Reviews & Musings

About the Book When the devilishly handsome, legendary Bollywood superstar Rajvir Kapoor is found dead in the thirtieth-floor study of his swanky new home, Xanadu, the entire country is aghast.  Barely hours before his death, Xanadu, had been teeming with the pick of the country's elite: hot-shot celebrities, business magnates and close friends and family of the iconic actor - all of whom had come together for the grandest party Mumbai had ever seen. Investigations reveal that Rajvir Kapoor was murdered, and now everyone is a suspect. Professor Shantanu Bose, eminent nano-expert and part-time sleuth, a house-guest at the time, is willy-nilly forced to join the investigation. He finds himself in an alien world of the glitterati and their idiosyncrasies, where murky secrets are revealed and facts muddled. As Shantanu struggles to piece together the puzzle amidst the confusing moral codes adopted by the people of this starry realm, glamorous Mumbai seduces him and h...

Introduction Source: Goodreads.com ISBN:  978-9386643315 Genre: Fiction/Contemporary Publishers: Bloomsbury India Price:  Rs. 399/-  ( I got the book for review from the publishe r )

Introduction ISBN: 9789386141 Genre: Fiction Publishers: Bloomsbury India Price:  Rs.299/- ( I got this book from the author for a review ) Many years ago,an extraordinary cripple disappeared from a remote village, ending a time of terror. Not many knew that he gave his life to confine a malevolence, the Sutram, to its subterranean womb or that in doing so, he had prevented the apocalypse. Deep beneath the Earth the evil has lurked, fraying its shackles and plotting its escape, all the while gathering immeasurable power. Until now. When ace lawyer, Raghuram Surya, received an order of requisition from the Government of India for his ancestral castle, he was unaware of the Sutram beneath it or his own legacy. He will have to choose between the world’s end or his own. Before long, the lawyer takes on India’s most powerful politician, Kiromal, a man utterly obsessed with power. Kiromal and his sinister Tantric advisor intend to use the evil beneath the castle to pla...

Introduction ISIN:  978-9385936012 Genre: Self Help / Motivational Publishers:  Bloomsbury India Price:  Rs. 399/- ( I got this book from the  author  for a review ) This book is a warm hearted journey to our most intimate source. It offers us not just a map, but the hat and shoes, not just inspiration, but the actual tools that enable us to get ‘here’ and to authentically express the brightness of our being in each moment of life. Behind the book Source: Goodreads.com

Introduction ISIN: 9781619636040 Genre:  Fantasy fiction / YA Publishers:  Bloomsbury Price:  Rs. 399/- (  I got the book from the publisher for a review ) The queen has returned. Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past… She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight. She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return. The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series continues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world. Behind The book Source: A...

Introduction ISIN: 978-1408-866-238 Genre:  Fiction / YA Publishers:  Bloomsbury Price:  Rs. 499/- (  I got the book from the publisher for a review ) In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn't it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What's good for society is good for everyone. Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They're not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick - the only one Blaze really trusts. They're not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it. What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random - a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn't even have a good phone - hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain ...

Introduction ISIN: 978-1-4088-6474-6 Genre:  Fiction / YA Publishers:  Bloomsbury Price:  Rs. 399/- (  I got the book from the publisher for a review ) From the author of the acclaimed bestseller "Holes, " winner of the Newbery Award and the National Book Award, comes a new middle-grade novel with universal appeal. Combining horror-movie suspense with the issues of friendship, bullying, and the possibility of ecological disaster, this novel will intrigue, surprise, and inspire readers and compel them to think twice about how they treat others as well as their environment. "Be careful. Your next step may be your last." Fifth grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh grader Marshall Walsh have been walking to and from Woodbridge Academy together since elementary school. But their routine is disrupted when bully Chad Wilson challenges Marshall to a fight. To avoid the conflict, Marshall takes a shortcut home through the off-limits woods. Tamaya reluctantly fol...

Introduction ISIN:  978-1-4088-6311-4 Genre:  Free Verse / Fiction Publishers:  Bloomsbury Books Price:  Rs. 499/- (  I got the book from the publisher for a review ) Tippi and Grace share everything—clothes, friends . . . even their body. Writing in free verse, Sarah Crossan tells the sensitive and moving story of conjoined twin sisters, which will find fans in readers of Gayle Forman, Jodi Picoult, and Jandy Nelson. Tippi and Grace. Grace and Tippi. For them, it's normal to step into the same skirt. To hook their arms around each other for balance. To fall asleep listening to the other breathing. To share. And to keep some things private. Each of the sixteen-year-old girls has her own head, heart, and two arms, but at the belly, they join. And they are happy, never wanting to risk the dangerous separation surgery. But the girls' body is beginning to fight against them. And Grace doesn't want to admit it. Not even to Tippi. How long can they hide f...

