Stories picked up from Ruskin Bond's body of work to a journey into the
intoxicating city of Varanasi - the IANS bookshelf this week has a
melange of options for bookworms. Take a look.
1. Book: A Gathering of Friends: My favourite Stories; Author: Ruskin Bond; Publisher: Aleph; Pages: 244; Price:Rs.395
The
21 stories in the book are the greatest pieces of fiction written by
the Padma Bhushan recipient. Chosen by the author himself, from a body
of work built up over 50 years - starting with his award-winning first
novel "The Room on the Roof", this collection includes well-known
masterpieces like "The Night Train at Deoli", "The Woman on Platform 8",
"The Blue Umbrella", "The Eyes Have It", "Most Beautiful" and
"Panther's Moon", as well as newer stories like "An Evening at the Savoy
with H.H"
and "Dinner with Fosters".
2. Book: Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi; Author: Piers Moore Ede; Publisher: Bloomsbury; Pages: 210; Price: Rs.399.
The
author first fell in love with Varanasi when he passed through it on
his way to Nepal in search of wild honey hunters. In the decade that
followed, it continued to exert its pull on him, and so he returned to
live there, to press his ear to its heartbeat - and to discover what it
is that makes India's spiritual capital of India so unique.
In this
intoxicating "city of widows" where funeral pyres smoulder beside the
river in which thousands of pilgrims bathe, and holiness and corruption
walk side by side, the author encounters sweet-makers and sadhus,
mischievous boatmen and weary bureaucrats, silk weavers and musicians -
and discovers a remarkable interplay between death and life, light and
dark.
3. Book: The Addict: A Life Recovered; Author: Diya Sethi; Publisher: Harper Collins; Pages: 189; Price: Rs.250
Narrating
the story of a girl who escaped humiliation and rejection, the book
chronicles her "war with herself, a war she kept losing until she
"learnt to surrender".
In her journey of survival and
self-discovery, the girl became a different person - someone who found
solace in addiction known as anorexia-bulimia.
Honest and heart-warming, this tale of perseverance leaves the reader feeling inspired and moved.
4. Book: Field Notes From A Catastrophe; Author: Elizabeth Kolbert; Publisher: Bloomsbury; Pages: 306; Price: Rs.299
The
world has known about global warming since the late 1870s, yet little
has been done to halt it. The threat, if we fail, will be nothing less
than catastrophic - the flooding of coastal communities, the extinction
of species and entry into a climate regime of which humans have no
experience. Exploring the relationship between what we know and what we
refuse to know, the author takes us on an urgent journey from the Arctic
to Central America in this new edition.
The author has
interviewed researchers and environmentalists for the book and has asked
vital questions about global warming and what we should do about it.
