1 bestseller in India—a young American travels to India and finds himself tested physically, emotionally, and spiritually.Max Pzoras is the poster child for the American Dream. The child of Greek immigrants who grew up in a dangerous New York housing project, he triumphed over his upbringing and became a successful Wall Street analyst. Yet on the frigid December night he’s involved in a violent street scuffle, Max begins to confront questions about suffering and mortality that have dogged him since his mother’s death.His search takes him to the farthest reaches of India, where he encounters a mysterious night market, almost freezes to death on a hike up the Himalayas, and finds himself in an ashram in a drought-stricken village in South India. As Max seeks answers to questions that have bedeviled him—can yogis walk on water and live for 200 years without aging? Can a flesh-and-blood man ever achieve nirvana?—he struggles to overcome his skepticism and the pull of family tugging him home. In an ultimate bid for answers, he embarks on a dangerous solitary meditation in a freezing Himalayan cave, where his physical and spiritual endurance is put to its most extreme test.By turns a gripping adventure story and a journey of tremendous inner transformation, The Yoga of Max's Discontent is a contemporary take on man's classic quest for transcendence.

    Here, lives intertwine and unravel. A widower struggles with his love for an unmarried cousin. Bakul, a motherless daughter, runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined in a room at the top of the house, a matriarch goes slowly mad; her husband searches for its cause as he shapes and reshapes his garden. As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense closeness matures into something else, and Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. He prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, but his thoughts stay with his home, with Bakul, with all that he has lost—and he knows that he must return.

    the only hurdle in its path is Guru Dronacharya’s son, the mighty but accursed warrior Ashwatthama, who lost all his powers following Lord Krishna’s curse and who unwittingly finds himself drawn into the quest of the lost bow of Lord Rama, the Kodanda. As ghosts of the distant past return to haunt him and the line between friends and enemies blurs, Ashwatthama must fight his inner demons to emerge victorious. He undertakes a perilous journey—across the vast plains of the Ganges, to the snow-capped peaks of the Himavant where the price of failure is a fate worse than death and death is a privilege not granted to Ashwatthama. Is this all part of Lord Krishna’s great plan? Will Ashwatthama be able to regain his lost glory?

    In The Ascetic of Desire, called a literary achievement of the highest order, by The Times (India), acclaimed author Sudhir Kakar tells the story of the man who is believed to be the author of the Kama Sutra, Vatsyayana, and the time in which he lived-the fourth century A.D., considered the golden age of Indian history. In The Ascetic of Desire, the elusive sage Vatsyayana recounts his youth to a young pupil. The young man, planning to write Vatsyayana's biography, listens dutifully as Vatsyayana shares stories of a childhood spent largely in the brothel where his favorite aunt worked. As Vatsyayana's story unfolds, the pupil finds, to his consternation, that his own life has begun to reflect and parallel the ascetic's narrative. At the point where their stories intersect, the unexpected happens. Like Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Sudhir Kakar's novel is a startling combination of psychological insight and historical detail. With rights sold in eleven countries, this is a story of universal appeal imbued with a distant world's charm and exotic allure. The best novel on sex and sensuality I have ever read. (Khushwant Singh, author of Train to Pakistan)

    However, somehow, the Inter-Services Intelligence and Dilawar always seem to be one step ahead of them, foiling every plan they make. It doesn’t take long for Major Imtiaz to realize that something is amiss—the operation has been compromised. Will he be able to successfully complete his mission, or are he and his men, like Abhimanyu, entering a trap they cannot make their way out of? Set in the world of covert operations, where double-crossing and diabolical mind games are the norm, The Karachi Deception will keep you hooked till the very end.

    A time of democracy ruled with an iron fist. In this landscape of turmoil and unrest tours the Naya Savera Band, dreaming of ‘change’ and stoking the fire of rebellion with music. But as reality intrudes and hostilities underlying the common dream rear up, idealist and poet VP, scholarly Master and ever-pragmatic Parvez drift away from each other... until their paths cross again in Delhi, in the middle of the biggest civil crisis to ever grip the nation. Once again, the trio find themselves reluctantly uniting against their common enemy – the State. Will they escape the ever-watchful eyes of the government? Will their dreams of an egalitarian, socialist democracy come to nothing? Will the Naya Savera Band raise its voice in song again? Find out in Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s graphic re-imagining of one of the most seminal moments in the history of Indian democracy.

    Shivaji Sawant's Mrityunjaya is an outstanding instance of such a literary masterpiece in which a contemporary Marathi novelist investigates the meaning of the bewildering skein that is life through the personae of the Mahabharata protagonists. For over two decades since its first publication the vast non- Marathi and non-Hindi readership remained deprived of this remarkable exploration of the human psyche till the publication of this English translation by the Writers workshop – a contribution for which there is much to be grateful for. Mrityunjaya is the autobiography of Karna, and yet it is not just that. With deceptive case, Sawant brings into play an exceptional stylistic innovation by combining six "dramatic soliloquies" to form the nine books of this novel of epic dimensions. Four books are spoken by Karna. These are interspersed with a book each from the lips of his unwed mother Kunti, Duryodhana (who considers Karna his mainstay), Shon (Shatruntapa, his foster-brother, who here-worships him), his wife Vrishali to whom he is like a god and, last of all, Krishna. Sawant depicts an uncanny similarity between Krishna and Karna and hints at a mystic link between them, investing his protagonist with a more-than-human aura to offset the un-heroic and even unmanly acts which mar this tremendously complex and utterly fascinating creating of Vyasa.

