But death is inevitable, and we must face the question of how to deal with it. Coming to terms with our own finiteness helps us discover life's true meaning.Why do we treat death as a taboo? What are the sources of our fears? How do we express our grief, and how do we accept the death of a person close to us? How can we prepare for our own death?Drawing on our own and other cultures' views of death and dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provides some illuminating answers to these and other questions. She offers a spectrum of viewpoints, including those of ministers, rabbis, doctors, nurses, and sociologists, and the personal accounts of those near death and of their survivors.Once we come to terms with death as a part of human development, the author shows, death can provide us with a key to the meaning of human existence.

    A hijacking, several nuclear explosions and a religious experience ... just some of the ingredients in the latest tour de force from the bestselling author of the Carpet Wars. In the searing summer of 2004, Christopher Kremmer returns to India, a country in the grip of enormous and sometimes violent change. As a young reporter in the 1990s, he first encountered this ancient and complex civilisation. Now, embarking on a yatra, or pilgrimage, he travels the dangerous frontier where religion and politics face off. tracking down the players in a decisive decade, he takes us inside the enigmatic Gandhi dynasty, and introduces an operatic cast of political Brahmins, 'cyber coolies', low-caste messiahs and wrestling priests. A sprawling portrait of India at the crossroads, Inhaling the Mahatma is also an intensely personal story about coming to terms with a dazzlingly different culture, as the author's fate is entwined with a cosmopolitan Hindu family of Old Delhi, and a guru who might just change his life.

    A New York Times Notable Book of the Year in Hyperion hardcover.

    But he'd just fallen in love and wasn't so sure he really wanted it. It took a weekend of soul searching to realise that this would be the experience of a lifetime.From covering India's endearingly over-the-top response to the death of cricketing legend Don Bradman to being the only Australian journalist in Afghanistan on September 11 2001, Lost in Transmission is Harley's exciting, often moving, funny and disarmingly honest account of the three years he spent, lurching from one hair-raising misadventure to the next, reporting from one of the most exotic and, as events unfurled, alarming corners of the planet.Shifting effortlessly between the serious, the sublime and the ridiculous, this is the story of a stranger at something of a loss in an even stranger land - a young man struggling to comprehend and comment on life in a part of the world that never quite makes sense...

    Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy's family remain loyal to one another, and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America.A Finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.

    Dr. Hale's incredible experience in tiny, mountainous Nepal are surpassed only by his talent for telling about them. Imagine, for example, the culture shock of moving to a Hindu country under such rigid religious control that it is not only illegal to proselytize, but illegal to change religions as well. Imagine further the shock of moving to that country as a missionary doctor. Thomas Hale and his wife, Cynthia, also a physician, too on that awesome challenge in 1970.God wasted no time teaching tom the peculiarities of his new culture. But His unusual method left Tom wondering what God was up to. Here is how Tom tells about it:"These were not the phlegmatic, easy-going Nepalis described in books and orientation courses. Those who spoke gesticulated fiercely. Some looked around menacingly; others spat. One thing was certain, however: in the cause of their anger they were united. The word was out: the new doctor had killed a cow. My own sense of participation in the proceedings was intense. I was the new doctor."--ExcerptAs Tom goes on to describe the events the preceded the angry scene in the Nepali village, the image of the spiritually superior missionary quickly evaporates. In a humorous, yet deeply insightful way, the author makes it clear that he is merely a servant, using his skills to the glory of God.Tom concludes this chapter with a thoughtful confession:"In the long run, that cow did much more for me that I did for it. The mild-mannered, uncritical beast made me see in myself those negative attributes I had always ascribed to other American surgeons. Facing two hundred angry men proved to be effective therapy for removing most traces of condescension with which I previously regarded them. It also improved my relations with missionary colleagues and with Nepali brothers and sisters in the church. I guess God had no gentler way of removing some of my imperfections. I only wish I could say, for His trouble, that He finished the job. But it was a start." -- Excerpt.Dr. Hale's book refused to be preachy or condescending. It presents missions as a "want" rather than an "ought." It is sensitive, warm, honest, incredibly funny, and filled with important truths illustrated from unusual and sometimes unimaginable situations.

