Books

Gautam Bhatia on editing the annual 'IF' anthology series of Indian speculative fiction, speculative fiction vs science fiction, themes and timelines in Indian speculative fiction, why sci-fi is a genre of modernity, and how and when it came to India.

Book Extract | Team: Getting Things Done with Others by David Allen and Edward Lamont

By building on the effectiveness of what GTD does for individuals, Team will offer a better way of working in an organisation, while simultaneously nourishing a culture that allows individuals' skills to flourish

‘Fiction allows for moral complexity without the need for moral clarity’

Rahul Pandita’s debut novel Our Friends in Good Houses follows a journalist’s foray into war zones. A journalist by vocation, he takes Moneycontrol through the difference between reporting and fiction, among other things.

Book Extract | The Dark-Coloured Waters: A Journey Along River Chenab by Danesh Rana

The Dark-Coloured Waters is as much the story of a river as it is of a man shaped by its course.

Book Extract | Kotia to Ketaki: At Home Away from Home by Ketaki Sarkar and Chandana Dey

The Russian countryside is of infinite beauty; just imagine endless stretches of golden wheat. It is a pity I am not a writer; I lack words to convey my feelings.

‘Tagore was almost singlehandedly responsible for trying to turn Santiniketan into a cosmopolitan place’

Upheavals of the 20th century triggered migrations and relationships that make most countries a cultural and social mosaic. India’s no exception. Chandana Dey unearthed one such story by publishing her Russian/Lithuanian Jewish grandmother’s memoir — Kotia to Ketaki: At Home Away from Home. She takes Moneycontrol through the fascinating backstory of the memoir.

Beyond Ikigai, a Japanese philosophy for greater job satisfaction based on moving meditation, mindful listening and Aisatsu

A Japanese Buddhist monk explains why your office should feel more like a dojo than a battlefield - and shares three no-cost rituals to get you started on practicing three tenets of Jōdo Shinshū philosophy at the workplace.

Book Extract | A Sixth Of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey by Devesh Kapur & Arvind Subramanian

The rapid growth between 1960 and 1980 was experienced most by Haryana and Punjab, a testament to the Green Revolution

‘Men, women, non-binary people, everyone is aching for love’

Sonora Jha, an award winning novelist, has come out with another book ‘Intemperance’.  It is at once a satirical feminist folktale and a meditation on how we might reach past all sense and still find love. In an interview to Moneycontrol, she explains the context to the book.

Book Extract: Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey

Academy Award-winning actor and #1 New York Times bestselling author Matthew McConaughey is a husband and a father, an eternal optimist, a hopeful skeptic, and a man of faith who believes that we should all start sellin' Sunday morning like a Saturday night.

Book Extract | 50 Years of the Indian Emergency: Lessons for Democracy by Peter Ronald deSouza & Harsh Sethi

Politics is understandably prominent in the Dandavate prison letters

Book Extract | The Shortest History of Music by Andrew Ford

Fans of Rodgers and Hammerstein will notice that Do and Ti are missing from Guido’s scale.

‘What defines cults is not their label, but the methods they use to control, manipulate, and isolate people’

There isn’t much difference between cult leaders like Rampal, or other leaders who weaponize faith for control, or patriarchs who demand submission, writes Priyamvada Mehra in her memoir ‘The Cost of a Promised Afterlife’, which describes her family’s immersion into a cult.

Book review: Architect who built Nirav Modi’s now-demolished seaside bungalow releases his memoir, and it’s gently funny

An architect's memoir: Over 30 years, Matharoo Associates founder Gurjit Singh Matharoo has worked with a wide cast of clients, to design luxury homes, temples, institutions. His memoir offers a peek into what's changed, and what's remained the same, in these decades.

Book Extract | Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

Is a River Alive? unfolds across three main landscapes.

Book Extract | Running behind Lakshmi: The Search for Wealth in India's Stock Market by Adil Rustomjee

India’s first bull run followed a pattern that was to repeat itself in subsequent episodes. Initially, a displacement occurs, which changes people’s belief in the future.

