Books

Book review: First Global's Devina Mehra does not want you following investors Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio's example

Money, Myths and Mantras: The Ultimate Investment Guide by Devina Mehra is written simply, with lots of examples and cautionary tales to present her understanding of, and her company's practice around, what to do and what not to do when investing your money.

Myths & folktales from Arunachal Pradesh: Tara Douglas & Jatwang Wangsa's illustrated book is a valiant effort to preserve oral history

Book review: Incredibly visual and fantastical, the short stories in 'Myth, Memory & Folktale of the Wancho Tribe of Arunachal Pradesh' are just as entertaining as they are thought-provoking, not least because they aren't well-known to Indians outside the North-East.

Amitav Ghosh on why the original American model of wildlife conservation doesn't work, Donald Trump & end of Eurocentricity in the world

Amitav Ghosh's new book review: 'Wild Fictions' offers a glimpse into the mind of Amitav Ghosh, and on to the world through the lens of a well-read and widely travelled anthropologist-turned-writer.

How medieval India's wealth, power and influence grew under the Chola kings - and queens

Medieval Indian Chola kings gave the world many things: Nataraja bronzes, economic systems that persist today, words like cash...

Book Review | Fire Weather - A True Story from a Hotter World Sceptre by John Vaillant

Fire Weather is an astounding account of this century's most intense urban fire, and an urgent examination of humanity's future in an ever-hotter, more flammable world.

Why Amitabh Kant had to get involved when China wanted US visa guarantees for 2026 G20 Summit

Amitabh Kant on why he thinks the 'G20 is today a far more important body than the United Nation', why developed countries need to cough up trillions of dollars in climate finance instead of billions and how the Global South representing over 80 percent of the world population can increase its influence in international fora.

Book Review | The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out

McKinsey & Company’s prestigious two-day workshop Bower Forum is a unique platform for a small group of CEOs or Chairpersons to discuss goals, challenges, and role-specific issues, while counselling and learning from one another.

Book Review | 'How India scaled Mt G20: The Inside Story of The G20 Presidency' by Amitabh Kant

In How India Scaled Mt G20, Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the intense negotiations, strategic manoeuvring, and backroom diplomacy that defined India’s presidency.

Book extract - Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery

Scott Young, bestselling author of Ultralearning, explores why it’s so difficult for people to learn new skills, arguing that three factors must be met to make advancement possible

Book extract - Unlocking Wealth: Secrets to Getting Rich at Any Age

A book for budding investors as well as High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs), Unlocking Wealth demystifies the process of wealth creation.

Isaac Asimov's 105th birth anniversary: what you need to know about the GOAT sci-fi writer

Born in Russia in 1902, Isaac Asimov first read a science fiction magazine in 1929. His experiments in writing began a couple years later. In June 1938, a publisher rejected his first story, but offered copious notes that Asimov said he found useful.

Who needs another book of chocolate recipes & how to make an eggless lamington cake for New Year 2025

Made for India: Bake with Shivesh creator Shivesh Bhatia's fifth and latest book has (mostly) eggless chocolate recipes that are on-trend for 2025. (Think chocolate pistachio thumbprint cookies.) What's missing is something to challenge the palate and really push chocolate as an ingredient in Indian kitchens.

Book Review: Friends | A realist view of India’s place in the global order

In an admirable academic manner, Chaulia looks at the many definitions and many examples of “middle power”, he rightly concludes that India does not fit into the slot of middle power, that is being a camp follower of the United States like Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea.

Book Excerpt: The Only Constant

In The Only Constant, celebrated poet and educator Najwa Zebian guides her reader through the changes we must make (or those we need to endure) on the journey to our most authentic lives.

Book Extract – Amol Palekar's Viewfinder: A Memoir

Read Viewfinder. Acquaint yourself with historical transformations and their impact upon subsequent generations of artists. Amol Palekar is a gentleman artist who cannot be ignored and should not be too!

Casting the Buddha: A monumental history of Buddhism in India

The book “Casting the Buddha: A Monumental History of Buddhism in India” by Shashank Shekhar Sinha traces 2500 years of history of Buddha and Buddhism.

When Indian Air Force flew to the rescue just hours after 2004 Tsunami hit & more stories of skill and courage in the IAF

Wing Commander (Retd) Arijit Ghosh on how a team from the Indian Air Force rescued 58 people from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on an aircraft made for just 25 in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, other stories of courage and skill from the Indian Air Force, and his book 'Air Warriors'.

Book Extract: Uptime

Laura Mae Martin coaches Google’s top executives on the best ways to manage their time and energy and sends out a weekly productivity newsletter that reaches over fifty thousand employees.

Book Extract: A Stitch in Time

A Stitch in Time is the story of a woman who was able to overcome her challenges when all odds were against her, through sheer perseverance and grit.

Why IIMA Professor Pankaj Setia offers Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore to students as a thought experiment

A world without jobs? Information Systems Prof. Pankaj Setia, who also runs the Centre for Digital Transformation at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A), on revisiting human purpose and work in the age of artificial intelligence.

Why Samvidhan architect BR Ambedkar was an original thinker, despite borrowing freely from others

'A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of BR Ambedkar' author Ashok Gopal on why the world needed another biography of BR Ambedkar, why Babasaheb was unique among his contemporaries, and the flavour of Ambedkar's own writing in Marathi as well as English.

Book Extract | Benjamin Graham & Jason Zweig, The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing (Third Edition)

The Intelligent Investor was first published in 1949. The goal of this commemorative 75th anniversary edition is to integrate Graham’s classic insights with today’s market realities.