    “India. Were you serious?”About racing a tuk-tuk one thousand kilometres through India with a woman I’d just met…?No, I wasn’t serious.“There’s a fifty percent chance we’ll die. And the flight’s in two days. But if you want to, okay…”It was not a reasonable offer. But then she wasn’t a reasonable woman. She was certainly unreasonably attractive. I tried not to let that sway me, which was like a hammock deciding a tornado wouldn’t sway it.Driving terrified me; I hadn’t done it in a decade. But if I could drive in India, I could drive anywhere. And if I said yes, I’d get to spend ten days with her. Would that be enough time to find out who she was, what she wanted, and then convince her to abandon that and want me instead?So I said yes... Tuk-Tuk for Two is a hilarious travel memoir about adventure, love, fear, fate, India, and a blue racing tuk-tuk named Winnie. It’s the third in the best-selling Weird Travel series that has entertained tens of thousands of readers. They can be read in any order and in the tradition of Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux, and George Mahood: you’ll love their vivid descriptions, unforgettable characters, weird situations, and absurd humour.

    He takes us to the eccentric paras (neighbourhoods) and clubs of the north and the south; past buildings crumbling silently into spectacular ruins; deep inside Park Street’s iconic restaurants and watering holes; through roads choked by political rallies; to rundown cinema halls haunted by lonely men; and into the lairs of soothsayers and tantric love gurus.Part personal essay, part documentary, part cultural history, Grand Delusions is utterly distinctive and full of surprises. Both intimate and provocative, it shines new light on a great and fascinating city.‘As someone whose formative years were spent in Kolkata, I read Indrajit Hazra’s book with keen interest—and delight. He conveys his deep knowledge of Kolkata’s history and culture with style and wit, deftly capturing the city’s glories and disenchantments, its ironies and its anxieties. The personal and the political are beautifully blended. I thought I knew Kolkata very well—now, after reading Hazra, I shall visit it afresh with new eyes, and greater understanding.’— Ramachandra Guha

    In Language Shock, Agar reveals how deeply our language and cultural values intertwine to define who we are and how we relate to one another. From paying an electric bill in Austria to opening a bank account in Mexico to handling a parking ticket in the United States, he shows how routine tasks become lessons in the subtleties of conversation when we venture outside our cultural sphere. With humorous, insightful stories from his extensive travels, Agar engages us in a lively study of "languaculture" and enriches our view of the world.

    From the heat of anti-rape protest on the streets of New Delhi to the cool hills of Shimla, playground of the Raj; from a Gujurati retirement home for gay men and eunuchs to a busy sex clinic in Chennai; from patriarchs to matriarchs; GIGs (Good Indian Girls), BIGs (Bad Indian Girls) and the fleshpots of Bombay, she accompanied by feisty Delhi girl Dimple lifts the bed sheets on India's sexual revolution. And it's a revolution that's full of fascinating surprises and contrasts; for India - the land that gave us that exuberant guide to sexual pleasure, the Kama Sutra - is also the land where women remain cloistered in purdah while teenage girls check out porn online; where families bow down to a conjoined phallus and vagina, the Shivaling, while couples fear to hold hands in public; and where the loveless arranged marriage is still the norm. Colourful, compelling, confounding, The Kama Sutra Diaries reveal what India has to tell us about modern-day love, sex and sexuality.

    Continuing his own story in It's Here Now (Are You?), Bhagavan Das shares the profound and surreal moments of his spiritual awakening in the East, his fall from grace in the West, and his peaceful reconciliation with the sacred center.For many years in the early '70s Bhagavan Das moved through India and Nepal, embracing the austere life of a holy man, exploring Hinduism, Buddhism, transcendental meditation, tantra, worshipping the divine mother, and living under the loving blanket of his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Only twenty-five years old when he returned home to the States as a celebrity, he found himself traveling on the "guru circuit" with Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Garcia, and Timothy Leary--living more like a rock star than the saint he was proclaimed to be.In compelling detail, Bhagavan Das explores the tortuous journey that led him from his quest for the sacred to his spiritual death and eventual rebirth. A vivid memoir like no other, It's Here Now (Are You?) is an odyssey that will inspire seekers of any age on their own road to fulfillment.

    Kennedy's memoir of discovery is personal and historical, cultural, and autobiographical.

    Shoba Narayan travels across some of the most prominent places of worship in India and presents to her readers the mythologies, histories and contemporary relevance of these sites.

    A stressed-out New York men's magazine editor gets posted to the UK and realises happiness is more easily achieved by adopting the British attitude to life - expecting the worst and going to the pub.

    This book offers information derived from the author's research and her travels along the Silk Road.