1. Gandhi: The End of Non-Violence
Manash Firaq BhattacharjeePenguin Random House
Pp 504, Rs 699
The Mahatma—champion of non-violence, father of a nation. But what if we told you that his final days were spent in disillusionment, surrounded by the very bloodshed he fought his whole life to prevent? That his philosophy, tested against the fires of Partition, was reduced to a whisper? Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee rips apart the sanitised mythology to reveal the raw, complex, and deeply unsettling reality of Gandhi’s last struggle in this book.
2. The Echoes Of Eternity
Pavan K Varma
Westland Books
Pp 734, Rs 999
From Rigveda to Kama Sutra, from the Sufis to the founding fathers, from the Jain texts to Osho, this compendium of Indian thought contains excerpts from the major texts that have shaped our society and nation over the centuries. With an introduction that contextualises the choice of texts and with brief notes on each author and text, this is a single-edition work by Pavan K Varma, a writer-diplomat who was till recently an MP in Rajya Sabha.
3. The Book Of Disappearance
Ibtisam Azem & Sinan Antoon
Simon & Schuster
Pp 240, Rs 499
Alaa is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland after the Nakba. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of their collective disappearance.
4. Fortune Seekers
Raman Mahadevan
Penguin Random House
Pp 256, Rs 599
Nattukotai Chettiars were the most prominent business community from Tamil region and this book captures their spirit of enterprise that led many of them to seek their fortunes overseas. For students of history, business, and for modern entrepreneurs, Fortune Seekers has valuable lessons on the importance of diversifying into promising investment opportunities and gauging the economic winds of change.
5. The Great Shutdown
Jyoti Mukul
HarperCollins
Pp 372, Rs 499
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Diamond Princess, the treasure trove of experience on the sea, turned into a confinement zone for chef de partie Binay Kumar Sarkar of Siliguri. For 15-year-old Jyoti Kumari and her father Mohan Paswan, a Mullahji of Araria became a companion for a nearly 1,100-km-journey on a cycle bought from borrowed money. The book chronicles these human stories and the government actions. It talks about the hardships faced by the common man and the subsequent consequences.
