The crazy adventures of a madcap family!
The ever-in-a-hurry Goofies need to renovate their house. And of course, the only one who agrees to take up the job is none but the slowest handyman around town, Mr Workslow. But he’s yet to arrive and the Goofies can’t wait to get started. So after much heaving, out come all their worldly goods in a battered and mangled heap of wood, cloth, metal, plastic, glass . . . err . . . yeah, they’re definitely going to need new furniture.
And unknown to the nutty family, stashed in their dump yard from hell is the extravagant loot of Petersville’s unwelcome visitors-a gang of hapless thieves! Yeah, they are going to need some reinforcements, too, if they hope to bumble their way out of this mess.
Ranji’s team finds an unexpected opponent-a nosy crocodile-when they play a cricket match against the village boys. Annoyed at the swarms of boys crowding the riverbank and the alarming cricket balls plopping around his place of rest, Nakoo the crocodile decides to take his revenge.
One of the world’s oldest forms of faith, Hinduism has an unbroken trajectory of beliefs and rituals that have continued for many millennia through the footsteps of pilgrims and the pedagogies of theologists; through myth, science and politics. But what does all that mean to the modern Hindu today? Why do Hindus call themselves so? Is it merely because their parents were Hindus? In what way does the faith speak to those who profess to follow it? What does Hinduism mean to the everyday-practising or sometimes-accessing ordinary Hindu? Away from the raucous debate around religion, this is the journey of a common Hindu, an attempt to understand why, for so many Hindus, their faith is one of the most powerful arguments for plurality, for unity in diversity, and even more than the omnipresent power of God, the sublime courage and conviction of man.
Being Hindu is an exploration of Hinduism in a way you have never seen before, almost through your own eyes. This is the first book on Hinduism to have won the Wilbur Award given by the Religion Communicators Council of America for excellence in writing about religion.
Our Sri Lankan narrator visits his friend Joe in Italy where Joe attends a course in higher (or, shall we say, lower) studies in women. But Italians-much like today’s residents of Colombo-live at home till marriage, death, and sometimes even beyond. A hen and chicken affair of fake fiancés and phony engagements ensues. Long years and many miles away, Colombo’s Father Cruz attempts to rescue a church from parishioners who like to put their donations where others can see them-with plaques to announce their charity. On the coast, a retired Admiral escapes the tsunami on an antique Dutch cabinet. A broken mother-with neither Dutch cabinet nor navy helicopter to rescue her-feels her son slip away, and watches him go giving her looks of mild reproach. Two childhood sweethearts, in time-honoured Sri Lankan tradition, are married off to strangers. Nineteen years of clandestine meetings culminate in another chance of marriage. Perhaps time does separate.
Ashok Ferrey writes about Sri Lanka and its people, wherever they roam. He writes of the Sri Lankan diaspora, who seem not to notice that their country has changed in their absence. He writes of the West’s effect on Sri Lankans, of its ‘turning them into caricatures, unmistakably genuine but not at all the real thing’. As you laugh, you are left with nostalgia for a bygone Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans who might have been.
In this extraordinary debut, Ashok Ferry chronicles, in a gently probing voice, the journeys of characters seeking something beyond the barriers of nations and generations. His tales of social-climbing Sri Lankans, of the pathos of immigration, of rich people with poor taste, of icecream karma, of innocent love, eternity, and more take us to Colombo’s nouveau riche, hoity-toity returnees, ladies with buttery skin and square fingernails, old-fashioned aristocrats, and the poor mortals trapped between them. Ferry’s stories comprise characters that are ‘serious and fine and upstanding, and infinitely dull’, but also others like young John-John, who loses his childhood somewhere ‘high up in the air between Asmara and Rome’; the maid, Agnes of God whose mango-sucking teeth ‘fly out at you like bats out of the mouth of a cave’; Ashoka, the immigrant who embodies his Sri Lankan identity only on the bus-ride between home and work; and Professor Jayaweera who finds sterile freedoms caged in the ‘unbending, straight lines of Western Justice’. Absurd, sad, scathing and generous, but mostly wickedly funny, Colpetty People presents modern Sri Lankans as they navigate worlds between Ceylon and the West.
