Beatrice and Virgil: A Novel

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963. After studying philosophy at Trent University, Yann spent a number of years travelling abroad. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, which has been published in forty-five territories and sold over seven million copies. Yann Martel lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.

When Henry, a prize-winning writer who wants to write a book about the Holocaust, finds a letter from an elderly taxidermist on his doormat, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled closer to the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey—named Beatrice and Virgil—and the epic journey they undertake together.

With all the charm and spirit that drew seven million readers to Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil takes the reader on a tremendous and powerful imaginative journey. On the way Martel asks profound questions and leaves you reflecting on the nature of human cruelty, kindness, moral engagement and moral compromise, life and art, and the liberating power of stories.

ISBN: 9780670084517
Published by: Penguin Books India

18 Management Competencies Business Professionals Cannot Ignore!

The uniqueness of this book lies in its simplicity in defining the basic nature of a competency. A brief introduction of the origin and initial development, of this much debated but elusive concept has been provided for easy understanding. The book provides valuable insights into the core of HR issues and an understanding of the new challenges being faced by HR professionals in a rapidly changing business environment. The authors have tried to identify specific competencies without which business results are not possible and what these mean in real terms at different levels of management. The illustrations encapsulate or comment on a competency through humorous depiction of simple real-life situations. The micro case studies attempt to show how successful people have demonstrated a specific competency in real-life business situation. These are anecdotal case studies and do not imply that a particular business leader stands for a specific competency. This work does not pretend to be the last word on competencies, but it can be useful as an invaluable reference guide, ready reckoned or a HR handbook for the practitioners at various levels, including senior managers, heads of HR divisions and even CEOs and others who are involved with HR issues on a day-to-day basis. Students of management who need to be strong in the basics of competencies would also find it useful.

ISBN: 8120739246
Author: Saugata Mitra & Seema Bangia
Published by: Penguin Book India

An Autobiography: Annie Besant

Annie Besant (1847-1933) led the fight for the rights of women and laborers in her native England; later she worked with Mahatma Gandhi and spearheaded India''s struggle for freedom. A student of India''s spiritual traditions, Annie Besant was famed as an orator, author, and international President of the Theosophical Society.

ISBN: 0143033409
Author: Besant, Annie
Publishred by: Penguin Books India

A Tiger at Twilight and Cyclones

‘Manoj Das . . . [will] take a place on my shelves beside the stories of Narayan’—Graham Greene

This volume presents two celebrated novels by Manoj Das, one of India’s most illustrious authors, who has been writing in English and Oriya for over six decades.

In A Tiger at Twilight the erstwhile raja of Samargarh returns to his abandoned palace in Nijanpur, after years of self-exile, with his sick daughter and his supposed half-sister, and immediately assumes the responsibility of killing a man-eating tiger. Assisting him are a few noted men of the valley including Dev the owner and manager of a resort. But as the hunt intensifies Dev realizes that things aren’t as they seem: Heera, the raja’s sister, has an inexplicable power over the men in the hunting party and a strange connection with the tiger. As the men get closer to killing the beast, bizarre things begin to happen, hinting at the influence of the supernatural.

Cyclones is set in Kusumpur, a small coastal village, during the struggle for Independence. The village is devastated by a cyclone and Sandip, the scion of the zamindari family, helps restore it. The war-time colonial government, though, wants to turn the sleepy hamlet into a busy port town. They plan to fill up the river that flows by it, in the process angering all the villagers, including Sandip. But when the contractor for the project is found murdered, Sandip is accused of the crime, forcing him to flee from the authorities. This is the start of a series of adventures that take him from a remote ashram in a forest to the city where communal violence is rife. Cyclones is a powerful novel about the metaphorical storms that gripped the nation during the most turbulent period of its modern history.

ISBN: 9780143068556
Author: Manoj Das
Published by: Penguin Books India

A Taste of Life: The Last Days of U.G. Krishnamurti

‘Those who talk about death don’t want to die. I don’t want to go and I don’t want to stay.’ —U.G. Krishnamurti

U.G. Krishnamurti famously described enlightenment as a neurobiological state of being with no religious, psychological or mystical implications. He did not lecture, did not set up organizations, held no gatherings and professed to have no message for mankind.

Known as the ‘anti-guru’, the ‘raging sage’ and the ‘thinker who shuns thought’, U.G. spent his life destroying accepted beliefs in science, god, mind, soul, religion, love and relationships—all the props man uses to live life. Having taken away all support systems from those who came to him, he refused to replace them with those of his own; always insisting that each must find his own truth.

And when U.G. knew that it was time for him go, he refused all attempts to prolong life with medical help. He let nature, and his body, take their course.

On the afternoon of 22 March 2007, U.G. Krishnamurti passed away in Vallecrosia, Italy.

ISBN: 9780143067160
Author: Mahesh Bhatt
Published by: Penguin Book India

Amazing Fish (Ladybird Read-It-Yourself) (Level 1)

Read-It-Yourself is a series of graded fact books to give young children a confident and successful start to reading. Level 1 is suitable for children who are making their first attempts at reading. This book is written in a very simple way using a small number of frequently repeated words that help children read more fluently. The sentences on each page are supported by illustrations, with lively details to talk about and aid understanding of the text.

ISBN: 1846464587
Published by: Penguin Books India

A Place Within: Rediscovering India

M.G. Vassanji is the author of six acclaimed novels: The Gunny Sack, which won a Commonwealth Prize; No New Land; The Book of Secrets, which won the very first Giller Prize; Amriika; The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, which also received the Giller Prize in 2003; and The Assassin’s Song, which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. He is also the author of two collections of short fiction, Uhuru Street and Elvis, Raja.

