Anandajit Goswami stands among the most distinguished Indian authors of contemporary times, and with his latest novel Siddharth – The Soul Seeker, he once again proves his remarkable ability to engage and move readers. A writer deeply committed to his craft, Goswami continuously transforms his imagination into compelling works across the spectrum of fiction. Siddharth – The Soul Seeker is a profound novel that traces a spiritual and existential journey, set against the emotio

Some books arrive with the weight of history on their pages. ‘Saṅgīta-darpaṇaḥ’ is one such work; a 200-year-old manuscript that has travelled through five or six generations of the legendary Kalka–Bindādin Gharānā before finding its way to print. Published just weeks after Paṇḍit Birju Mahārāj's passing in January 2022, this book feels less like an academic exercise and more like a parting gift from a maestro to the world of classical arts. The story behind this publication

The novel’s relevance remains undimmed. It speaks to a world still governed by appearances, ambition and self-deception, while quietly insisting on the redemptive possibilities of forgiveness, self-knowledge and love in its truest form. ‘The Painted Veil,’ a novel written by W. Somerset Maugham - the celebrated twentieth century British novelist, playwright, critic, short story writer and British secret agent during World War One - is one of the author’s most poignant and hau

Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958) Every empire produces at least one great historian who anatomises its exhaustion with a completeness that neither predecessors nor successors quite match. For Rome, it was Edward Gibbon who dissected the long senescence of the western Roman and eastern Byzantine power through six volumes in ‘The history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ with prosecutorial irony between 1776 and 1788. For Habsburg Spain, it was Fernand Braudel, whose

Dr Kshama Valsangkar’s book blends medical expertise with deeply personal experience, offering a practical guide for patients, carers, and even medical students. A new and significant addition to popular medical literature has been made with a book, ‘Let’s talk about Parkinson’s’, written by Dr Kshama Valsangkar. Parkinson’s is a complex disease, and it involves a gradual degeneration of the nervous system. In the early stages, the symptoms are so mild that the patient often

When the British dismantled what they called the Indian empire, they shattered it repeatedly, unevenly and often inadvertently. ‘Partition’ is usually remembered as a single cataclysm in 1947 - the vivisection of British India into India and Pakistan. Yet, as Sam Dalrymple reminds readers in his ambitious and meticulously crafted ‘Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia’, that rupture was only one act in a longer imperial unravelling. Between 1937 and 1971, the empire s

Published at the height of the Cold War, Starship Troopers shocked readers with its unapologetic militarism and strict civic philosophy. First edition dust jacket of Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein It came as quite a surprise back in March to learn there is to be another film adaptation of Starship Troopers, perhaps science fiction grand master Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial novel. With no confirmed release date, this new adaption is set to be written and direct

Justice Ranade’s 1900 classic remains a foundational text of Maratha historiography that sought to reinterpret Maharashtra’s past as a disciplined national effort. When Mahadev Govind Ranade published ‘Rise of the Maratha Power’ in 1900, he was better known as a judge and reformer than as a historian. Yet, this book (more accurately, a collection of essays), issued in collaboration with his fellow jurist K. T. Telang, became the founding text of Maratha historiography. In a l

In a literary era crowded with climate fiction, Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Gun Island’ stands apart not for its science, but for its faith in myth, in migration and in the enduring power of the tale itself. In Gun Island, Amitav Ghosh performs a literary sleight of hand that merges the mythic and the modern, the ecological and the existential into an ambrosial cocktail of narrative craft. First published in 2019, the novel is at once a fable and a forecast, a story that straddles contin

Dr J. M. Waghmare’s book is more than a history lesson—it’s a call to reclaim the secular, inclusive spirit that built modern India. Dr...

William L. Shirer’s searing account of the Third Republic’s collapse remains the most readable narrative of France’s humiliation in 1940....

Frederick Forsyth perfected the geopolitical thriller by making fact indistinguishable from fiction. It was 1996. I was visiting my...

Charting the essential literature to understand ‘D-Day’ or the invasion of Normandy, 81 years on. Each June, as the dwindling band of...

I have been a vegetarian my entire life, and lately, I’ve been contemplating going vegan. However, the thought of life without paneer...

In the annals of Indian industry, the name Kirloskar carries undeniable weight. It conjures up images of mechanical ingenuity and the...

There was a time when war films aspired to something greater than the blood-spattered grit of today or tightly choreographed mayhem. They...

I remember the first time I encountered the idea that geography determines destiny. It was in Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’...

Many years ago, I left a bag full of books at Dubai International Airport - a book-lover’s nightmare. Among the casualties were two...

At a time when strongmen strut the global stage and democracy so often finds itself in retreat, a book published in the autumn of 1939...

In the 18th century, when Montesquieu, the French philosopher, argued for the separation of powers in his groundbreaking work De L'Esprit...