Chronicles Of The Mortal Vishnu

A god with a powerful weapon. An immortal sorcerer. An inevitable showdown. Successful in deciphering Krishna's puzzles and retrieving the Kaustubha locket, Anirudh finally accepts his destiny as Kalki--the tenth avatar of Vishnu. However, with the ever-perilous world moving too fast for him to keep up with, he is taken under the wing of an esoteric society created for his protection. As ancient allies watch over him from the Himalayas, Anirudh moves to find the greatest weapon in the universe hidden in the fabled submerged palace of Dwarka. However, the Demon of Time, Kalarakshasa, yearns to possess it as well. In an ultimate showdown, the cloaked sorcerer faces the last avatar of Vishnu on the battlefield. Will it be long before Kali, the Lord of Evil, takes up the reins of the mortal world? And will the darkness brought upon by the Kali yuga soon eclipse the earth?

Today, Shiva is a god. But four thousand years ago, he was just a man - until he brought his people to Meluha, a near-perfect empire founded by the great king Lord Ram. There he discovered he was the Neelkanth, a barbarian long prophesied to be Meluha's savior. But in his hour of victory fighting the Chandravanshis - Meluha's enemy - he discovered they had their own prophecy. Now he must fight to uncover the treachery within his inner circle, and unmask those who are about to destroy all that he has fought for. Shiva is about to learn that good and evil are two sides of the same coin...

In the months leading up to Independence, in Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel are engaged in deliberations with British Viceroy Dickie Mountbatten over the fate of the country. In Lahore, Sepoy Malik returns home from the Great War hoping to win his sweetheart Tara's hand in marriage, only to find divide-and-rule holding sway, and love, friendships, and familial bonds being tested. Set in parallel threads across these two cities, Lahore is a behind-the-scenes look into the negotiations and the political skulduggery that gave India its freedom, the price for which was batwara. As the men make the decisions and wield the swords, the women bear the brunt of the carnage that tears through India in the sticky hot months of its cruellest summer ever. Backed by astute research, The Partition Trilogy captures the frenzy of Indian independence, the Partition and the accession of the states, and takes readers back to a time of great upheaval and churn.

On a Mediterranean island, geologist Peter Nichols must do a lot of juggling as he investigates the death of a quarry employee. There is the mistress he brought along, there is the daughter of the quarry owner--who seduces him so he will write an exonerating report--there is the dead man's beautiful widow and there are the faxes from Nichols' pregnant wife. By the author of Juggling the Stars.

Anyone on the spiritual path knows it's rare that the illumined lives of yogis and gurus are laid before us. We have but a handful: Autobiography of a Yogi; Milarepa: Tibet's Great Yogi; Ramakrishna and His Disciples and a few of others. Now comes an amazing book, The Guru Chronicles, filled with the magical and highly mystical stories of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, his Sri Lankan guru Siva Yogaswami and five preceding masters, who all held truth in the palm of their hand and inspired slumbering souls to "Know thy Self."

A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day. LONGLISTED FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE

Valmiki's Ramayana is the story of Rama's exile and return to Ayodhya, of a triumphant king who will always do right by his subjects. In Volga's retelling, it is Sita who, after being abandoned by Purushottam Rama, embarks on an arduous journey towards self-realization. Along the way, she meets extraordinary women who have broken free from all that held them back: husbands, sons, and their notions of desire, beauty and chastity. The minor women characters of the epic as we know it -- Surpanakha, Renuka, Urmila and Ahalya -- steer Sita towards an unexpected resolution. Meanwhile, Rama too must reconsider and weigh his roles as the king of Ayodhya and as a man deeply in love with his wife. A powerful subversion of India's most popular tale of morality, choice and sacrifice, The Liberation of Sita opens up new spaces within the old discourse, enabling women to review their lives and experiences afresh. This is Volga at her feminist best.