Bollywood Roulette—Inside the struggle; Rahul Bajaj (Indialog, 2007, pp 288, Rs 195) Every year thousands of young men and women come to Mumbai to make it big in Bollywood. They will stake everything they have to play ‘Bollywood Roulette’.

The Kaoboys of R & AW— Down Memory Lane; B Raman (Lancer, 2007, pp 294, Rs 795) The book deals with those aspects of working with the Research and Analysis Wing of which the author had personal knowledge while serving in the organisation.

Under the Rain Tree— Short Stories of Love, Hate, Pride and Prejudice; Vatsala Balachandran Warrier (Cedar Books, 2007, pp 175, Rs 95) The stories in this collection span continents, traverse time and enter the realms of fantasy.

The Assassin’s Song; M G Vassanji (Viking, 2007, pp 375, Rs 450) The book is a stunning evocation of the physical and emotional landscape of a man caught between filial obligation and personal yearning.

Nuns, Yoginis, Saints and Singers— Women’s Renunciation in South Asia; Edited by Meena Khandelwal et al (Zubaan, 2007, pp 375, Rs 595) This book provides a series of studies on South Asian women who reject the normative roles of wife and mother and then conform to them.

Travels with Herodotus; Ryszard Kapuscinski (Allen Lane, 2007, pp 275, £ 20) This book records how Kapuscinski set out on his first forays to India, China and Africa with the great Greek historian Herodotus in his pocket.

The Seine at Noon; Susan Visvanathan (IndiaInk, 2007, pp 133, Rs 275) Haunted by the death of his parents, immigrant Jews from Kerala, during the First World War, Stefan returns.

Ettukettu Stories; T C Narayan (Unisun, 2007, pp 148, Rs 195) A delightful collection of narratives portraying various characters and scenes that made up the lifestyle of a middle class Kerala household for the first half of the last century...