Marry Me, Stranger

By : Novoneel Chakraborty

Keynote

The first book in the STRANGER trilogy

Description

Rivanah Bannerjee has recently relocated from Kolkata to Bangalore. She finds the city in total contrast to what had been living back home, but she slowly adjusts to the new setup with the help of her Facebook friends, colleagues, and roommates. The one day she gets a note by her doorstep saying ‘know your worth’. At first she assumes it to be some prank by one of her friends but after a series of questionable incidents she understands that someone—a stranger—is steadily taking control of her life, compelling her to make choices of his liking. Soon the stranger’s attitude takes a sadistic turn. In the end when she goes to the police for help, they set a trap for him by asking her to leave a note for him saying ‘marry me, stranger’ by her doorstep. Will the stranger really reveal himself and marry her or does he have some ulterior motive for choosing Rivanah?

Marry Me, Stranger is an edge-of-the-seat thriller by bestselling author Novoneel Chakraborty with an ending that will leave you shocked.

About the Author:

At 28, Novoneel is the writer of three national bestselling novels: A Thing Beyond Forever, That Kiss In the Rain, and How About a Sin Tonight? which have been devoured by thousands all over the country. They have also appeared in numerous bestsellers’ list at different point of time since their release. His fourth book, Ex: a twisted love story, came out in 2013.

Being a full time writer, he has written a story and screenplay for a twice National Award winning Bengali filmmaker which is scheduled to go on floors soon. Currently he is working on two Hindi film projects as a scriptwriter. He also pens ‘NovoSphere’; a popular blog on life and inspiration featuring one-paragraph stories which is followed by many. Time and again many posts of NovoSphere have featured in various national and international websites.

Young Turks

Shereen Bhan with Syna Denuhgara

Keynote

Prominent leaders from different spheres share secrets of what they did at 25 and how that transformed their leadership horizon

Description

The most inspiring book for young budding entrepreneurs

Young Turks is the longest running business show on television. The book will have the added dimension of ‘how to’ interlaced in the stories of these inspiring men. It will include the stories of 15-20 of the most inspiring tech entrepreneurs who’ve been on the show.

The show has a dedicated following and the book will have Shereen’s insights into what makes these men so successful. This will be the essential book for every aspiring entrepreneur.

About the author

Shereen Bhan is the Delhi Bureau Chief and Executive Editor of CNBC-TV18, India. She joined UTV news and current affairs division and produced shows like We the People for Star TV and Line of Fire for Sab TV. Her stint with CNBC-TV18 began in December 2000.

Bhan anchors and produces several flagship shows like Young Turks, India Business Hour, The Nation’s Business and Power Turks. She has done some of the biggest interviews on CNBC-TV18, including Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Benazir Bhutto and Deepak Chopra. She also anchors and puts together CNBC-TV18’s ground events like the Managing India brainstorm and the CNBC Industry Vectors.

What To Say And When To Shut Up

By : Rakesh Godhwani

Keynote

A practical, accessible book on persuasive communication.

Description

What to Say and When to Shut Up is a useful and interactive book on persuasive communication for corporates, students, entrepreneurs, and anybody who is looking to make a lasting impression on their audience. Through a practical AEIOU Xtra E framework and examples from inspiring leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, J.K. Rowling, among others, this book will help you become a persuasive communicator.

Rakesh Godhwani’s invaluable advice includes ways to:

• Motivate audiences to action

• Nail the interview for your dream job

• Make impressive business presentations

• Pitch to investors to raise money

• Sell a product to a client

• Negotiate a win-win

• Network professionally and socially

• Resolve conflicts

About the author

Rakesh Godhwani calls himself a nobody. After spending amazing formative years in great organizations in the high-tech space like Wipro, Intel and Qualcomm—doing different roles in sales, product marketing and business development—Rakesh realized that his passion lay in helping others reach their maximum potential and fulfil their dreams.

Rakesh currently heads IIM Bangalore Alumni Association, coaches entrepreneurs and leaders in the hi-tech sector, teaches Managerial Communication and Communication for Leaders at IIM Bangalore, does yoga, cycles his way to work, earns a fraction of what he used to but lives a million times better.