‘Artificial Intelligence has still a very long way to go before it can tell interesting stories’

Bhaskar Chattopadhyay has launched his own imprint titled Cipher Books (see logo). It is registered in Canada. The first book to be published under this imprint is The Wings of the Nike.

Book Extract | The Health and Wealth Paradox: How to Use First Principles Thinking to Achieve Both by Ankush Datar and Mihir Patki

With attention spans falling, few people have the patience or capacity for concentration to read and understand information in a more focussed manner

Bhagavad Gita for Everyday Living author Swami Mukundananda: 'AI handles information, and the Gita guides intention'

Swami Mukundananda on his new book 'Bhagavad Gita for Everyday Living: Selected Verses with Key Takeaways', what the Bhagavad Gita teaches us, and its relevance for modern living in the age of artificial intelligence and more scientific discoveries.

Book Extract: Fluke - Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters

Brian Klaas grew up in Minnesota, earned his DPhil at Oxford, and is now a professor of global politics at University College London. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, host of the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast, and frequent guest on national television.

Book Extract: Excerpted with permission from the publisher The New Age of Sexism, Laura Bates, published by Simon and Schuster India

Book Extract: Excerpted with permission from the publisher The New Age of Sexism, Laura Bates, published by Simon and Schuster India

Book Extract: Excerpted with permission from the publisher Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global,‎ Laura Spinney, published by ‎William Collins

Book Extract: Excerpted with permission from the publisher Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global,‎ Laura Spinney, published by ‎William Collins.

‘The work of history is the work of civilization’ — Prof Ruby Lal on writing feminist history, erasures from history

South Asian History Professor at Emory University, US, Ruby Lal explains her approach to Mughal history; reading signs of Nur Jahan’s co-sovereignty in memoir, court documents and art history; and why erasures from history textbooks are a problem.

How to end gold smuggling in India and negotiate better gold prices for Indian buyers, an IIM-A professor explains

IIM-A Professor and author of 'The Power of Gold' Sundaravalli Narayanaswami explains why curtailing gold imports to manage current account deficit does not work in India, and how - when it comes to buying gold in India - culture eats economists for breakfast.

Book Extract | Language of the Immortals: A Concise Study of Sanskrit by G. N. Devy

The fact that the canonical status of texts did not depend on the genre in which they were composed but rather on the function they were expected to perform in the sphere of their reception needs to be stressed when we consider the history of Sanskrit literature.

Book Extract | A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile by Aatish Taseer

In Mongolia, the texture of sin felt less like a crime against God than against oneself. Three symbols are often associated with Danzanravjaa’s life and thought: a female figure representing his love of pleasure; a swan symbolizing the arts; and, lastly, a scorpion signifying the human potential for self-destructiveness

What if the UK were ruled by India in the near future? Scottish MP Alan Gemmell's novel engages with gritty fictional and real-world problems

Different kind of Raj novel: UK Labour MP Alan Gemmell on imagining Britain as a colony of India in his political thriller '30th State', teaching the history of empire in British schools, and returning art to former colonies.

Book Extract | 1975: The Year That Transformed Bollywood by Pratik Majumdar

The Emergency period was akin to a dark age for the Hindi film industry. Film-makers were unfairly forced to navigate an environment of intense scrutiny with curtailed artistic expression, and any deviation from state-approved narratives could lead to severe consequence

Book Extract | The Lion of Naushera by Ziya Us Salam and Anand Mishra

Within weeks of India gaining independence, Kashmir resembled a battlefield because of Pakistan's repeated incursions to capture the Muslim-dominated princely state.

