What's on the bookshelf?

For your next read...

Call Me Al

Sheheryar Sheikh

Harper Collins, 2019, pp 304, Rs 399

Altamaash mis-stepped on to history’s stage to become a politician and created a lifetime’s worth of chaos and destruction in Pakistan. Now exiled to a London mansion, Al yearns to relive the glory days of his rise to power. But Al’s desire for doing his best flows into two acts of massive evil.

Resurgent India

Bimal Jalan

Harper Collins, 2019, pp 240, Rs 699

Resurgent India, a sequel to Dr Bimal Jalan’s book Emerging India, looks ahead and analyses what needs to be done in light of the significant advances made in politics and governance in one of the fastest-growing developing countries.

A Promised Land

Khadija Mastur, Translated by Daisy Rockwell

Penguin, 2019, pp 216, Rs 399

In the wake of the Partition, a new country is born. As millions of refugees pour into Pakistan, swept up in a welter of chaos and deprivation, Sajidah and her father find their way to the Walton refugee camp, uncertain of their future in what is to become their new home.

Article 370

A G Noorani

Oxford, 2019, pp 504, Rs 599

This book is a collection of documents on Article 370 of the Constitution of India, which contains provisions related to the state of Jammu & Kashmir. It provides new insights on the negotiations preceding its enactment, the significance of the Article, and the constitutional evolution of the State.

Beasts of Burden

Imayam, Translated by Lakshmi Holmström

Niyogi, 2019, pp 338, Rs 650

The novel is based in the early 1970s when ritual status and payment in kind were giving way to cash wages. It is a tapestry of despair, courage, and a story of decline and change in a village seen through the eyes of a washerwoman.

The Diary of Manu Gandhi: 1943–1944

Tridip Suhrud

Oxford, 2019, pp 248, Rs 750

Manu Gandhi, M K Gandhi’s grand-niece, joined him in 1943 at the age of 15. An aide to Gandhi’s ailing wife Kasturba in the Aga Khan Palace prison in Pune, Manu remained with him until his assassination. Spanning two volumes, this is a record of her life and times with Gandhi between 1943 and 1948.

The Case that Shook the Empire

Raghu Palat, Pushpa Palat

Bloomsbury, 2019, pp 200, Rs 499

April 30, 1924. At the Court of the King’s Bench, an English judge heard the case that would change the course of India’s history: Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, had filed a defamation case against Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair for having published a book in which he referred to the atrocities committed by the Raj in Punjab.

21 Kesaris

Kiran Nirvan

Bloomsbury, 2019, pp 248, Rs 399

10,000 Afghans. 21 Sikh soldiers. One epic battle. On September 12, 1897, 21 soldiers of 36th Sikh regiment stood undeterred as they guarded the post of Saragarhi against the onslaught of almost 10,000 Afghan tribesmen. The unparalleled heroics of these 21 men have been long forgotten.