Rakesh’s first book Plunnge was released in July, 2011. More details can be found on www.plunnge.com

or www.facebook.com/plunnge. His second book Seek: Finding Your True Calling was published by Random House India in 2013. He is an alumnus of KREC (now NITK) Surathkal, class of 1997 and of IIM Bangalore PGSEM, class of 2004. Rakesh is currently pursuing his PhD from Cardiff Metropolitan University which is expected to finish in 2015.

You can follow his blog at rakeshgodhwani.wordpress.com.

The Fifth Man

Author: Bani Basu | Translator: Arunava Sinha

Keynote

From the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award comes a novel brimming with irreverent humour, sexual tension and dark drama.

Description

Neelam’s hysterectomy at thirty hastens her into a sexless middle age and changes her relationship with her husband Ari. Their marriage remains stagnant until an unexpected telegram announces the visit of Ari’s ex-girlfriend Esha. By coincidence, their college professor Mahanam also arrives at their doorstep bearing an uncanny resemblance to Ari’s daughter. Events conspire to send all of them on a trip to Ajanta and Ellora where ancient stories spark memories of lost love and betrayal. Both deeply philosophical and playfully dramatic, The Fifth Man is a bittersweet meditation on middle-age desire.

About the author

Bani Basu is arguably the most versatile contemporary writer in Bengali, the broad range of her fiction deals with gender, history, mythology, society, psychology, adolescence, music, sexual orientation, the supernatural, and more. Besides writing novels and short stories, she is also an essayist, critic and poet. She has won a number of literary awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award. She lives and writes in Calcutta.

About the translator

Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and non-fiction into English. Twenty-eight of his translated works have been published so far. Born and brought up in Calcutta, he lives and works in Delhi.

Redrawing India

Redrawing India: The TEACH FOR INDIA Story

Kovid Gupta   Shaheen Mistri

The inspiring, never told before story of Teach For India, one of India’s biggest non-profit organizations

Description

A 19-year-old Bostonian teenager flies into Mumbai with her NRI parents to spend a relaxing summer break. Here she stumbles into a slum community, expecting to encounter paucity, prejudice, and pauperism. Her views are magically transformed when she instead comes across children with eyes full of potential.

In what is nothing less than a cathartic moment, she decides to commit herself to a lifelong battle of educational equity for every Indian child. But tackling India’s biggest hardship is nothing less than performing magic. With courage and perseverance, her movement soon grows from 1 to 100,000 individuals working relentlessly to rewrite India’s history. Numerous college graduates and young professionals trade their cozy corporate careers for challenging lives as teachers in municipal schools.

This is the saga of Teach for India, a living illustration of what is possible when a dream is followed uncompromisingly. It is the anecdotal blueprint on how Teach For India founder Shaheen Mistri transformed her dream of educational equity into a nationwide movement for liberty and justice. It is a tale of taking action into one’s own hands, and carving a space for oneself in the greater solution for utopic India.

About the Author:

Kovid Gupta graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010 with a BBA in Marketing, BS in Radio-Television-Film, and BA in Hindi. Since then, he has been actively working as a screenwriter and has written for acclaimed serials like Balika Vadhu and Bade Acche Lagte Hain in addition to Bhojpuri soaps. He is also the Founder and CEO of India Kids, a non-profit organization that works to improve the lives of orphaned children across India by empowering college students globally.

ORFEO

                         By: Richard Powers

A major and thrilling new novel that explores private fears, public hysteria and the art of music, by one of America's most important living writers

  

Orfeo is inspired by the fascinating real-life account of Steve Kurtz, the bioartist wrongly arrested for terrorism by the FBI and prosecuted by the American government for four years.

In a story of one man running for his life, Richard Powers shows how all of us are perilously close to crossing the blurred boundary that separates state security and state persecution.

