In fine print: Delhi, relationships and thrill (IANS Books This Week)

NEW DELHI - Fact, fiction, fun and adventure sprinkle excitement on the bookshelf this week.

1. Book: “Delhi Walla” (A set of three books); Written by Mayank Austen Soofi; Published by HarperCollins - India; Priced at Rs.250

The updated edition of this set of three handbooks highlights Delhi’s food, hangouts and monuments. Aimed at visitors to Delhi as well as those who call it home, this is a series of slim, low-priced volumes. They are visually attractive with great photographs that complement the succinct text.

Delhi Food lists cuisines, from fine dining to street food, with popular recipes and listings of famous food ‘institutions’. Delhi Hangouts walks the visitor through places where one can spend time in an interesting way, be it recreational or educative - museums, galleries, theatres, gardens, bazaars and other public spaces where entertainment is on the menu. Delhi Monuments is a roundup of the archaeological treasures of Delhi - common and uncommon.

2. Book: “The Last Pretence”; Written by Sarayu Srivatsa; Published by HarperCollins - India; Priced at Rs.299

Machilipatnam, a small town on the Coromandel coast in southern India where the British first landed to trade in dyes, comes to life through a lively cast of characters - Ammamai, resigned to her widowhood, but a fighter; Saroja, the pseudo-intellectual who owns and runs the Victorian dyes factory; Kamala, the eunuch, who carries within her a painful past; and Raman, the mosquito scientist whose experiment with the malarial insect comes to be known as the Raman Technique.

Then there is the ghost of Elizabeth Gibbs, the bored English woman who slept with her equally bored brother George and gave birth to a hermaphrodite. And Nayantara, who teaches Mallika all there is to know about love. But above all, this is the story of Mallika and Siva - a mother and son in a complex and deeply disturbing relationship.

3. Book: “India: A Portrait”; Written by Patrick French; Published by Penguin-Books India; Priced at Rs.699

With an eye for the extraordinary that is as keen as his understanding of the everyday, Patrick French builds a compelling narrative of the social and economic revolutions that are transforming India in fundamental ways. Beginning with an account of how the union was conceived and put together - when India took “a gamble on democracy”, he examines the astonishing shift from rigid socialism to unbridled capitalism, the continuing empowerment of the Dalit and lower castes, the anxieties of secular India’s large Muslim minority and the rise of violence in the conduct of the state and among those it neglects or suppresses.

4. Book: “The Big Bookshelf”; Written by Sunil Sethi; Published by Penguin-Books India; Priced at Rs.350

The writer captures literary giants, including Nobel laureates and Booker Prize winners; internationally acclaimed historians, biographers and philosophers; authors of best-selling thrillers, novels and travel books; and brilliant young trendsetters in this anthology.

Their conversations with Sunil Sethi, the host of “Just Books”, in turn, are reflective and incisive, witty and poignant, but always candid and intimate, as they provide rare insights into their inner lives and engagement with the world they inhabit. Each voice in this diverse collection is original, distinctive and revealing, as they cover the wide terrain of life and literature.

5. Book: “The Inner Circle”; Written by Brad Meltzar; Published by Hachette; Priced at Rs.1,229

Beecher White, a young archivist, spends his days working with the most important documents of the US government. He has always been the keeper of other people’s stories, but never a part of the story himself. Until now.

When Clementine Kaye, Beecher’s first childhood crush, shows up at the National Archives asking for his help tracking down her long-lost father, Beecher tries to impress her by showing her the secret vault where the United States president privately reviews classified documents. When they accidentally happen upon a priceless artefact - a 200-year-old dictionary that once belonged to George Washington, Beecher and Clementine find themselves entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder.