Eid Mubarak, everyone! We wish you and your family lots of positivity and happiness. To be a part of the joy, we’ve put together a list of books you might like to take a look at today!
Prophet of Peace: The Teachings of Prophet Muhammad
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, one of the most eminent scholars of Islam in the contemporary Muslim world, draws on original Arabic sources to correct misconceptions about Islam’s early history and to establish that the revolution brought about by the Prophet was entirely bloodless. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad formulated an ideal ideology of peace which he faithfully and rigorously put into practice. In his time, there were some minor skirmishes, but no full-fledged wars.
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Researching across wide-ranging scientific disciplines and travelling with scientists all over the country, biochemist Pranay Lal has woven together the first compelling narrative of India’s deep natural history, filled with fierce reptiles, fantastic dinosaurs, gargantuan mammals and amazing plants. This story, which includes a rare collection of images, illustrations and maps, starts at the very beginning—from the time when a galactic swirl of dust coalesced to become our life-giving planet—and ends with the arrival of our ancestors on the banks of the Indus. Pranay Lal tells this story with verve, lucidity and an infectious enthusiasm that comes from his deep, abiding love of nature.
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Makers of Modern India
In Makers of Modern India you will see caste, religion, colonialism, the economy language, gender, nationalism, democracy and secularism in a historical context. The book is a treat for those who are curious about the formation of the multifarious collection of people, ideas and religions in India.
The author shows you how the lack of unison in the opinions of the makers of India complemented each other and resulted in the finished product called India.
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Collected Short Stories
Ruskin Bond wrote his first short story, ‘Untouchable’, at the age of sixteen, and has written memorable fiction ever since. He is famous not only for his love of the hills, but for imbuing the countryside with life and vibrancy through moving descriptions. The simple people who inhabit his stories evoke sympathy and laughter in equal measure. This wonderful collection of seventy stories, including classics like ‘A Face in Dark’, ‘The Kitemaker’, ‘The Tunnel’, ‘The Room of Many Colours’, ‘Dust on the Mountain’ and ‘Times Stops at Shamli’, is a must-have for any bookshelf.
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Absolute Khushwant covers Khushwant Singh’s life since his birth in 1915 in the pre-partitioned Punjab thereby making him a witness of the various political, economic and social changes that the nation had undergone prior to independence and thereafter. Being gifted with a unique style of writing, Khushwant Singh captured the many of the historical events of modern India in his writings. Not only that, Khushwant Singh was a well read man on religion and had at times produced works of highly volatile and controversial issues.
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Pax Indica
The book Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century, written by an Indian author Shashi Tharoor, is an emphasis on the Indian diplomacy and its role in the global world. The book gives us an insightful and an interesting coverage of India’s foreign policies and how the policies affect the common man. It also explains that in Indian politics why policies are important to an India focused on domestic transformation. Shashi Tharoor surveys and examines the major International relationships, offers suggestion about the country’s need for the required platform, along with the country’s responsibilities to maintain its position globally, making his book an informative text to the people of the world.
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Sea of Poppies
A motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts is sailing down the Hooghly aboard the Ibis on its way to Mauritius. As they journey across the Indian Ocean old family ties are washed away and they begin to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship brothers who will build new lives for themselves in the remote islands where they are being taken. A stunningly vibrant and intensely human work, Sea of Poppies, the first book in the Ibis trilogy confirms Amitav Ghosh’s reputation as a master storyteller.
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The Mirror of Beauty
It is the sunset of the Mughal Empire. The splendour of imperial Delhi flares one last time. The young daughter of a craftsman in the city elopes with an officer of the East India Company and so we are drawn into the story of Wazir Khanam: a dazzlingly beautiful and fiercely independent woman who takes a series of lovers, including a Navab and a Mughal prince and whom history remembers as the mother of the famous poet Dagh. But it is not just one life that this novel sets out to capture: it paints in rapturous detail an entire civilization.
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Packed with anecdote and exuberant detail, In an Antique Land provides magical and intimate insights into Egypt from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm. It exposes the indistinguishable and intertwining ties that bind together India and Egypt, Hindus and Muslims and Jews. By combining fiction, history, travel writing and anthropology, to create a single seamless work of imagination, Ghosh characteristically makes us rethink the political boundaries that divide the world and the generic boundaries that divide narratives.
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Who really is A.R. Rahman? We know the music. But do we know the man? For the first time, a nation’s pride-–winner of National Film awards, Oscars, Grammys and hearts-–opens up about his philosophies: hope, perseverance, positivity and love. From his early days as a composer of advertisement jingles to his first big break in feature films, from his keenness to integrate new technology with good old-fashioned music scores to the founding of his music school, from his resounding entry on to the international stage to his directorial debut, from his philanthropy to his inner life, Notes of a Dream captures Rahman’s extraordinary success story with all the rhythm and melody, the highs and lows, of a terrific soundtrack by the man himself.
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The Complete Book of Muslim and Parsi Names
On the day of Qayamat you will be called by your names and the names of your fathers. Therefore keep good names.’―The Prophet The Complete Book of Muslim and Parsi Names is a practical guide for choosing the perfect name for your child. The result of several years of research; it is an erudite and thorough compilation of approximately 30;000 names taken from ten languages. With the actual and the construed meanings and the history or mythology associated with the name given against each entry; this is a precise and invaluable sourcebook for scholars and lay readers alike.
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How do we make sense of the Muslims of India? Do they form a political community? Does the imagined conflict between Islam and modernity affect the Muslims’ political behaviour in this country? Are Muslim religious institutions-mosques and madrasas-directly involved in politics?Are Muslims truly nationalists? Or do they continue to remain just an ‘other’ in India?
While these questions intrigue us, we seldom debate to find pragmatic answers to these queries.
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Ghalib: A Thousand Desires
In this lively, witty and illuminating account, Ghalib emerges from these pages as a man of his time but also one who looms large over history.
Raza infuses his research with just the right amount of anecdote and trivia, evoking Ghalib as an outspoken genius, a game-changer who never shied away from aiming a witty barb (or three) at his rivals. Moreover, Ghalib also lived in a crucial age that saw the end of Mughal rule and the destruction of his beloved Delhi.
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Faiz Ahmed Faiz is widely regarded as the greatest Urdu poet of the twentieth century and the iconic voice of a generation. Although he is best remembered for his revolutionary verses that decried tyranny and called for justice, his oeuvre also extended to scintillating, soulful poems of love. In this remarkable selection of Faiz’s most memorable poems and ghazals, readers will be able to experience a new dimension of the great poet’s genius.
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Uparwali Chai: The Indian Art of High Tea
The ultimate teatime cookbook, with an Indian twist
From Saffron and Chocolate Macarons to Apricot and Jaggery Upside Down Cake to a Rooh Afza Layer Cake, Uparwali Chai is an original mix of classic and contemporary desserts and savouries, reinvented and infused throughout with an utterly Indian flavour. A beautifully curated set of recipes full of nostalgic flavours and stories, this is a book every home cook will be referring to for generations to come.
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Zahir Dehlvi, an accomplished poet and young official in the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar, lived through the cataclysmic 1857 Revolt that changed the course of history, marking the end of Mughal dominion and the instatement of the British Raj.
Dehlvi’s memoir, written on his deathbed, not only chronicles the fading glory of the Mughal court and his entry into a vanishing way of life, but also, most importantly, pivots on the horrifying spectacle of the Revolt and its aftermath-from the violent siege of Shahjahanabad to the bloody reprisals that followed.
The ultimate teatime cookbook, with an Indian twist
The king and queen, overjoyed, bowed low and said, ‘We wish to have a child.’
