Page 12 - Bs Reads

The Siege: Ben Macintyre's book recalls a forgotten Iranian hostage crisis

Mr Macintyre's original aim in writing this book was to showcase the brilliance of the SAS in post-war action

Night of Power: Robert Fisk's war stories spotlight victims, perpetrators

Fisk's didactic fury may have kept him going, but it tainted his fidelity as a witness and narrowed his vision

Hilal Ahmed's book offers a scrutiny of contemporary Muslim identity

The true value of Hilal Ahmed's book on the condition, plight, choices, and compulsions of Muslims in today's India lies in its refusal to see every issue as either black or white

Nationalism and Hindutva: A new era in Indian politics gets explored

In 2019, Hindutva yielded rich results for the BJP. But why did the nationalism plank produce suboptimal results in 2024?

The Trolls of Wall Street: How tech-savvy retail traders changed markets

In sum, this book provides a fair degree of insight into a new breed of traders, who treat financial markets like any other video-game and crowd-source insights

'The Money Trap': How a surfeit of capital created own troubles at SoftBank

The author paints an elaborate portrait of Masa. At one point the world's richest man, he also held the dubious distinction of having lost the most amount of money until surpassed by Elon Musk

The Golden Road: Dalrymple revives a forgotten India for modern readers

This is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in the world of ancient Indian cultures

'The Lucky Ones' captures the intersection of the personal and political

A book about an event from over two decades ago that exposed our darkest instincts serves as a reminder not to let ourselves fall so low again

1965 Indo-Pak war: A Soldier's perspective on lessons for future conflicts

India's next war could be fought on two fronts, with a collusion between Pakistan and China, warns Major General Ian Cardozo, drawing on logic, past experience, and evolving geopolitical reality

Exploring Irawati Karve's life in Iru: An anthropologist ahead of her time

This extensively researched biography reads like a novel, without academic jargon, that sucks readers into its smoothly flowing narration

Vartul Singh's book explores Banaras beyond tourist sites and snapshots

Many things about Banaras remain unknown to tourists that only a Banarasi understands, as the city is their home, not merely an Instagram backdrop. Vartul Singh's book highlights this aspect

A Body Made of Glass: How health anxiety, hypochondria evolved over time

Caroline Crampton's A Body Made of Glass delves into hypochondria's history, revealing its shifting perceptions from ancient to modern times

The Fifteen: How diverse women united to shape free India's Constitution

At a time when the Uniform Civil Code is being widely discussed, the book explores what the women in the Constituent Assembly thought of the idea

Dilip Sinha's book explores how Tibet became an abandoned kingdom in exile

This must-read book minces no words about what is to come

Book Review: Balancing India's strategic goals with development assistance

India's Development Partnership makes a case for broadening the scope of such assistance beyond a government-to-government approach to include the private sector and civil society

Rotem Geva's new book traces Delhi's journey through Partition and beyond

The book traces how the city's growth and "birth" of New Delhi triggered the decline of the Muslim aristocracy, which began with British takeover after 1857

Snyder's on freedom: A call to action amidst global tyranny and conflict

Again and again, his book returns - as Snyder has done himself - to Ukraine, where he sees the conflict between freedom and unfreedom in brutally vivid form

Wendy Doniger's new book explores untold stories from the Mahabharata

The only quibble one has with the book is that the translations seem a bit hasty and laboured

Potrait of a German refugee who became key to India's artistic awakening

Reema Desai's book shows political cartoonist Rudolf Von Leyden championing the works of Krishnaji Howlaji Ara, M F Husain and others much before they became legendary on the international art circuit

Kulpreet Yadav's Haji Pir recounts soldiers' bravery in key 1965 war battle

A book on the Haji Pir battle would be incomplete without mentioning the Tashkent agreement. The author refers to it upfront