Book picks similar to
Third Best by K.V. Arjun Rao


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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.).

Kintsugi: A Novel


Anukrti Upadhyay - 2020
    And about men surprised by women who are unconventional, unafraid and independent. It is the story of Meena, rebellious and unexamined, and Yuri, as complex as Meena is naive. Of Hajime, outsider to two cultures, and Prakash, unable to see beyond his limited horizons. It is also the story of Haruko who has dedicated herself to her art, and of Leela who is determined to break gender roles and learn the traditional gold-craft of her community. Set between Japan and Jaipur, Kintsugi follows the lives of these characters as they intersect and diverge, collide and break and join again in unexpected ways. The result is a brilliantly original novel as profound as it is playful, as emotionally moving as it is gripping.

The House with a Thousand Stories


Aruni Kashyap - 2013
    This is his second time in Mayong, in rural Assam, since 1998, when he had come for a few days to attend his father's best friend's funeral. As the wedding preparations gather pace, Pablo is amused as well as disturbed by squabbling aunts, dying grandmothers, cousins planning to elope for love and hysterical gossips. And on this heady theatre of tradition and modernity hovers the sinister shadow of insurgency and the army's brutal measures to quell militancy. In the days leading up to the wedding, which ends in an unspeakable tragedy, Pablo finds first love, discovers family intrigues and goes through an extraordinary rite of passage. Written with clinical precision, this gripping first novel announces the arrival of one of the most original voices from India's North-East.

The Granville Sisters


Una-Mary Parker - 2005
    When war is declared, the love lives of the Granville girls suffer. Rosie's husband is killed during the Blitz. Then Lousie falls in love with Jack, a sixteen-year-old evacuee from the slums of London. When she falls pregnant, she is sent to Wales in disgrace. The girls? mother, Liza, can only pin her hopes on Charlotte now . . .

The Girl of My Dreams


Durjoy Dutta - 2016
    She’s looking at me. I can see the love in her eyes for me. Then a huge crash. She’s flung out of the window. I’m thrown out too. A pool of blood. Her eyes are still on me . . . but now it’s a death stare. I am Daman and I wake up to this nightmare. Every. Single. Day. Waking up from a long coma, Daman learns that he was in a massive car crash with a girl who vanished soon after the accident, leaving him for dead. Strangely, all he remembers is a hazy face, her hypnotic eyes, and her name—Shreyasi. To come to terms with his memory lapse he starts piecing together stories about himself and Shreyasi from his dreams, which he then turns into a hugely popular blog. When he’s offered a lucrative publishing deal to convert his blog pieces into a novel, he signs up immediately. However, he gives in to editorial pressure and agrees to corrupt the original edgy character of Shreyasi. Big mistake. From then on Daman is stalked and threatened by a terrifying beauty who claims to be Shreyasi and who will stop at nothing to make him pay for being a sell-out. Before Daman fights back, he needs to know: Is she really who she claims to be? What does she want from him now? What if he doesn’t do what she wants him to? The Girl of My Dreams is definitely not your usual love story.

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.

Book Of Humour


Ruskin Bond - 2008
    Marked by the signature charm and subtle wit of one of India's best-loved writers, Ruskin Bond's Book of Humour, will make even the hardened among us crack a smile.

The Genius of Indraprastha (Gondwana Chronicles Book 1)


Harshwardhan Padole - 2021
    Things changed when a foreign force of Khidmatgars attacked. 250 years after the invasion, Khidmatgars are now a formidable force in Gondwana. Led by Commander Bakht Khan, they have successfully tamed all the native tribes except the Aryans. Yet the Commander's desire for conquest is not satiated.During an unusual conquest of Agneyapuram, Commander accidentally lays his hands on ancient secret of the Mahabharata times - a secret so strong that it can actually help Khidmatgars claim entire Gondwana for themselves. At the same time, a genius Aryan Prince of Indraprashta has vowed to annihilate Khidmatgars from Gondwana using the same secret. What's the secret? Will the Commander be able to tame the Aryans using the secret or shall the genius Aryan prince write the history his way? Gondwana is staring at a war which has the potential to change its fate forever.Plunge into the epic story of the Vedic past with THE GENIUS OF INDRAPRASHTA.About The AuthorHARSHWARDHAN PADOLE, born in 1986, is a graduate from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur. He later studied Business Management from prestigious MDI, Gurgaon. After testing his skills in Indian IT Industry for a brief time, he is currently working in the Indian Defence Aerospace Industry for last one decade.He is a passionate reader of fiction works and biographies and considers J. K. Rowling, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer and Amish Tripathi as his writing mentors. The Genius of Indraprashta is his debut book inspired from his understanding of India’s cultural history and Indian epics.

