Categories: Fiction

THE LAST TIGER

₹491.18 M.R.P.:₹ 599.00 You Save: ₹107.82  (18.00% OFF)
The Last Tiger brings together Ruskin Bond’s very best published animal stories as well as a brand new work, ‘The Call of the Leopard’, which has never been published before. The title story introduces a wise and crafty tiger who survives every attempt on his life. ‘Those Three Bears’, ‘The Eyes of the Eagle’, and ‘Tigers for Dinner’ describe dangerous encounters in the wild. ‘Guests Who Come in from the Forest’, ‘Panther’s Moon’, ‘The Leopard’, and ‘Song of the Forest’ bring the wildlife of the Himalayas to vivid, memorable life. Other tales in the book tell of thrilling beetle races, the schemes of a ball-chewing crocodile, and monkeys who dance on roofs. We also meet a series of eccentric pets in this book—a friendly baby elephant, a sullen cassowary, owls who grow fond of spaghetti, the mischievous yet sensitive monkey, Toto, a narcissistic python who loves his own reflection, and others. The beasts that stalk the pages of The Last Tiger will thrill, delight, terrify, and entertain Bond’s legions of fans, and all those with an interest in the world of nature.

THE MERMAN AND THE BOOK OF POWER (HB)

₹409.18 M.R.P.:₹ 499.00 You Save: ₹89.82  (18.00% OFF)
The Merman and the Book of Power brings into the English the classical qissa genre, a fabulist storytelling form common to the oral and written literatures of Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. The book begins with the Mongol armies laying siege to Baghdad in 1258. Their attack does not cease from the early hours of light to darkness. Such is the ferocity of their advance that the citizens of the city are convinced they are the manifestation of the End Time creatures Gog and Magog, imprisoned by the legendary King Alexander. It was said that their faces, red as the flames of hell, seemed buried between their shoulders. Their lice-covered, steely bodies gave off a dreadful odour, as their fierce, small eyes moved alertly in their sockets. Thick sideburns protruded like snakes from sheepskin caps covering their shaven heads. In the night, their teeth and talons had glowed as they slunk outside the city walls like malevolent wolves. Baghdad falls, the Mongols take over. A year later, when the city gates open to allow a strange creature—half man, half beast— caught by Mediterranean fishermen, fresh rumours begin to circulate. Is Gujastak the Merman one of Creation’s marvels or an ill omen whose appearance signals the Apocalypse? In parallel to the Merman’s story is the story of a talismanic book that confers diabolical powers on the one who possesses it. In the hands of master storyteller Musharraf Ali Farooqi the qissa comes to glowing life as it spins a tale of magical creatures, ill-starred lovers, and the phenomena that might bring the world to its end.

THE MOVING SHADOW

₹409.18 M.R.P.:₹ 499.00 You Save: ₹89.82  (18.00% OFF)
Disappearing corpses. Scientists who are spies. Maniacal murderers. Brooding, remorseless detectives. Love triangles and murders. A robot that falls in love. Secrets of the dead and the departed. Sex, romance and betrayal. All these and more are to be found in these eight novellas and stories featuring spies, criminals, ghosts, black-magic practitioners and, of course, femmes fatales. These are the finest examples of a long tradition of pulp fiction that has always lurked in dark corners within the hallowed precincts of Bengali literature.Written by brilliant mainstream as well as pulp fiction writers from India and Bangladesh, including Premendra Mitra, Satyajit Ray, Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Gobindolal Bandyopadhyay and the redoubtable Swapan Kumar, the stories in The Moving Shadow: Electrifying Bengali Pulp Fiction give the reader a dazzling introduction to noir from the land of the bhodrolok.

THE MULBERRY COURTESAN (PB)

₹327.18 M.R.P.:₹ 399.00 You Save: ₹71.82  (18.00% OFF)
In 1857, the shadows are falling thick and fast on what is left of the Mughal empire. The last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, is a broken, bitter man in his eighties who has retreated into religion and poetry. Zafar’s empire extends no further than the precincts of his grand palace, the Red Fort in Delhi, but this hasn’t prevented numerous court intrigues and conspiracies from flourishing within the Lal Qila; these involve the emperor’s wives, children, courtiers, hangers-on, and English functionaries among others. Flung into this poison pit is Laale, a young woman from an Afghan noble family, abducted from her home in the mountains and sold into the Mughal emperor’s court as a courtesan. Fiery, independent, and beautiful, the ‘mulberry courtesan’ captures the aging emperor’s heart, giving him hope and happiness in his last years. Told against the backdrop of India’s great revolt of 1857, and the last days of the Mughal empire, The Mulberry Courtesan is an epic tale of romance, tragedy, courage, and adventure.

THE MYSTERIOUS AILMENT OF RUPI BASKEY

₹327.18 M.R.P.:₹ 399.00 You Save: ₹71.82  (18.00% OFF)
Rupi birthed her eldest son squatting in the middle of a paddy field, shin-deep in mud and slush. Soon after, Gurubari, her rival in love, gave her an illness that was like the alakjari vine which engulfs the tallest, greenest trees of the forest and sucks their hearts out. Now Rupi, once the strongest woman in her village, lives out her days on a cot in the backyard, and her life dissolves into incomprehensible ruin around her. The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey is the story of the Baskeys—the patriarch Somai; his alcoholic, irrepressible daughter Putki; Khorda, Putki’s devout, upright husband, and their sons Sido and Doso; and Sido’s wife Rupi. Equally, the novel is about Kadamdihi, the Santhal village in Jharkhand in which the Baskeys live. For it is in full view of the village that the various large and small dramas of the Baskeys’s lives play out, even as the village cheers them on, finds fault with them, prays for them, and most of all, enjoys the spectacle they provide. An astonishingly assured and original debut, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey brings to vivid life a village, its people, and the gods—good and bad—who influence them. Through their intersecting lives, it explores the age-old notions of good and evil and the murky ways in which the heart and the mind works. THE MYSTERIOUS AILMENT OF RUPI BASKEY: A NOVEL

