Page 116 - Book Reviews

Indians, Indians everywhere

Chinmay Tumbe's book 'India Moving - A History of Migration', the Foreword to which is written by Arvind Subramanian, former Chief Economic Advisor, is a breeze to read

Legacy is far more than inheritance

Daughters of Legacy seeks to answer questions around the challenges and perks of handling age-old legacies

'In the end, it all works'

How India Works is a precise compendium of the challenges that the expat, with some pluck and understanding, can transform into triumphs at the Indian workplace

Liberalism & its contradictions

The author's dismay about the twilight of liberal democracy in India is deepened by the awareness that intolerance and bigotry against the Muslims is not limited to the ignorant and obscurantists

The aftershocks of 2008

One of the great strengths of Mr Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems

Anthony Horowitz's reliably authentic prequel to the first James Bond novel

Many took literary liberties with Bond, moulding and modernising him with debatable success

The contents of global discontents

A compilation of essays written by notable economists, the book spans a range of issues, from inequality to globalisation to market failures

The face of the refugee

My Country is an essential, though disturbing read for a diverse readership today, since we live in a time when the blurring of international boundaries online is only matched by the building of walls

What our DNA foretells

The book is brilliantly lucid in its explanations of methodology, and specific studies. It's written from a standpoint of humility.

Pakistan's military-democracy complex

Did the civilian rulers of Pakistan learn any lessons from their experiences at the hands of military dictators?

From rags to ill-gotten riches

Just how much of this notorious reputation is historical fact and how much is Hollywood (or neocolonialist) fantasy is hard to say, and "City of Devils," shows signs of being exhaustively researched

Love and longing in urban India

"The Party" is based on the subject of Indians' unstinted admiration for those who have made it good in a foreign land

The Billionaire Raj: Cricket to elections, how money has changed everything

Most books of this kind have an overarching theme but perhaps India is too complex for a single theme to dominate a book that is full of so many disparate experiences

Shades of political violence

The author suggests that this has, at least in part, to do with the district's long history of vendetta as memorialised in traditional ballads

The Russians are coming

If you are bewildered by this hydra-headed controversy, this book offers a lucid refresher

Getting the best from clients

Marketing literature tends to pontificate on themes like customer intimacy. Mr Parameswaran chooses the story-telling approach to exhume narratives involving the likes of Hemu Ramiah and Azim Premji

Anatomy of a pogrom

"Kishinev pogrom," a "dreadful moment" in Jewish Diaspora life, Steven J Zipperstein writes in his impressive, heart-wrenching new book

Beauty, bad temper and scandal in a riveting look at Princess Margaret

The wisdom of the book, and the artistry, is in how Brown subtly expands his lens from Margaret's misbehaviour

The Rajneesh Chronicles: A look inside the criminal world of Rajneeshpuram

Journalist Win McCormack's The Rajneesh Chronicles, is a formidable tome of ground-level reportage from the 1980s to late 2000s

Aadhaar's Orwellian threat

The discussion on India begins with a fascinating analysis of how the Constituent Assembly debated including privacy as a fundamental right