Tuesdays with Morrie & the Five People You Meet in Heaven


Mitch Albom - 2007
    

28 Years A Bachelor


Rasana Atreya - 2014
    He is also opposed to city living, to meddlesome neighbours, to wacky grandfathers and to caustic grandmothers. But when he’s blessed with all of the above, what’s man to do?

4 Ever Down With Him


Tay Mo'Nae - 2017
    Noni's a good girl who wants more from Nike than he's willing to offer, so after graduation she runs to Atlanta to start college and get a fresh start from Nike after he's broken her heart not once, but twice. Nike loves her but he just can't seem to get things right so he pushes her out of mind and out of sight. But after 4 years of being gone Noni returns, not only running from an abusive ex but also because she has a secret and she needs Nike help. How will he deal with the bomb Noni drops on him? Will he man up? Or keep her buried in the past?

The Welsh Guardsman


Ann Brough - 2018
    The women on the station turned away with tears, images of their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and boyfriends disappearing through the smoke. Dorothy stood there alone, until every trace of smoke from the train engine had dissipated. She suddenly felt cold and alone. She finally turned and followed the other women down the metal steps, off the station and back to Edward Street. 1927. The poverty-stricken streets of Neck End in England’s industrial midlands, were a lonely and miserable place for a little girl. Abandoned by her mother, Dorothy clings to the memory of her father, who lives in the capital city. London seems an entire world away, as she hopes for the day when he might send for her and she can finally get out. Twelve years later, the country is plunged into war with Germany and Dorothy’s world is thrown into chaos. Can she have a life in London with her father despite the dangers of war or will a chance encounter with a dashing soldier change her path for good?  Torn between loyalty to her father and the possibility of love, Dorothy struggles with the greatest decision of her young life. A decision influenced by war and the love of two strong, yet vastly different, men.

The Namesake


Jhumpa Lahiri - 2003
    Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America.In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail — the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase — that opens whole worlds of emotion.The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.

Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata


Devdutt Pattanaik - 2010
    Still above is Vaikuntha, heaven, abode of God.The doorkeepers of Vaikuntha are the twins, Jaya and Vijaya, both whose names mean 'victory'. One keeps you in Swarga; the other raises you into Vaikuntha.In Vaikuntha there is bliss forever, in Swarga there is pleasure for only as long as you deserve. What is the difference between Jaya and Vijaya? Solve this puzzle and you will solve the mystery of the Mahabharata.In this enthralling retelling of India's greatest epic, the Mahabharata originally known as Jaya, Devdutt Pattanaik seamlessly weaves into a single narrative plots from the Sanskrit classic as well as its many folk and regional variants, including the Pandavani of Chhattisgarh, Gondhal of Maharashtra, Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu and Yakshagana of Karnataka.Richly illustrated with over 250 line drawings by the author, the 108 chapters abound with little-known details such as the names of the hundred Kauravas, the worship of Draupadi as a goddess in Tamil Nadu, the stories of Astika, Madhavi, Jaimini, Aravan and Barbareek, the Mahabharata version of the Shakuntalam and the Ramayana, and the dating of the war based on astronomical data.With clarity and simplicity, the tales in this elegant volume reveal the eternal relevance of the Mahabharata, the complex and disturbing meditation on the human condition that has shaped Indian thought for over 3000 years.

Bhimsen


Prem Panicker
    But MT Vasudevan Nair (popularly known as “MT”) turned him into a three-dimensional figure, more sensitive and thoughtful than he is usually given credit for. “He took familiar building blocks and created an entirely new, incredibly compelling construct from them,” says Prem Panicker, senior journalist, Rediff.com co-founder and a long-time admirer of MT’s work.