On the book shelf this week: From geopolitical video games to historical splinters

Power Play is the book that explains why governments are suddenly treating video games as a national security issue and why they are right to. In Power Play, he reveals how Russia has been funding video game development to spread its worldview, Saudi Arabia is spending tens of billions acquiring gaming companies to rehabilitate its reputation, and Steve Bannon used tactics from online gaming communities to propel Donald Trump into the White House.

2. Why Kenyans Win Marathons and Estonians Build Unicorns
Anirudh Krishna 
Penguin Random House
Pp 264, Rs 699

Why do so many of the world’s best long-distance runners come from Kenya? How does Estonia (population: 1.3 million) produce so many tech unicorns? Why do so many distinguished writers come from Nigeria and so many classical musicians from Venezuela? Excellence is not tied to any given ethnicity, legacy, or political system. This book uncovers how societies identify talent, create opportunity, and combine them into systems that consistently deliver the best.

3. The Calamity Club
Kathryn Stockett
Penguin Random House
Pp 656, Rs 999

The Calamity Club is a novel about women on society’s margins who discover unexpected power in one another. Set during the Great Depression, it is a rich story of resilience, friendship, class, loss, and quiet rebellion. Filled with Stockett’s trademark warmth, wit, and emotional depth, the novel brings together a cast of remarkable characters navigating hardship, hope, and the messy unpredictability of human connection.

4. For the love of stories
Wendy Doniger
Speaking Tiger Books
Pp 368, Rs 899

Part memoir, part intellectual self-portrait, For the Love of Stories by Wendy Doniger traces the making of one of 
the most original and subversive scholars of religion and mythology of our time. In the book, Doniger writes not as an authority pronouncing from above, but as someone trying to understand the accidents, desires, friendships and silent rebellions that shaped a life spent among stories. 

5. Birth Of A Nation
Josy Joseph
Westland Books
Pp 264, Rs 799

Josy Joseph stitches together a richly detailed account of how India came to be — and how very close it came to being splintered into several independent princely states and a small republic. Birth of a Nation follows the work of the newly set-up states department led by Sardar Patel, and its group of determined officials. They were pitted against a coterie of ruling families and their wily advisors who had declared their independence.