THE ORACLE OF KARUTHUPUZHA (HB)

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With two cows and four mouths to feed, Nareshan can barely make ends meet selling milk to the inhabitants of Karuthupuzha. That is, until his daughter, Sarasu, is possessed by the demon-god, Chaathan. Now, the faithful from all over Karuthupuzha and beyond visit Nareshan with money and gifts to receive Chaathan’s blessings. The sceptics of the town, meanwhile, believe that Nareshan is fooling everyone to make money. However, when one of the leading sceptics in town, Dasappan, member of the Communist Party, rationalist and atheist, loses his mind after loudly proclaiming that Chaathan is a farce, the people’s belief in a divine power residing in Sarasu is reinforced.With the number of faithful only growing as each day passes, Nareshan realizes that his daughter’s possession might be the best thing to have happened to him. When the rich widow Ponnamma comes to his house to seek help from Chaathan for her son, Nanu, the fate of Nareshan and his family is set to change forever. In The Oracle of Karuthupuzha, Manu Bhattathiri revisits the town of Karuthupuzha that was immortalized in The Town That Laughed and Savithri’s Special Room and Other Stories.

THE PATNA MANUAL OF STYLE

₹241.90 M.R.P.:₹ 295.00 You Save: ₹53.10  (18.00% OFF)
In these nine interlinked stories we meet the not so quintessential Patna man—Hriday Thakur, Literature junkie, aspiring writer, inveterate lover of women and rain; Jishnu da, his acquaintance from Delhi University, who is now an ‘importer of blondes’; Samuel Crown, the fastidious proofreader who mentors Hriday and instils in him an irrevocable love for the art of ‘book-making’; the parade of women in Hriday’s life: austere, doe-eyed Charulata, love of his youth, the one who got away; Chitrangada, his wife, who works hard to be accepted in his world of books, art, politics and activism; the beautiful Anjali Singh Nalwa, ex-flame who is now a fiery, controversial novelist; Imogen Burns, the intrepid chronicler of graveyards; Sadaf Khan Abdali, who loves the smell of Listerine early in the morning, and ‘Sophia Loren’, dream girl of many schoolboys, now a mother of two.Unsentimental to a fault, Siddharth Chowdhury’s stories deal with relationships that are intimate and sensuous and sometimes hard to define; taken together, they are an affectionate nod to an idealist generation, insulated in a world of publishing, academia, gin-soaked brunches and Marxist philosophy.

THE PROSPECT OF MIRACLE (HB)

₹491.18 M.R.P.:₹ 599.00 You Save: ₹107.82  (18.00% OFF)
‘There’s more magic in Mistry’s realism than in magic realism.’ —Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. Pastor Pius Philipose, a charismatic priest from a small town in Kerala, is dead. As his adoring flock gathers around to mourn their ‘morally unblemished, upright, drenched-in-the-milk-of-human-kindness’ Pastor, his wife, Mary Agnes, at last free of her husband’s domineering presence, begins to recreate for the reader, in vivid detail, the terrible truths and lies of a man who was never what he seemed. The Prospect of Miracles, the new novel from award-winning novelist, playwright and short-story writer Cyrus Mistry, is a gripping tale of madness, love and betrayal. It will be a while before the reader is able to disengage from the novel’s dark embrace.

THE RADIANCE OF ASHES

₹323.90 M.R.P.:₹ 395.00 You Save: ₹71.10  (18.00% OFF)
Drifter, dropout, dreamer…Jingo believes he has rejected any form of class privilege in a ‘hideously unequal society’. Making a meagre living as a part-time door-to-door market researcher, he jots down notes on characters and insights for a novel. Is he serious about his self-professed vocation? Or just too laid-back, just too fond of getting high? As the story moves effortlessly from a middle-class Parsi housing colony to a far-flung slum on the outskirts of the city, memories of a bitter love affair continue to haunt Jingo, but it’s only when his other romance—with the city—erupts in a nightmare of horror that he realizes he’d better wake up before it’s too late. The Radiance of Ashes is a beautifully described tale of desire, duty and dreams. It is also a story about families, about the truths we hold and the lies we tell, about the fires that burn in each of us – what is left once the flames have died away.

THE SECRET OF MORE : A NOVEL (HB)

₹819.18 M.R.P.:₹ 999.00 You Save: ₹179.82  (18.00% OFF)
Into the beating heart of Bombay, a city that spins cotton into gold, a young man, Tatya, arrives to make a living. Ambitious and hard-working, he begins to make a name for himself in the city’s famed textile market. Meanwhile, his new bride, Radha, navigates the joys and the challenges of raising a family in a city that is a curious and often bewildering mix of the traditional and the rapidly modernizing. Having tasted success in the world of textiles, Tatya chances upon an opportunity in an emerging industry—motion pictures—and is swept up in it despite his initial hesitation about this strange world of make-believe. His success seems unstoppable—the silent films he produces draw in the crowds and his new theatre is a marvel, but his friendship with and attraction to an actress, Kamal, threatens to shake his world and causes him to question his integrity. Set against the backdrop of bustling colonial Bombay, The Secret of More is a journey of relentless ambition, steadfast love, and grim betrayal, as Tatya strives to unlock the secret of more—of having more and being more. In a story that travels from the clatter of textile mills to the glamour of the silent film industry, from the crowded chawls of Girgaon to the luxury of sea-facing mansions, one man and his family learn that in the city of Bombay you can fly—but if you fall, it is a long way down