Bookrack for the week (June 13 to June 19)

New releases of the week (June 13 to June 19)

Urban Governance And Local Democracy in South India
Anil Kumar Vaddiraju
Routledge, pp 112, Rs 695
This book is the first comprehensive volume that offers comparative frameworks on urban governance across all states in the region. It raises crucial questions about the nature of urban planning.

Welcome To Our Real Matrix
Tom Arant
Self-published, pp 354, e-book Rs 449
In many ways, our existence is like the virtual reality in the movie, The Matrix. The differences are, if anything, more overwhelming. This book explores this concept by using accepted science taken to its logical conclusion.

Fighter Cock
Sidharth Singh
Penguin, pp 256, Rs 299
Shikargarh, central India. An untamed wilderness ruled by a dissolute raja with a passion for sex, drugs and cockfighting. As Sheru negotiates this wild land, he finds himself getting pulled into a deadly vortex of events.

Before The Coffee Gets Cold
Toshikazu Kawaguchi and Geoffrey Trousselot (Translator)
Picador, pp 224, Rs 450
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than 100 years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

Animal
Lisa Taddeo
Bloomsbury, pp 336, Rs 699
Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruel acts of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past.