Books

The Divining Thread by Anjum Choudhury

Zarene’s world is turned upside down when she encounters a ghagra that divines the future. Haunted by the secrets it shares with her in her waking hours and her dreams, she makes it her sole purpose in life to find its maker and become their apprentice. The ghagra offers up clues pointing to a woman, a creature descended from paradise known to mortal men as the howr. An old wives’ tale. A myth.

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The Swaraj Spy by Vijay Balan

The Swaraj Spy is a tale of three interwoven journeys: Kumar’s physical journey through a rich visual arc from Malabar paddies through the Anglo-Chinese mosaic of Singapore, pagoda-strewn Rangoon, and the jungles of Burma; the transformation of an impetuous man to a thoughtful soul in the midst of shifting boundaries between friend and foe; and the backdrop of India’s tumultuous march to independence.

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Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses by Pranay Lal

Viruses are the world’s most abundant life form, and now, when humanity is in the midst of a close encounter with their immense power, perhaps the most feared. But do we understand viruses? Possibly the most enigmatic of living things, they are sometimes not considered a life form at all. Everything about them is extreme, including the reactions they evoke. However, for every truism about viruses, the opposite is also often true. So complex and diverse is the world of viruses that it merits being labelled an empire unto itself. And whether we see them as alive or dead, as life-threatening or life-affirming, there is an ineluctable beauty, even a certain elegance, in the way viruses go about their lives – or so Pranay Lal tells us in Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses.

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Aranyaka: Book of the Forest by Amruta Patil, Devdutt Pattanaik

In the wilderness of humanity, in the forests of the mind, Who eats Whom? Who sees Whom? Aranyaka is about the great forests within us, and without. It is about food, feeding and love. Braiding the stories of three spirited rishikas—Katyayani the Large, Maitreyi the Fig and Gargi the Weaver—it explores the fears and hungers that underpin all human interactions.

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