    We meet the Greek gods on Olympus and Norse gods in Valhalla. We follow the drama of the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus. We hear the tales of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Cupid and Psyche, and mighty King Midas. We discover the origins of the names of the constellations. And we recognize reference points for countless works of art, literature, and cultural inquiry--from Freud's Oedipus complex to Wagner's Ring Cycle of operas to Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. Praised throughout the world for its authority and lucidity, Mythology is Edith Hamilton's masterpiece--the standard by which all other books on mythology are measured.

    The Kaurava brothers tricked their Pandava cousins out of a kingdom, and even Lord Krishna could not stop the horror and bloodshed that followed. Veda Vyasa composed an epic poem, the longest in the world, to describe the events that unfolded. In this epic tale of superhuman heroes and gory action, Veda Vyasa explores human ambitions, relationships and conflicts to find the true purpose of life

    According to the Devi Bhagavata, the universe is but her manifestation. The worship of Durga is believed to be more than 4,000 years old in India.

    When Ramchand is sent to show his wares to a wealthy family preparing for their daughter's wedding, he is jolted out of the rhythm of his narrow daily life. His glimpse into a different world gives him an urgent sense of possibility. And so he attempts to recapture the hope that his childhood had promised, arming himself with two battered English grammar books, a fresh pair of socks, and a bar of Lifebuoy soap. But soon these efforts turn his life upside down, bringing him face to face with the cruelties on which his very existence depends. Reading group guide included.

    Amazingly fearless yet dutiful, scholarly yet humble, young Shankara packed several lifetimes into his 32 brilliant years. He travelled and toiled, suffered joys and sorrows, and eventually perfected a philosophical system that, more than a thousand years later, still instructs and guides seekers of the ultimate Truth.

    . . a woman lying dead on her bed, a man hanging from the ceiling fan. A suicide note cum murder confession. And a name . . . Shaunak Sodhi.When the case comes their way, Senior Inspector Saralkar has just been diagnosed with hypertension and PSI Motkar is busy with rehearsals of an amateur play.What appears at first to be a commonplace crime by a debt-ridden, cuckolded husband, who has killed his unfaithful wife and then hung himself, soon begins to unfold as a baffling mystery.As clues point to a seven-year-old unsolved murder in Bangalore and other leads emerge closer home, Saralkar and Motkar find themselves investigating shady secrets, bitter grudges, fishy land deals, carnal desires, the dead woman Anushka Doshi’s sinister obsession with past life regression and her husband’s links to a suspicious, small-time god-man, Rangdev Baba. And then, suddenly, the murderer resurfaces and yet another life is in grave danger . . . Can Saralkar and Motkar get to the bottom of an unimaginably shocking motive and stop the malevolent killer from committing the fourth murder . . .?

    Indra, destiny's orphan, finds himself growing up in a vortex of treachery and tribal incumbency. Shielded from the usurpers of his birthright only by the watchful eye of the warrior sage Mitra, he first sets out to conquer the hearts of his tribesmen, and then the kingdoms of the unmapped world.Aligning forces with his brothers by blood oath and divine intervention Agni, Vayu, Varuna and Soma Indra embarks on a military campaign of epic proportions, stretching from the Euphrates in Asia Minor to Harappa on the Indian subcontinent, encountering formidable armies, demonic beings and powerful goddesses, and losing the only woman he really loves.Will he get her to love him again? Will he avenge the death of his father? Will he assume his place in the pantheon of the gods?In a compelling saga, blended by history, spiced by legend and mutated by myth, Rajiv G. Menon transforms ten years of research into a lightning rod of an action adventure that streaks into your consciousness with the speed of Indra's thunderbolt.About the AuthorBefore setting out on a writing career, Rajiv G. Menon was an actor, occasional screenwriter, traveler and beach bum. A voracious reader since childhood, he was fascinated by stories and characters from Indian, Greek and Norse Mythology. Thundergod was born as a result of that fascination.

    30.The outcast daughter of one of the most powerful Bedouin sheikhs in Arabia, Maviah is called on to protect the very people who rejected her. When their enemies launch a sudden attack with devastating consequences, Maviah escapes with the help of two of her father's warriors--Saba who speaks more with is sword than his voice and Judah, a Jew who comes from a tribe that can read the stars. Their journey will be fraught with terrible danger. If they can survive the vast forbidding sands of a desert that is deadly to most, they will reach a brutal world subjugated by kings and emperors. There Maviah must secure an unlikely alliance with King Herod of the Jews.But Maviah's path leads her unexpectedly to another man. An enigmatic teacher who speaks of a way in this life which offers greater power than any kingdom. His name is Yeshua, and his words turn everything known on its head. Though following him may present even greater danger, his may be the only way for Maviah to save her people--and herself.