[In]Complete Justice: Reflecting on the Supreme Court at 75 -- triumphs and trials

The book ‘[In]Complete Justice: The Supreme Court at 75, Critical Reflections’ critically examines the Supreme Court's evolution, highlighting its successes, failures, judicial activism, and key reforms. It explores the Court’s role in shaping India’s democracy, law, and social justice

Bharatanatyam practitioners across US, UK... India are giving the dance form a contemporary urgency: Leela Samson

Indian Classical Dance today: Dancer-choreographer Leela Samson unpacks histories and movements that have brought us to the present moment in Bharatnatyam, in 'Dance of Freedom: A Short History of Bharata Natyam'.

Book Extract| The CIA Book Club by Charlie English

In the late 1960s, against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, CIA activities were increasingly scrutinized by the media and public officials.

Book Extract | This is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee

Today, experts in the AI field are rather crudely characterized as ‘AI boomers’ or ‘AI doomers’.

Book Extract | How to Sleep Like a Caveman by Dr Merijn van de Laar

Data is available on mouth-taping and sleep, though this is mainly focused on a small sample of obstructive sleep apnoea patients.

'There's nothing Urduish about Urdu. Urdu is about the world the writer is living in': Rakhshanda Jalil

An anthology of Urdu short stories attempts to bust stereotypes around who writes in Urdu, and for whom. Editor Rakhshanda Jalil explains why she chose to keep the subtitle - Stories by Non-Muslim Urdu Writers - even though it made her 'cringe'.

Book Extract: 'This is for Everyone' by Tim Berners-Lee

The groundbreaking memoir from the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is the story of our modern age.

Book review: Source Code by Bill Gates is also the story of a computer revolution

Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Rick, and many others developed software that made computers intelligible to the common man. Bill Gates' Source Code is the story of that revolution, and that moment in tech history.

Book Extract | The Shortest History of Migration by Ian Goldin

The legal limbo in which asylum seekers find themselves typically hinders them from working or establishing themselves in their host communities.

Book Extract | Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts

In sum, life appears to exult in blurring the boundaries we place upon it. Buffon’s observation from two and a half centuries ago seems more relevant than ever.

Book review: Arundhati Roy's candid memoir, about her relationship with mother Mary Roy, is unputdownable

Arundhati Roy shot to international fame after becoming the first Indian citizen to win the Booker Prize for her novel, 'The God of Small Things'. Her memoir, 'Mother Mary Comes to Me', is a moving account of her relationship with her influential mother.

Book Extract | [In]Complete Justice? The Supreme Court at 75‎ by S Muralidhar (Editor)

Gopal Subramanium was designated Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court at the young age of 35, and served as the Additional Solicitor General of India from 2005 to 2009, and as Solicitor General of India from 2009 to 2011.

Book Extract | How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence by Matt Richtel

The transition from childhood to adulthood is a natural, evolution-honed cycle that now faces radical change and challenge.

Book Review | A framework to make sense of our bewildering era

There’s an unprecedented shift in geopolitics, technology and balance of power in the backdrop of a looming climate shock. All of them are happening at the same time. It’s a book that takes the reader through the forces of transition and provides the means to connect dots.

Book Extract | What's Up With Women and Money?

The best time to negotiate your salary is during the offer stage. Many companies—especially large, highly structured corporations— limit the percentage an employee’s compensation can be raised by during a calendar year.

Book Extract |The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World by Philip Coggan

At times, Mr Trump seems to treat tariffs as a ‘miracle cure’ that can solve every ailment.

Book Extract | India in Triangles: The Incredible Story of How India was Mapped and the Himalayas Measured by Shruthi Rao and Meera Iyer

Triangulation is also important in geodesy, the science of measuring the Earth’s shape….

Book Extract | Song of India: A Study of the National Anthem by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Many of the ideas presented above from Tagore’s writings around 1910 and 1912, exactly the period when he composed ‘Jana Gana Mana’, are reflected in the song.

Bestselling author Samantha Shannon: 'Twitter drove me to a dark place over the decade I was there'

Oxford University graduate Samantha Shannon on the latest book in her bestselling fantasy series 'The Bone Season', using social media, and the 'author preferred' version of her dystopian and fantasy novels.