Humphrys was the BBC’s youngest foreign correspondent; he was the first reporter at the catastrophe of Aberfan, an experience that marked him for ever; he was in the White House when Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign; in South Africa during the dying years of apartheid; and in war zones around the globe throughout his career. John was also the first journalist to present the Nine O’Clock News on television.Humphrys pulls no punches and now, freed from the restrictions of being a BBC journalist, he reflects on the politicians he has interrogated and the controversies he has reported on and been involved in, including the interview that forced the resignation of his own boss, the director general. In typically candid style, he also weighs in on the role the BBC itself has played in our national life – for good and ill – and the broader health of the political system today.A Day Like Today is both a sharp, shrewd memoir and a backstage account of the great newsworthy moments in recent history – from the voice behind the country’s most authoritative microphone.

    Throwing fresh light on the controversial circumstances of their deaths, this book makes a case for investigations into the affairs of the Osho trusts as they exist today."

    Now, I'll do it for him.' As founding cast members of hit television show Gogglebox, Leon and June won the hearts of a nation with their warm humour and unending love for each other. When Leon sadly died at Christmas 2017, Gogglebox viewers were bereft, calling for a state funeral for our national treasure. In this touching memoir she looks back at all of the laughter and love they have shared together; letting us in on the secrets to a truly happy marriage in this wonderful celebration of two lives well lived.Together for 63 years, coming to terms with life without Leon has been a difficult process for June. But the many treasured memories of their marriage will never leave her. From when, aged 18, she first laid eyes on Leon at teacher training college in 1955; their journey to marry when their parents disapproved; happy recollections of 1960s Liverpool; to building a loving home and family together before finding fame as pensioners. Firm favourites of Gogglebox, they were loved for their gentle teasing, Leon's cheeky gags and humorous rants, and June's unerring patience and caring touch. Leon and June have experienced their fair share of highs and lows, but they always got through everything together. As Leon always said, 'As long as June's here, I'm all right.'

    India. In the thriving city of Nanivardhana, lives Shaunaka, a young man who yearns to go to Pataliputra to see the world and make his fortune. But he is forced to join his father's jewellery making business and soon finds himself in the workshop a job in which his heart clearly did not lie. Thankfully, along comes distraction in the form of two extravagant weddings royal nuptials at the palace and another wedding at the extravagant corner house in the Buddhist quarter of the city. This house, known for its opulence and sheer size, is owned by Vinayashura, an affluent trader fabled to have mysteriously deep connections to the royal family. Shaunaka is given the charge to work on the bride's jewellery at the corner house, but instead of the mundane task at hand, a morbid sight awaits the trader's wife's bloodcurdling screams bring Shaunaka to Vinayashura's bedroom where he is found murdered and lying in a pool of blood! Who killed Vinayashura? Why? Shaunaka finds himself at the heart of the mystery and his logic and keen observation skills land him the duty of assisting the head of police to solve this murder.

    He was barely fifteen years old when he first wrote his name into the record books with a stupendous 664-run partnership with his childhood friend Vinod Kambli. Two year later, he struck his first century in first-class cricket. At eighteen, he became the second youngest man to make a hundred in international cricket, and after that there was no looking back. Records tumbled by the wayside as he captivated audiences first in his home city of Mumbai, then in the rest of India and all over the cricket-playing world. Today, Sachin is widely accepted as the world's finest batsman, with impeccable technique, an incredible array of strokes, and maturity far beyond his years. His teammates and friends swear by him, his fans worship him and there are few, if any, critics of his game or his temperament. In this biography of the hero of Indian cricket, sports writer Gulu Ezekiel mines interviews, press reports and conversations over the last decade to create an accurate and sympathetic account of the man and his first passion: cricket. He tracks Sachin from his childhood when he first caught the bug of cricket, through his early performances in the Ranji Trophy and other domestic tournaments, and follows him on his meteoric rise to international stardom. With unfailing attention to detail, he reconstructs the crucial matches and events that marked Sachin's career and unravels for us the magic of the charismatic cricketer whom Wisden once dubbed 'bigger than Jesus'. Sachin: The Story of the World's Greatest Batsman, the first, serious exhaustive biography of the Tendulkar career so far, brings back, like a warm autumn breeze does, the memory of the wunderkind's early exhilarating summers in international cricket...The book is akin to a documentary in prose...the book's big virtue is that it is laboriously researched and cross-referenced. For any quizzer on Mastermind India opting for "The Life and Times of Sachin Tendulkar" as their specialist subject there's good news. You just got yourself the ready reckoner that covers 1973-2002.

