Books for the week

The books THE WEEK recommends to read this week. [break]

From Missionaries to Mountaineers: Early Encounters with Nepal

Rs. 500

In 1965 R.R. (Bob) Jordan was posted to Nepal as the British Council’s English Language Officer. His four years working there gave him a lifelong interest in the Himalayan country, manifesting itself as a major collection of antiquarian and more recent books. Early Encounters with Nepal is a selection of extracts and information taken from his collection and ranging from the first book about Nepal printed in English, An account of the Kingdom of Nepaul by Colonel Kirkpatrick, published in 1811, through to Sir Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest in 1953.

The book does not set out to be a history of Nepal but illustrates the wide-ranging contacts with the country by the outside world during the years before it was open to tourists. These include missionaries, traders, soldiers, diplomats and officials, hunters and plant hunters, royalty, explorers and mountaineers.

The White Tiger
By Arvind Adiga

Rs. 632

A brutal view of India’s class struggles is cunningly presented in Adiga’s debut about a racist, homicidal chauffer. Balram Halwai is from the Darkness, born where India’s downtrodden and unlucky are destined to rot. Balram manages to escape his village and move to Delhi after being hired as a driver for a rich landlord. Telling his story in retrospect, the novel is a piecemeal correspondence from Balram to the premier of China, who is expected to visit India and whom Balram believes could learn a lesson or two about India’s entrepreneurial underbelly.

Adiga’s existential and crude prose animates the battle between India’s wealthy and poor as Balram suffers degrading treatment at the hands of his employers (or, more appropriately, masters). His personal fortunes and luck improve dramatically after he kills his boss and decamps for Bangalore. Balram is a clever and resourceful narrator with a witty and sarcastic edge that endears him to readers, even as he rails about corruption, allows himself to be defiled by his bosses, spews coarse invective and eventually profits from moral ambiguity and outright criminality. It’s the perfect antidote to lyrical India.

That’s the life Baby
By Priyesh Ranjan
Rs. 158

Sixteen is sweet, Seventeen sweeter and Eighteen is the sweetest! He thinks so.What about Love at Eighteen? It happens, everyday! Doesn’t it? True for him! Have a lot of girls in your life. It feels macho to have options. Girls don’t need the advice. They are the wiser sex and have been playing multi-boying games for eons. But he has three gorgeous damsels, all envious and shooting high testostierone levels.How will you thank god if your balcony faces a girls’ hostel? .....By being there 24×7?

May be! Exactly what he aims at! Skirts lead to scandals. Don’t they? Ban it or allow scandals. He loves both, skirts and scandals.What does he think about ‘committed’ tag? You can’t keep on eating the same chocolate all the time! Feels like jailed!!! Meet Abhi. He is one of you with a devil’s head! A year at Kota and his life remains no more the same. It all starts with a Bollywood-style love at first sight with Aditi. He sees, he falls, he cajoles and a little luck makes them one! Together they write new rules of dating & romance. Their amorous adventures will make you feel the passion of adolescence. But one day everything changes. How? What? Why? Answers lie in the story. A stormy honeymoon of emotions......Get ready to laugh and cry!!!