    Somlata has just married into the dynastic but declining Mitra family. At eighteen, she expects to settle into her role as a devout wife in this traditional, multi-generational family. But then Somlata, wandering the halls of the grand, decaying Mitra mansion, stumbles upon the body of her great aunt-in-law, Pishima.A child bride widowed at twelve, Pishima has finally passed away at the ripe old age of seventy. But she isn’t letting go just yet. Pishima has long harbored a grudge against the Mitras for keeping her in perpetual widowhood, never allowed to fall in love.. Now, her ghost intends to meddle in their lives, making as much mischief as possible. Pishima gives Somlata the keys to her mysterious box of gold to keep it out of the Mitras’ hands. However, the selfless Somlata, witnessing her new family waste away their wealth to the brink of bankruptcy, has her own ideas.

One and a Half Wife


Meghna Pant - 2012
    Much to the anxiety of her parents – the spirited Biji and the doting Baba – Amara leads an unremarkable life. That is, until she marries Harvard-educated millionaire, Prashant Roy. However, this fairy-tale isn’t meant to last, and even as Amara’s marriage collapses, she finds herself returning to the land of her birth, to the small city of Shimla. Here, in a borough grappling with questions of modernity, Amara is caught in a tug-of-war between old beliefs and new ones, between parents who favour obedience and new friends who encourage independent thought. With powerful insights, One and a Half Wife traces the coming-of-age of multiple characters, while re-defining family, relationships and love in contemporary India.

मधुशाला


Harivansh Rai Bachchan - 1935
    His son is India's best-known cinema superstar - Amitabh Bachchan. The core of this book is a long sequence called Madhushala (the house of wine) which could be compared to the Rubaiyat in imagery and metre.