Seventy-year old avant-garde composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police outside. His DIY microbiology lab - the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to extract music from rich patterns beyond the ear's ability to hear - has come to the attention of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid on his house, Els flees and turns fugitive, waiting for the evidence to clear him and for the alarm surrounding his activities to blow over.

But alarm turns to national hysteria, as the government promises a panicked nation that the 'Bioterrorist Bach' will be found and brought to trial. As Els feels the noose around him tighten, he embarks on a cross-country trip to visit, one last time, the people in his past who have most shaped his failed musical journey. And through the help of these people - his ex-wife, his daughter, and his longtime artistic collaborator - Els comes up with a plan to turn this disastrous collision with national security into one last, resonant, calamitous artwork that might reach an audience beyond his wildest dreams.

Richard Powers is a bestselling author, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a recipient of the National Book Award and one of America's most critically acclaimed novelists.

Richard Powers has been a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and a MacArthur Fellowship, as well as a winner of the US National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of eight novels, including The Time of our Singing, Plowing the Dark, and Gain. He lives in Los Angeles.

SEAHORSE

                                                          
                                             By: Janice Pariat

Nehemiah is a student of English Literature at Delhi University when he first meets art historian, Doctor Nicholas Petrou who, as mentor, steers him into a world of pleasure and artistic discovery—transforming his life entirely.

Years later, during a seemingly innocuous spell in London as a Writer in Residence, the unexpected happens—lives, like passing ships, are re-illuminated. Nehemiah is plunged into a search for the people from his past: Nicholas, his step sister Myra, and even himself, the young, drifting boy changed irrevocably by his encounter with them.

Seahorse is a contemporary retelling of the story of the sea god Poseidon and his young male lover Pelops. The young men in these narratives must journey beyond themselves to wrestle free from the protective yet stifling gods of their pasts.

Seahorse traces how loss and healing, undoing and recreation, may eventually shape us into creatures of grace.

About the author:

Janice is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories (Random House India, 2012). She was awarded the Yuva Puraskar (Young Writer Award) from the Sahitya Akademi (Indian National Academy of Letters) and the Crossword Book Award for fiction.

She studied English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her work – including art reviews, cultural features, book reviews, fiction and poetry – has featured in a wide number of national magazines & newspapers. She was editor of Pyrta, an online literary journal of poetry, prose, photo essays and sketches.

Janice is currently the Charles Wallace Writer in Residence at the University of Kent, Canterbury. She lives between the UK and India.

Victoria: A Life

     

    The first comprehensively researched biography of Queen Victoria ever, by one of Britain's best biographers. This magnificent biography sheds new light on Victoria not just as a queen, but as a woman.

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly sixty-four years. She was mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two, and the matriarch of Royal Europe, through the marriages of her children. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique - an aging, stiff widow, paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain's longest reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.

A. N. Wilson's exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources, to show us Queen Victoria as she's never been seen before. It explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria's coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage, Prince Albert's pivotal influence, her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with John Brown, set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain - and Europe's - history. Victoria is a towering achievement; a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.This will be the definitive biography of Queen Victoria. Her reign of 63 years and 7 months is longer that that of any other British monarch and the longest of any female monarch in history. It was a period of deep and lasting change to the industry, politics and culture of Great Britain and remains a period of lasting fascination.

A. N. Wilson grew up in Staffordshire and was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is a prolific and award-winning biographer and celebrated novelist. He lives in North London.

Shadows in the Sun

Shadows in the Sun: Healing from Depression and Finding the Light within.

By: Gayathri Ramprasad.

Keynote

An inspiring and uplifting memoir that pulls back the veil of stigma surrounding depression.

Description

As a young girl in Bangalore, Gayathri was surrounded by the fragrance of jasmine and flickering oil lamps, her family protected by gods and goddesses. But as she grew older, demons came forth from dark corners of her idyllic kingdom—with the scariest creatures lurking within her tortured mind.

Shadows in the Sun traces Gayathri’s courageous battle with debilitating depression that consumed her from adolescence through marriage and a move to the United States. Her inspiring memoir provides a first-of-its-kind cross-cultural view of mental illness—how it is regarded in India and in America, and how she drew on both her rich Hindu heritage and Western medicine to find healing.