Introduction ISIN:  978-93-84052-67-6 Genre:  Non Fiction/ Business  Publishers:  Bloomsbury Price:  Rs. 499/- (  I got the book from the publisher for a review ) Money Mania is a sweeping account of financial speculation and its consequences, from ancient Rome to the Meltdown of 2008. Acclaimed journalist and investor Bob Swarup tracks the history of speculative fevers caused by the appearance of new profitable investment opportunities; the new assets created and the increasing self-congratulatory euphoria that drives them to unsustainable highs, all fed by an illusion of insight and newly minted experts; the unexpected catalysts that eventually lead to panic; the inevitable crash as investors scramble to withdraw their funds from the original market and any other that might resemble it; and finally, the brevity of financial memory that allows us to repeat the cycle without ever critically evaluating the drivers of this endless cycle. In short, i...

Introduction ISIN: 978-1-4088-2763-5 Genre: Fiction  Publishers: Bloomsbury Price: Rs. 250/- ( I got the book from the publisher for a review ) When Poppy learns that the love of her life, Freddie de Vere, is to marry someone else, she knows her heart will break. Devastated, she volunteers her nursing skills overseas to take her away from the painful reminders at home. But things are about to get much worse for Poppy. The journey to the hospital in Flanders is full of horrors, and when she arrives it is to find a spiteful ward Sister and unfriendly nurses. Despite her loneliness and homesickness, the dangers of frontline warfare soon make her forget her own troubles and Poppy finds that comfort for a broken heart can be found in the most unexpected places. Brilliantly researched and inspired by real-life events, big and small, Poppy in the Field is a story about the forgotten bravery of women on the front line, told through the eyes of a young woman determined to pl...

Introduction ISIN: 978-93-84052-41-6 Genre: Fiction / Drama Publishers: Bloomsbury Price : Rs. 499/- ( I received the book for review from the publisher ) In a boxy apartment building in an American university town, Romola Mitra, a newly arrived young bride, anxiously awaits her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades later, her son Amit finds that letter and thinks he has discovered his mother's secret. But secrets have their own secrets sometimes, and a way of following their keepers. Amit does not know that Avinash, his dependable and devoted father, lurks on gay Internet groups at times, unable to set aside his lifelong attraction to men. Avinash has no idea that his dutiful wife had once romanced a dashing Bengali filmstar, whose memory she keeps tucked away in a diary amongst her silk saris. Growing up in Calcutta, in a house bustling with feisty grandmothers, Amit has been shielded from his pa...

Introduction ISIN: 978-1-4088- 5905-6 Genre: Fiction / Drama Publishers: Bloomsbury Price: 26 pounds ( I received the book for review from the publisher ) An exquisite and intimate novel about four people’s lives and our changing relationship with nature—for fans of Jon McGregor and Robert Macfarlane. It is dawn on a May morning. On a long straight road between two sleeping fields a car slows as it arrives at the scene of an accident. Howard and Kitty have been married for thirty years and now sleep in different rooms. They do not discuss it. It was always Kitty's dream to move from their corner of north London into the countryside, and when the kids were gone they moved to the village of Lodeshill. Howard often wonders if anyone who lives in this place has a reason to be there. Jack was once a rural rebel, a protester who only ever wanted the freedom to walk alone in his own country. Having finished another stint in prison for trespassing, he sets off once more, ...

Introduction ISIN: 978-1-4088- 3780-1 Genre : Non-fiction / Politics/ Women Publishers: Bloomsbury Price: Rs. 399/- ( I received the book for review from the publisher ) Women of the World tells this story of personal and professional struggle against the dramatic backdrop of war, super-power rivalry and global transformation over the last century and a half. From London to Washington, Geneva to Tehran and in the deserts of Arabia, the souks of Damascus and the hospitals of Sarajevo, resolute women undaunted by intransigent officials and hostile foreign governments proved their worth. A lustrous book which traces the often agonizing rise of women in the Foreign Office and mercilessly dissects the resistance they encountered Peter Hennessy A path-breaking account, from one of our leading and most original historians of modern Britain, of how the male-dominated world of British diplomacy gradually - and grudgingly - let professional women in. It should be read by e...

Introduction ISIN: 978-93-84898-04-5 Genre: Non-fiction / Self help Publishers: Bloomsbury Price: Rs. 299/- ( I received the book for review from the publisher ) Passion, purpose, potential, perseverance are the qualities required to make great achievers and leaders. This book tells you how to:  • turn people into leaders • build trust and confidence • make you reach your destiny • transform your organization Behind The book Source: Author's website