High energy on weekend book cart (IANS Books this Week)

The books this weekend are an insight into life’s multiple power centres that makes it rock with energy. Browse with IANS…

1.Book: “Whispers From the Wild”; Compiled from writings by E.R.C. Davidar; Published by Penguin Books India; Price: Rs.399

Some people talk about nature, others listen to it. Listening can reveal wonders like how to befriend an elephant, how to talk to a tiger and how to live in the jungle.

Many such amazing experiences crowd this volume containing the unpublished writings from the early and last years of the well-known naturalist, the late E.R.C. Davidar.

A lawyer by profession and hunter-turned photographer, he established maybe the first-ever private elephant corridor in India near his jungle cottage and undertook the first-ever census of the Nilgiri Tahr in the entire range.

2.Book: “Playing to Win”; Written by Saina Nehwal; Published by Penguin India; Price: Rs.199

Olympian Saina Nehwal, the star badminton player, World No.4, Padma Shri and Khel Ratna awardee, in her memoir, talks about her childhood and growing up years, her relationship with the most important people in her life and the ups and downs of her celebrated career.

She also reveals little-known facts and offers a peek into her many avatars (roles) – daughter, sister, student and the regular girl behind the badminton prodigy.

3.Book: “Cooking on the Run”; Written by Boria Mazumdar; Published by Harper Collins India; Price: Rs.250

Need a compass to find your way around the kitchen? Need your mum to help you fry an egg? Then “Cooking on the Run” is for you.

It has all the crucial cooking tips you need to survive – easy shortcuts to a scrumptious meal, in minimal time, without too much effort. Learn how to whip up a basic vegetable stew. Master the complexities of the chicken biryani. Even serve up traditional Indian desserts like kheer kamla or vermicelli kheer (payasam).

There are recipes both traditional, like the mouth-watering ‘aloo posto’, and innovative, such as the ‘pumpkin prawn’ and ‘jumble’ rice.

4.Book: “The Politics of Poverty: Planning India’s Development”; Written by (late) D.K. Rangnekar; Published by Sage Publications; Price: Rs.685

D.K. Rangnekar was a leading public intellectual who marked his presence as the editor of the Economic Times and later the Business Standard.

This collection brings together a discerning selection of his writings that are organised across four themes: social and political dimensions of development; international context to India’s experiment; planning and budgets; and industrial and economic policy.

The writings begin in the early 1960s and end in 1984 – at the cusp of radical transformation of India’s economic policies and political fabric – thus providing an important handbook of the times.

5.Book: “The Forgotten”; Written by David Baldacci; Published by Pan Macmillan; Price: Rs.250

Murder in Paradise. What, or who, is silencing the residents? Military criminal investigator John Puller is drawn closer to home when his aunt is found dead in her house in Paradise, Florida.

The police have ruled the death as an accident, but Puller finds evidence to suggest that she may well have been murdered. On the surface the town lives up to its name, but as Puller digs deeper he realises that this town and its inhabitants are more akin to Hell than Paradise.

His belief is confirmed as evidence of strange and inexplicable events come to light. And when Puller learns the truth about what is happening in this once sleepy town, he knows that his discoveries will impact far wider than Paradise.

IANS 2012-11-10 12:36:09