About the Author:

Gayathri Ramprasad is the founder and president of ASHA International, a nonprofit organization promoting personal, organizational, and community wellness. She received her first undergraduate degree in science from Bangalore University in India, a second undergraduate degree in management and business information systems, and a master’s in business administration from George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. She is a member of the Global Speakers Federation and the winner of the prestigious Eli Lilly Welcome Back Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Voice Award for Consumer Leadership sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

For more information about Gayathri Ramprasad and her mission to promote mental health awareness, and bring hope and healing to people’s lives, please visit www.gayathriramprasad.com and www.myasha.org, or email her at gayathri@ myasha.org.

Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar

By: Dilip D’souza

Description

The most famous cricketer in the world is my neighbour. And he has just retired from the game.

He told us he would do so a couple of months ago, and that galvanized India’s cricket administration into hurriedly organizing a two-Test series against the West Indies.

The great man’s last two matches.

Not for Sachin an away series to round off a career. How then would his adoring millions of fans say goodbye? Not for him either a strong team that would truly test his skills. Perhaps we have to maximize his chances of going out in style, perhaps of him scoring his 101st international century. So we got the West Indies, a shadow of the great West Indian teams of the past, and minus a few of their best players anyway. Lambs to the slaughter, really. But incidental. For this was the Sachin show, evident from long before the first ball was bowled. The press was filled with the Sachin legacy, articles by friends and acquaintances, interviews with fellow cricketers, on and on.

And at the stadium itself, the crowd, the signs, the announcements, the functions and the electronic displays only underlined the point. EPW magazine asked me to write an essay about the match for them, but from the stands. From that moment, I began thinking there was actually a book here.

The story of this last Test told as a closely-observed game of cricket, but really as a vehicle to examine a whole gamut of related themes: the game of cricket, Sachin’s 24-year career and the way the game has changed in that time, the parallels to a changing India in that time, the clout today of the BCCI, the rise of the IPL and T20 cricket, the easy equation of cricket to nationalism, the placing of Sachin on a pedestal…

About the author

Dilip D’Souza (born 1960) is a Mumbai-based writer and journalist. He writes about social and political causes. His columns have appeared in The Sunday Observer, Rediff.com, Outlook, Mid-Day, Hindustan Times, indiatogether.org, The Caravan and other publications.

A column written by him about how two young engineers from Kerala who built a dam in rural Maharashtra and supplied electricity is believed to have inspired a key segment of the 2004 movie Swades directed by Ashutosh Gowariker.

Blood,Sugar and Spice:Living With Diabetes

By: Charmaine D’Souza

Keynote

A comprehensive guide to preventing, controlling, and curing diabetes using naturopathy.

Description

The propensity to become a diabetic is higher in Indians as compared to other nationalities. Indians have a low threshold for the risk factors. Americans develop diabetes when the body mass index (BMI) is 30 and 35; we develop it with the BMI is only 25. Diabetes can be prevented with the right natural cure.

This book is a comprehensive manual to prevent, control, and cure diabetes using naturopathy. With a host of celebrity clients like Avanti and Yash Birla, Natasha and Adar Poonawala, Neetu Singh Kapoor, Rani Mukerji, Karan Johar, Siddharth Malhotra, Anita and Naresh Goyal, Ekta Raheja, Manav Gangwani and many others who swear by her, Charmaine D’Souza tells us how diabetes happens and why, the

health hazards, and how to manage diabetes through natural remedies.

Charmaine gives diabetes patients and their families 20 healthy recipes and a note on the current research. She then focuses on what the way forward should be.

About the author

Charmaine D’Souza is a consultant nutritionist with more than 20 years of experience in assisting clients who are interested in improving their health through better nutrition and natural care. She has a huge client network of celebrities, industrialists,

and others.

Rokda - Nikhil Inamdar

Keynote

A profile of 5 prominent baniya businesses and their owners showcasing the qualities of a Baniya to excel in business.