Piyumi Segarajasingham is a young barrister in eighties London, half Tamil and half Sinhalese and newly responsible for her family’s share of an inheritance in Sri Lanka. The servants’ quarters of a house called Serendipity in Colombo’s colonial quarter, Cinnamon Gardens, is now her charge-she wants to keep it, her relatives are keen to sell. So begins Piyumi’s journey home, full of a host of memorable characters and the hilarious happenstance of daily life in Colombo, haunted by the memory of a stranger she met back in London-will they ever get together? Set in a more innocent time-Sri Lanka’s civil war had only just begun-Serendipity is satire, thriller and comedy of manners all in one, told with Ferrey’s trademark wit.
It is a universally acknowledged truth that an immigrant in England must be in want of a visa. In 1980s London, young Sri Lankan Chamath, recently down from Oxford with a degree in Maths, struggles to reconcile himself with the workplace. When his father writes him to say, ‘You’re on your own now, mate’, assuming that the magic word ‘Oxford’ will open any door to him, he realizes that push must now come to shove. Working on a building site as a casual labourer, he is approached by two men who ask him whether he would like ‘a bit of work after hours, to earn some dosh on the side’. Chamath gets dragged down below the invisible grid that exists in any big city, into a blue-grey twilight world of illegals. Hired as a male escort, a ‘professional’, a career at which he excels to his great surprise, he finds an unlikely means of making his way through the world. Then, two former clients, an older couple, decide to rescue him-with disastrous consequences. Masterfully and hilariously told, The Professional is sage, canny and witty as Ashok Ferrey always is: an exploration of the nature and meaning of love, of time, of memory.
Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Ogd, a Messiah was born … with her foot in her mouth.
This might be her story.
Her position of foetal gaffe allows her to eat her toenails, which nourish her and make her toenails grow so that she can eat them. Apart from the practicality of the situation, this also is the basis of her profound teachings. As the Messiah travels through many dimensions, her followers learn the importance of bells, nirvana, clean feet, Klein bottles and phonetics, among diverse other things.
Ding dong.
Following in the tradition of Lewis Carroll, Anushka Ravishankar writes nonsense prose, which addresses complex issues of the modern-day world with a deep and abiding meaninglessness.
Ogd is a profoundly nonsensical and hilarious fable by the bestselling children’s author Anushka Ravishankar. While Anushka is famous for her nonsense poetry for younger kids, this is her first book of nonsense prose for older readers. Literary nonsense, such as that written by Lewis Carroll, Dr Suess and Edward Lear, is often used to look at complex issues from a different angle. Ogd deals with many issues of daily life, important and unimportant, such as cartography, education, hairstyling, mathematics, monarchy, philosophy, physics, poetry, publishing, religion and toenails. The book encourages the reader to both laugh at many of the current preoccupations in the world and encourages readers but also to think more deeply about them.
When the Royal Chapati Cook quits, there is no one to make the fluffy-puffy chapatis that the king loves. Can they find another champion chapati maker at the Grand Chapati Contest?
About the Hook Book Series
In a world where children’s books often feel cut from the same cloth, Hook Books stand out as a vibrant blend of imagination, humour, and heart. Crafted as a bridge between picture books and early chapter books, this series delivers stories that spark joy and wonder, while remaining rooted in age-appropriate learning.
Hook Books keep the fun going with:
- Short, digestible bits of text (perfect for budding readers)
- Bright colour illustrations that pull kids into the story
- Themes that speak to the everyday lives of children—plus a sprinkle of whimsy!
From fantasy tales to those that touch on more advanced ideas, Hook Books ensure that young readers are always in for a treat, no matter their reading level. Even better, these books take children on journeys through different parts of India, giving them a taste of the rich diversity of our world through local flavours, landscapes, and cultures. Whether the story takes place in bustling cities or quiet villages, Hook Books make every setting feel like home.