Book Extract |Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai The Scam That Shook a Nation: The Nagarwala Scandal

Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai The Scam That Shook a Nation: The Nagarwala Scandal HarperCollins India, Gurgaon, 2024. Pb. Pp. 232. Rs. 399

Murty Classical Library's Ranjit Hoskote: It is not meaningful to complain bitterly that ‘people from elsewhere’ are translating ‘our classics’

10 years of Murty Classical Library of India: Editorial board member Ranjit Hoskote on how the spiritual and secular 'entwined, entangled, mapped over each other' in the world that Indian classical texts emerged from, who can translate these texts and how these stories survive in multiple formats.

Book extract: Be your own leadership coach

You lead yourself by choosing priorities and making choices that move you closer to the outcomes you want and away from outcomes you don’t.

Book Extract: Tune In: How to make smarter decisions in a noisy world

It is the kind of book that one is constantly dipping in and out of. Every time, you visit a page, you learn something new, or manage to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes.

‘To call Tipu Sultan a freedom fighter and liberator of India is stretching it a bit much’: Vikram Sampath

Historian Vikram Sampath, with his latest book on the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ attempts to decode the Tipu Sultan riddle.

Even the greatest Sanskrit playwrights went to secular sources for their stories and not just to Hindu myths and epics: Arshia Sattar

Author Arshia Sattar on the role of universities in the translation ecosystem, her new book comprising retellings of Sanskrit plays by greats like Kalidasa and Bhasa, and why she finally decided against including 'Bhavabhuti’s magnificent Uttara Rama Charita'.

Book extract: The Unfinished Quest

Paul’s analysis of India’s quest for status also sheds important light on the current geo-strategic situation and serves as a new framework for understanding the China–India rivalry, as well as India’s relative position in the broader Indo-Pacific theater.

Economics Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee: 'In India, the act of eating and not eating is extraordinarily potent and political'

Economist Abhijit Banerjee on why he reads and writes cookbooks, his new book at the intersection of food and economics, democratizing the social sciences, and presenting new Indian flavour ideas to the world.

Book Extract: Pattern Breakers

There are plenty of case studies and tips to glean from Pattern Breakers. Not all of them are easy to encapsulate here. The introduction does a fair job to give some insights in the chapters but it is better if you read the book for yourself.

Cello World set to pen a stronger growth script in H2

The company experienced demand traction in October, while new products and capacity expansion will act as growth levers

Ramachandra Guha: History doesn't have to be about kings & winners, it can be about the losers who had the right idea all along

From Rabindranath Tagore's engagement with nature at Santiniketan to JC Kumarappa's rural renewal, and from Patrick Geddes' neotechnic cities to Union Minister KM Munshi's Vana Mahotsava—Ramachandra Guha gives brief biographies of 10 people who thought about different aspects of human-nature interactions in India.

Book Extract: Our Next Reality

In Our Next Reality, two industry veterans provide a data-driven debate on whether the new world we're creating will be a technological utopia or an AI-powered dystopia and give guidance on how to aim for the best future we can.

Book Extract — Golwalkar: The Myth Behind the Man, the Man Behind the Machine

Golwalkar’s ideological influence was enormous—and it did not end with his death.

Book Extract: Shah Rukh Khan - Legend, Icon, Star

Shah Rukh Khan: Legend, Icon, Star includes first hand fan accounts and Mohar Basu's insights and commentary on the phenomena that is SRK.

Book Extract — Ratan Tata: A Life

Ratan Tata: A Life is a traditional biography, that does the childhood to adulthood trajectory in detail, tracking Ratan Tata’s years as immaculately as is feasible.

Book Extract: Ahimsa

2024 is being commemorated as the centenary of the discovery of Harappa/Indus Valley Civilization. To coincide with this landmark moment in India’s history, Devdutt Pattnaik chose to highlight a few aspects of the civilization accompanied by some of his illustrations.

Supreme Court’s epoch making 1990s judgements set the tone for a changing polity

The decade witnessed landmark judgements which had a far-reaching impact on separation of powers, federalism and protection of women from sexual harassment. A common thread running through them was the imprint of AM Ahmadi, India’s CJI in the mid-90s

Book Extract: Pathfinders

JL Collins' third book, Pathfinders, reads like the essays published often in Readers Digest. Easy to read, accessible, communicated complicated ideas and situations simplistically, and most importantly, made readers think about financial literacy.

Tilak saw Hinduism as a force to counter British argument that Indians were no good: Vaibhav Purandare

Author Vaibhav Purandare talks about his latest book, Tilak: The Empire's Biggest Enemy, and explains why Bal Gangadhar Tilak was seen as a big threat to the British rule

How a WhatsApp message inspired William Dalrymple to write 'The Golden Road'

William Dalrymple on ancient India's empire of ideas, and why his latest book 'The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World' could not have been written a decade ago.

Book Extract: Economics Nobel winners Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson's 'Power and Progress'

Read the entire prologue to the incredibly fascinating book, 'Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity', penned by 2024 Economics Nobel laureates Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson.

Deals: The Economic Structure of Business Transactions

Deals includes many of the case studies that the two authors engaged with over the past two decades.

Fraudster Tales: History’s Greatest Criminals and Their Catastrophic Crimes 

Fraudsters Tales is a wonderful collection of profiles, told magnificently by Vijay Narayan Govind. He achieves the incredible balance between telling a gripping story whilst packing it with financial details of the crimes committed.