    His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals.On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis—a chieftain readying for war at his desert fort, a retired spy skulking through the borderlands, and a crusading lawyer risking death for her beliefs, among others. Through these “nine lives” he describes a country on the brink—a place of creeping extremism and political chaos, but also personal bravery and dogged idealism that defy easy stereotypes.Unbeknownst to Walsh, however, an intelligence agent was tracking him. Written in the aftermath of Walsh’s abrupt deportation, The Nine Lives of Pakistan concludes with an astonishing encounter with that agent, and his revelations about Pakistan’s powerful security state. Intimate and complex, attuned to the centrifugal forces of history, identity, and faith, The Nine Lives of Pakistan offers an unflinching account of life in a precarious, vital country.

    This is his highly personal and revealing account of six remarkable men who crossed Cooke's path during his lifetime and who, each in their own way, made a lasting impression on him.Here are candid portraits of the lovable yet unreliable Charlie Chaplin, who, when asked to be Cooke's best man, mysteriously vanished on the day; the complex and private man behind Humphrey Bogart's tough guy image; and the charming yet childlike 'golden boy' Edward VIII. Cooke also recalls his friend and mentor, the flawed contrarian and satirist H.L. Mencken, the larger-than-life liberal politician Adlai Stevenson and the heroic social reformer Bertrand Russell. Each superbly realized portrait gives us an insight into a golden age of 'great men', and is a masterpiece of observation, warmth and humour.

    Later, this Bermondsey boy would become known as Tommy Steele . In this engaging memoir Tommy recalls his childhood years growing up in Bermondsey. He relives with great fondness Saturdays as a young boy, spent gazing at the colourful posters for the Palladium and days spent wandering up Tower Bridge Road to Joyce's Pie Shop for pie and mash. But he also brings to life with extraordinary vividness what it was like to live through the devastation of the Blitz. Yet it was once he joined the merchant navy and began singing and performing for his fellow seamen that his natural ability as an entertainer marked him out as a favourite. And it was while ashore in America that he became hooked on rock'n'roll and a legend was born . From Tommy's humble beginning to life at sea and finally as a performer, Bermondsey Boy is a colourful, charming and deeply engaging memoir from a much-loved entertainer.

    Journeying along the edge of the peninsula, Samanth Subramanian reports upon a kaleidoscope of extraordinary stories.In nine essays, Following Fish conducts rich journalistic investigations: among others, of the famed fish treatment for asthmatics in Hyderabad; of the preparation and the process of eating West Bengal's prized hilsa; of the ancient art of building fishing boats in Gujarat; of the fiery cuisine and the singular spirit of Kerala's toddy shops; of the food and the lives of Mumbai's first peoples; of the history of an old Catholic fishing community in Tamil Nadu; of the hunt for the world's fastest fish near Goa.Throughout his travels, Subramanian observes the cosmopolitanism and diverse influences absorbed by India's coastal cities, the wthdrawing of traditional fishermen from their craft, the corresponding growth of fishing as pure and voluminous commerce, and the degradation of waters and beaches from over-fishing.Pulsating with pleasure, adventure and discovery, and tempered by nostalgia and loss, Following Fish speaks as eloquently to the armchair traveller as to lovers of the sea and its lore.

    Powerful, poignant and impossible to ignore or gloss over, the fifty-two threads that make up Suspected Poems unfold across the entire political spectrum—from the disturbed climate in the country and the culture of intolerance to the plight of the aam aadmi, from the continued oppression of Dalits and minority communities to fluctuating Indo–Pak relations. Written with Gulzar’s characteristic incisiveness and his unique perspective and translated marvelously into English by Pavan K. Varma, Suspected Poems, made available in a special keepsake bilingual edition, will delight every reader of poetry and Gulzar’s many fans.

