Thirty-Two Going on Spinster


Becky Monson - 2012
    She has no social life, hates her job, and lives in her parent’s basement with her cat, Charlie.With the arrival of Jared Moody, the new hire at work, Julia’s mundane life is suddenly turned upside down. Her instant (and totally ridiculous) crush on the new guy causes Julia to finally make some long-overdue changes, in hopes to find a life that includes more than baking and hanging out with Charlie.But when the biggest and most unexpected change comes, will the new and improved Julia be able to overcome it? Or will she go back to her spinster ways?

Reginald Perrin Omnibus


David Nobbs - 1990
    This omnibus brings together the first three Reginald Perrin novels containing a lifetime's outrageous and hilarious adventures.When we first meet Reggie, he is sick to death with selling exotic ices at Sunshine Desserts. Driven to desperation by the rat race and the unpunctuality of Britain's trains, Reggie's small eccentricites escalate to the extreme, until finally he leaves the unacceptable face of capitalism behind by driving off in a stolen motorised jelly. In his pursuit of the unconventional, he devotes himself to faking his own death, opening a shop devoted to selling completely useless goods, and setting up a commune strictly for the middle-class and middle-aged.Join Reggie, who didn't get where he is today without some help from some memorable supporting characters, in one man's quest to avoid an everyday existence.

Desirable Daughters


Bharati Mukherjee - 2002
    Mukherjee follows the diverging paths taken by three extraordinary Calcutta-born sisters as they come of age in a changing world. Moving effortlessly between generations, she weaves together fascinating stories of the sisters' ancestors, childhood memories, and dramatic scenes from India's history.

Holly's Inbox


Holly Denham - 2006
    It's her first day as a receptionist at a City investment bank and, with no cooperate front-of-house experience, Holly is struggling to keep up. Add to this her mad friends, dysfunctional family and gossipy colleagues, and Holly's inbox is a daily source of drama, laughter, scandal and even romance. But Holly's keeping a secret from everyone - and the past is about to catch up with her...

How I Braved Anu Aunty & Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company


Varun Agarwal - 2012
    Varun whiles away his time, hopping from pub to pub, spending time with friends and keeping a track of his love interest on Facebook.These traits worry his mother to the bone, compelling her to put the very meddlesome Anu Aunty on the job, to help get her son moving in the right direction in life. Anu Aunty does a rather good job of this, much to Varun's dismay. He then does all that he can to get her off his track, while pursuing his dreams to become an entrepreneur.How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company is the author’s debut novel and is on its fourth reprint already. Having sold twenty thousand copies in only a month, the book has become a bestseller by national standards. It has also occupied a firm foothold on the bestseller charts for eighty days at a stretch. The author attained initial popularity with his Facebook blog posts, a few of which were sent to his publishers. The book was conceived once they demanded a full manuscript.

The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity


Amartya Sen - 2005
    The Argumentative Indian is "a bracing sweep through aspects of Indian history and culture, and a tempered analysis of the highly charged disputes surrounding these subjects--the nature of Hindu traditions, Indian identity, the country's huge social and economic disparities, and its current place in the world" (Sunil Khilnani, Financial Times, U.K.).

A Good Indian Wife


Anne Cherian - 2008
    So when he agrees to return to India to visit his ailing grand­father, he is sure he’ll be able to resist his family’s pleas that he marry a “good” Indian girl. With a girlfriend and a promising career back in San Francisco, the last thing Neel needs is an arranged marriage.Leila is a thirty-year-old teacher in Neel’s family’s village who has watched too many prospective husbands come and go to think her newest suitor will be any different. She is well past prime marrying age; her family has no money for a dowry; and then there’s the matter of an old friendship with a Muslim boy named Janni.Neel and Leila struggle to reconcile their own desires with the expectations of others in this riveting story of two people, two countries, and two ways of life that may be more compatible than they seem.

The Perfect Groom


Sumeetha Manikandan - 2013
    So, when a proposal from a young, handsome NRI comes along, her mother jumps at the opportunity and packs her daughter off to the US with her perfect groom.Nithya seems to have settled in with Ashok, ostensibly happy, if as yet childless, in her new life. When an old flame comes back into her life, however, the cracks in her perfect marriage begin to show…

Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man


U.R. Ananthamurthy - 1965
    As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village ofKarnataka, Samskara serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail, a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths, and a serious, poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death which stands as the central event in the plot brings in its wake aplague, many more deaths, live questions with only dead answers, moral chaos, and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths, customs, Indian names, flora, and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained, faithful, and yet readabletranslation.

In a Forest, a Deer


Ambai - 2000
    Winner of the Hutch Crossword Book Award 2006, this collection is an enduring testimony of the ideology and belief that Ambai's writings affirm-the need to know and be in touch with a stable or 'grounded' self that allows fluidity and change in modern times of travel, dislocation, and exile.

Stilettos & Stubble


Amanda Egan - 2012
    Criticised by her outwardly perfect mother, dearly loved by her father, she’s the ‘Queen of Low Self-Esteem’. Finding herself suddenly immersed in a world of glitz and glamour, where nothing is quite as it seems, will she finally realise ... ... ‘It’s what’s inside that counts’?

The Taj Conspiracy


Manreet Sodhi Someshwar - 2012
    That urban legend had always existed. Now, though, someone was conspiring to make it come true. In the case of the famed marble monument, all was not on the surface. A vast labyrinth ran underneath closed to visitors where Mehrunisa was trapped once. In a series of suspenseful twists and turns, the action traverses from the serene splendour of Taj Mahal to the virulent warrens of Taj Ganj, from intrigue-laden corridors of Delhi to snowy Himalayan hideouts.... As a right-wing Hindu party ratchets up its communal agenda and Islamic militants plot a terror attack, in the dark corners of his devious mind a behrupiya, a shapeshifter, is conniving to divide the nation in two. To save the Taj Mahal, Mehrunisa must overcome a prejudiced police and battle her inner demons as she sifts the multiple strands that lead to the conspirator.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found


Suketu Mehta - 2004
    He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.

Turbulence


Samit Basu - 2010
    Aman wants to heal the planet but with each step he takes, he finds helping some means harming others. Will it all end, as 80 years of super-hero fiction suggest, in a meaningless, explosive slugfest?

The House of Blue Mangoes


David Davidar - 2001
    As the thalaivar, or headman, of Chevathar, he seeks to preserve the village from both catastrophe and change, and the decisions he makes will mark his family for generations to come.A gripping family chronicle, The House of Blue Mangoes spans nearly half a century and three generations of the Dorai family as they search for their place in a rapidly changing society. The novel brings vividly to life a small corner of India, while offering a stark indictment of colonialism and reflecting with great poignancy on the inexorable social transformations of the subcontinent.