The Book Hunters of Katpadi

India’s first-ever bibliomystery, The Book Hunters of Katpadi is the book every lover of the written word has been waiting for.

Neelambari Adigal and her young associate, Kayal, together run Biblio, a one-of-a-kind store of rare books in Chennai, specializing in modern Indian first editions. The lives of these passionate bookwomen revolve around curious browsers, eccentric book collectors, private-press printers and the occasional thrill of unexpected discoveries of the antiquarian kind.

On a book-collecting trip to Ooty, Kayal stumbles upon an incendiary manuscript, long thought to be a myth, purportedly authored by explorer and translator Sir Richard Francis Burton. Almost simultaneously, a cache of priceless editions that looks like it could be from the 300-year-old library of one of the greatest book collectors the world has ever known, turns up at the bookshop. When it falls upon the two women to authenticate their finds, Neela and Kayal discover, quite suddenly, that their lives are more full of bibliographic intrigue than they could ever have imagined.

This book will be the first of its kind that you will read. A page turner with book art, and history. Those who like reading about book’s history will enjoy this book.

So what are you waiting for? Pick this book with us and start reading. 🙂

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Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

SEVENTY YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE PARTITION, and a momentous event now recedes in memory. Generations have grown up outside the shadow of the communal killings and mass displacement that shaped the contemporary history of the subcontinent.

Despite being born into a family affected by the Divide, artist and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra too had thought little about the Partition until she encountered objects that had once belonged to her ancestors in an Undivided India. A gaz, a ghara, a maang-tikka, a pocketknife, a peacock-shaped bracelet, and a set of kitchen utensils: these were what accompanied her great-grandparents as they fled their homes, and through them she learnt of their migration and life before the Divide. This led her to search for the belongings of other migrants to discover the stories hidden in them.

Remnants of a Separation is a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through such objects carried across the border. These objects absorbed the memory of a time and place, remaining latent and undisturbed for generations. They now speak of their owners pasts and emerge as testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging at an unparalleled moment in history.

A string of pearls gifted by a maharaja, carried from Dalhousie to Lahore, reveals the grandeur of a life that once was. A notebook of poems, brought from Lahore to Kalyan, shows one woman s determination to pursue the written word despite the turmoil around her. A refugee certificate created in Calcutta evokes in a daughter the feelings of displacement her father had experienced on leaving Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh.

Written as a crossover between history and anthropology, Remnants of a Separation tells stories from both sides of the border and is the product of years of painstaking and passionate research. It pieces together an alternative history of the Partition the first and only one told through material memory that makes the event tangible even seven decades later, lest we forget.

If you are anything like us, we are sure you wouldn’t want to miss this beautiful book! Pick it and start reading with us.

Happy reading!

Gul Gulshan Gulfam

It’s the nineties and Kashmir is in turmoil. The tourism industry has taken a big hit and the youth are disillusioned, with no jobs or hopes for the future. In this climate, Malla Khaliq waits day after day for guests to arrive at his three beloved houseboats – Gul, Gulshan and Gulfam – on the Dal Lake and struggles to keep his three sons together. While Noor Mohammed loves his father and tries to keep the faith, despite evidence that business is on the decline, Ghulam Ahmed and Ghulam Qadir have plans that might place them in the path of danger.

Meanwhile, as Khaliq prepares for his much-pampered daughter Parveen’s wedding, the sudden arrival of a mysterious American girl sets in motion events that threaten to disturb the precarious equilibrium of his household.
Gul Gulfam Gulshan paints a portrait of a Kashmir in transition and of a man who is trying to salvage the memories and values of his youth. Once a popular television series, this novelization vividly recreates the streets of Srinagar and the once-living economy of the Dal lake. This is a deeply affecting story about relationships, migration, ambitions and dreams of preserving one’s homeland.

Like the book already? Pick the book and read with us. We are so sure you won’t regret it.

 

Ministry Of Utmost Happiness

Photo credits-Verve magazine

A dazzling, richly moving new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The God of Small Things.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on an intimate journey of many years across the Indian subcontinent – from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Delhi and the roads of the new city to the mountains and valleys of Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war.

It is an aching love story and a decisive remonstration, a story told in a whisper, in a shout, through unsentimental tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. Each of its characters is indelibly, tenderly rendered. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love – and by hope.

The tale begins with Anjum – who used to be Aftab – unrolling a threadbare Persian carpet in a city graveyard she calls home. We encounter the odd, unforgettable Tilo and the men who loved her – including Musa, sweetheart and ex-sweetheart, lover and ex-lover; their fates are as entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. We meet Tilo’s landlord, a former suitor, now an intelligence officer posted to Kabul. And then we meet the two Miss Jebeens: the first a child born in Srinagar and buried in its overcrowded Martyrs’ Graveyard; the second found at midnight, abandoned on a concrete sidewalk in the heart of New Delhi.

As this ravishing, deeply humane novel braids these lives together, it reinvents what a novel can do and can be. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy’s storytelling gifts.

Pick this book with us and share your reviews with us. Or stay tuned and pick this book from Delhi metro when we drop it.

Till then, keep reading, keep sharing.

 

Sad Girls

“Your first love isn’t the first person you give your heart to—it’s the first one who breaks it.”

Sad Girls is the much anticipated debut novel from international best-selling author Lang Leav. A beautifully written and emotionally charged coming of age story, where young love, dark secrets, and tragedy collide.

School is almost out for Audrey, but the panic attacks are just beginning. Because Audrey told a lie and now her classmate, Ana, is dead. Just as her world begins to spin out of control, Audrey meets the enigmatic Rad—the boy who could turn it all around. But will their ill-timed romance drive her closer to the edge?

So grab a copy with us and start reading it.