“As if by unspoken agreement, the rebels never attacked the holidaymakers. Europeans sipped coconut juice and stared out at the horizon of the ocean, unaware that just an hour’s flight to the north people were dying in First World War-style trench warfare.”

The Official History Of Indian Armed Forces In The Second World War 1939-45, put together by the history division of ministry of defence in eight volumes, which had been finished and forgotten for dec

Diplomat-author Navtej Sarna evokes Gogol, “To write, all you need to do is look around your room.” It may have been “enough” for Gogol, but not for Sarna who is “open” to experience and dips into the

Old Mills & Boon style romances never die; they just fade away to return in new packaging.

Janet Laird, aka Jana Bibi, is a smart, spirited and sweet 58-year-old. And she comes with Mr Ganguly, her pet parrot. The duo, along with a long-time maid, Mary, move into Hamra Nagar as Jana, who is of Scottish origin, inherits her grandfather’s house.

To begin with, the idea of a bonsai kitten is horrifying. As the book quotes from a website, to create such a tiny creature, unimaginable cruelties are inflicted onto a normal kitten. The animal is pushed into a bottle, and kept there, with its bones chemically softened so that its growth is permanently stunted. The kitten does not live long, but that is apparently all part of its attraction — and it is the author’s contention that this is an apt analogy for some tragic human lives, too.

It’s arresting and tender, but what really sets apart Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls as a young adult novel is that it occupies one of those unhappy spaces that our hearts lurch through on the journey to adulthood.

Rs 795

India declared itself a state armed with nuclear weapons in May 1998 after the Pokhran tests. Despite the fact that almost 15 years have passed since then, the number of good books on the subject of managing India’s nuclear deterrence can be counted on the fingertips of one hand.

So many autobiographies and biographies have been written, so many descriptions of life with great men and women of all persuasions and pursuits.

So many autobiographies and biographies have been written, so many descriptions of life with great men and women of all persuasions and pursuits. Among them Francois Gilot’s Life With Picasso remains memorable because of the honesty and directness of the man himself, warts and all, and of the stormy relationship he had with the author.