Description

The Baniyas—they are at the epicentre of every imaginable business in India— from infrastructure to oil & gas and retail to e-commerce, from IT to telecom and education to aviation, no trade it seems, is beyond their grasp. Rokda, is a book which for the first time chronicles their journeys. From the Agarwals of Emami and the mild mannered R.K. Somany of Hindware, to the savvy Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal and the dynamic Guptas of Meru Cabs, Rokda seeks to uncover the secrets of doing business the Baniya way.

Nikhil Inamdar, through extensive interviews with the businessmen, their family and friends, tries to piece together the very qualities that make the Baniyas such a successful entrepreneur group in he country. In this book, through tracing these profiles, he tries to find out what it is that gives them the Midas touch, and the distinction of being India’s biggest wealth creators.

About the author:

Nikhil Inamdar is a business journalist settled in Mumbai. He has been a journalist for over 7 years and has been employed by prestigious news organisations like Times Now, NDTV and Bloomberg TV India, where he has been a news anchor and reported on sectors like realty and infrastructure. He currently is a Special Correspondent with the Business Standard.

He has a degree in broadcast journalism and documentary film making from the University of Westminster, UK.

Iqbal - Zafar Anjum

Keynote: The story of Urdu’s greatest modern poet, the man who wrote Sare JahanSe Acha Hindustan Hamara and was later considered the poet laureate of Pakistan

Description: Allama Mohammad Iqbal, whom Sarojini Naidu called the ‘poet laureate of Asia’, remains a controversial figure in the history of the Indian subcontinent. On the one hand, he is regarded as one of the last great Muslim thinkers and considered the ‘Spiritual Father of Pakistan’. 

On the other, his message of Eastern revivalism and his fight against colonial powers and Islamic fundamentalists place him in the ranks of the twentieth century’s major intellectuals.

Iqbal’s tragedy was that after his death, he was made the national poet of Pakistan and largely ignored in India. In his time, Iqbal was lauded as much as Tagore, but today India celebrates Tagore while Iqbal has been banished from her consciousness.

This is the story of Iqbal’s evolution as poet, philosopher and politician. While Iqbal’s roles in the struggle for India’s freedom and the Pakistan movement are well-known, not much is widely known about his personal life. This biography highlights some of the least known facets of Iqbal’s life: how did a nationalist poet transform into a poet of Islamic revivalism and global revolution? How did three years in Europe chang Iqbal’s political and philosophical outlook? Why did he change his language of poetic expression from Urdu to Persian during his stay in Europe? Why did his first marriage fail and how did his romantic relationships affect him as a person?

Author bio:

Singapore-based journalist, writer, and filmmaker Zafar Anjum has been published in India, the US, the UK, Singapore and other countries. His most recent works include a work of non-fiction, The Resurgence of Satyam (Random House India, 2012), and a collection of short stories, The Singapore Decalogue: Episodes in the Life of a Foreign Talent (Red Wheelbarrow Books, Singapore, 2012). He also blogs, mentors budding writers and is editor of kitaab.org, a literary website. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

About the Book: Netagiri. By: Cyrus Broacha

Keynote

A rip-roaring new novel by India’s favourite funnyman

Description

When Jay Huskee—the grand patriarch of the Huskee clan—falls out of a window and goes missing, he sets off a sequence of events that results in one of the biggest political showdowns in the history of the country of Gyaandostaan. In his absence, his grandson Paul must now stake claim to what is rightfully his.

Backed by an ebullient ‘crack’ team, Paul must now confront his greatest fears— including talking to girls—to rescue his people from an oppressive regime. Riotous and riveting, Netagiri takes a satirical look at a power-obsessed society by India’s original funnyman.

About the Author

Cyrus Broacha is the most famous MTV VJ in India. He is also a stand-up comedian and prankster. Best known for his show Bakra on MTV, Cyrus presently anchors a news satire show, The Week That Wasn’t, on CNN-IBN, co-written and directed by friend Kunal Vijayakar. He was a participant in Khatron ke Khiladi and also a judge for MTV Roadies.