    

    Veteran journalist Pete Hamill never covered just politics. Or just sports. Or just the entertainment business, the mob, foreign affairs, social issues, the art world, or New York City. He has in fact written about all these subjects, and many more, in his years as a contributor to such national magazines as Esquire, Vanity Fair, and New York, and as a columnist at the New York Post, the New York Daily News, the Village Voice, and other newspapers. Seasoned by more than thirty years as a New York newspaperman, Hamill wrote on an extraordinarily wide variety of topics in powerful language that is personal, tough-minded, clearheaded, always provocative. Piecework is a rich and varied collection of Hamill's best writing, on such diverse subjects as what television and crack have in common, why winning isn't everything, stickball, Nicaragua, Donald Trump, why American immigration policy toward Mexico is all wrong, Brooklyn's Seventh Avenue, and Frank Sinatra, not to mention Octavio Paz, what it's like to realize you're middle-aged, Northern Ireland, New York City then and now, how Mike Tyson spent his time in prison, and much more. This collection proves him once again to be among the last of a dying breed: the old-school generalist, who writes about anything and everything, guided only by passionate and boundless curiosity. Piecework is Hamill at his very best.

    In this riveting book, jaithirth Rao traces its history, explores its philosophical underpinnings and different manifestations, and defines it as conservatism – a philosophy that rejects radical, reactionary and utopian positions and argues for change that evolves gradually and peacefully, preserves features of the past that are constructive and worth cherishing, and believes in a minimalist state that protects individual liberties even as it promotes policies that work on the ground. Hindu nationalism and the Bharatiya Janata Party are among the many offshoots of this tradition. Focusing on five areas – The economy, politics, culture, society and aesthetics – Rao examines the rich contribution that Indian conservatism could make in each of these fields in contemporary India. Lively, eloquent and provocative, this is a book that will stimulate much thought, discussion and debate as it challenges the dogmas of the left and the extreme right and raises the key issues that engage India today.

    The monograph vociferouslydemanded that socialism be sacrificed for a competitive market economic system, so India cangrow at 10 per cent per year, achieve self-reliance, full employment and produce nuclear weaponry.The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi denounced the plan as dangerous.Fifty years later, Swamy redefines his path-breaking ideas on India-specific economic developmentin his seminal work, Reset. It undertakes a nuanced analysis of the manner in which the highlyprosperous Indian economy witnessed a long, accelerated decline due to persistent British imperialistaggression, and compares the distinctive manner in which Asian giants—India and China—sufferedat the hands of imperialism. He critically analyses the highs and lows of the Nehruvian model ofcentralized economic planning borrowed from the Soviet Union, and the debilitating circumstancesthat impelled him, as Commerce Minister in Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s government, todraw up a blueprint for economic reforms.

    Equally, she is remembered as the terrible dictator who imposed the Emergency and tried to destroy institutions ranging from her own party to the judiciary; she is seen as the source of many of the problems that afflict Indian democracy today. Even so, for politicians Indira is the very definition of a strong leader, and a role model on both sides of the aisle.In this spellbinding story of her life, journalist Sagarika Ghose has excavated not just Indira the iron lady and political leader but also the flesh-and-blood woman. Born in 1917, Indira soon found her life swept up by Gandhi’s call for freedom and swadeshi. Her family home became a hub of the national movement and Indira marinated in a political environment from an early age. But she also saw politics of another kind. Her sickly mother and she were the target of unkind attacks from her aunts. And her celebrated father, who had no patience for illness, was desperate to sculpt his daughter into his version of perfection – but Indira simply couldn’t keep up with his expectations. Despite Nehru’s disappointment and dismissiveness, Indira rose to become the unquestioned high command of the Congress and, indeed, the most powerful prime minister India has ever had.This no-holds-barred biographical portrait looks for answers to lingering issues: from why Indira revoked the Emergency to her son Sanjay’s curious grip over her; and from her bad marriage and love affairs to her dangerous religious politics. This is the only book you need to read about Indira Gandhi.