Vassanji lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.

In a stunning assemblage of words and images, acclaimed novelist M.G. Vassanji turns his eye to India, the homeland of his ancestors.

M.G. Vassanji’s grandparents left India to settle in Africa. An African by birth, Vassanji’s relationship with India in childhood was complex and contradictory, fed by legends and stories. Now, in this powerfully moving tale of personal discovery, he explores his connection to the land that for so long was a place only of the imagination for him. Part travelogue and description, part history and meditation, and above all a quest for a lost homeland, A Place Within begins with diary entries from Vassanji’s very first wide-eyed trip to India in 1993, then moves on to accounts from his subsequent and obsessive visits. An intimate chronicle filled with fantastic stories and unforgettable characters, A Place Within is rich with images of bustling city streets and contrasting Indian landscapes, from the southern tip of India to the Himalayan foothills, from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. Here, too, are the amazing histories of Delhi, Shimla, Gujarat and Kerala, and of Vassanji’s own family, members of the Khoja sect that draws on both Hinduism and Islam.

Intelligent, deeply personal, beautifully written in a voice close in style to Vassanji’s brilliantly evocative fiction, A Place Within opens our eyes and minds to India’s astonishing riches.

ISBN: 9780670082452
Author: M.G. Vassanji
Published by: Penguin Books India

A Maidan View

The author examines cricket''s influence on India, from the unorganized beginnings to the widespread growth that has led to India becoming the commercial backbone of the sport worldwide. He explores the social factors that led to the game''s development in the country. It includes personal reflections and memories of great cricket matches, along with some wonderful anecdotes and forgotten stories amidst thought-provoking commentary.

ISBN: 0143032178
Author: Bose, Mihir
Published by: Penguin Books India

A Flight Of Pigeons

Set in Shahjahanpur during the revolt of 1857, A Flight of Pigeons is Ruskin Bond’s classic novella about the twists of fate, history and the human heart. When Ruth Labadoor’s father, a clerk in the British magistrate’s office, is killed in an attack by sepoys, her family seek refuge with their trusted companion, Lala Ramjimal. From here they eventually hope to escape to their relatives in Bareilly. But their plans go awry when Javed Khan, a fiery Pathan opposed to the British, abducts Ruth and her mother and takes them to his haveli. To their surprise, it is not hate that impels him in this time of war, but an almost crippling passion for Ruth. It will be months before the fall of Delhi to British troops brings them freedom—from fear, bafflement and despair, not only their own but also Javed Khan’s. Based on true events, A Flight of Pigeons is a haunting story, rich in detail and drama, told with simplicity and deep humanity.

ISBN: 9780143063223
Author: Bond, Ruskin
Published by: Penguin Book India

A Life of Change: The Autobiography of a Doctor

After graduating in medicine from the Grant Medical College Noshir H. Antia (1922—2007), joined the Army Medical Corps during the Second World War. After the war he went to England to study surgery. On his return, he pioneered plastic surgery in India. His interest in biomedical research and the social aspects of medicine grew while working at the J.J. Hospital in Bombay, and led him to establish the Foundation for Research in Community Health (FRCH) and the Foundation for Medical Research (FMR). He received numerous awards including the Padma Shri in recognition of his efforts in diverse fields

From a modest beginning in Hubli, Noshir H. Antia became a pioneer of plastic surgery in modern India and established one of the earliest burns units in the country at the J.J. Hospital in Bombay. Soon, he realized that ‘health’ could not be the domain of medical science alone, but needed to be framed by the social, cultural and economic perspectives of the common people. He and his team began training women volunteers in Mandwa and Malshiras—an experiment that became the blueprint for the Community Health Workers’ Scheme.

Combining scientific temper with social vision, he set up the two complimentary organizations, the Foundation for Research in Community Health (FRCH) and the Foundation for Medical Research (FMR). In this candid and critical account, Antia is unsparing of the medical profession and laments the emergence of the ‘health industry’ at the cost of ‘health for all’.

ISBN: 9780143104261
Published by: Penguin Books India

A Disobedient Girl

Ru Freeman was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in the USA with her husband and three daughters. This is her first novel.

A spellbinding novel in the tradition of The Kite Runner and The Blood of Flowers.

She loved fine things and she had no doubt that she deserved them.Since her days in the orphanage, Latha has been a companion and servant to Thara, a more fortunate girl her own age. But since her trip to the hill-country when she caught her first glimpse of a rose, Latha has known she was destined for a better life. For now, she must watch silently as Thara receives all the luxuries Latha is denied, consoled only by the rose-scented soap stolen from the bathroom of her master''s house.Years and miles away, Biso, a desperate young mother, flees from her murderous husband, taking her children with her to the remote hills. As Biso and Latha journey towards their separate fates, struggling to hold on to their
independence, each will betray the people they love, changing the course of their lives for ever. A Disobedient Girl is an epic, heartbreaking novel about the linked destinies of two women, set against the backdrop of beautiful, politically turbulent Sri Lanka.

ISBN: 9780670917952
Published by: Penguin Books India

A Dead Hand

When Jerry Delfont, a travel writer with writer''s block, receives a letter from an American philanthropist, Mrs Merrill Unger, with news of a scandal involving an Indian friend of her son''s, he is sufficiently intrigued to pursue the story. Who is the dead boy found on the floor of a cheap hotel room, how and why did he die - and will this writer, whom Mrs Unger claims to admire, find out what really happened?

Jerry is swiftly captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Mrs Unger, and revived by her Tantric massages, but the circumstances surrounding the dead boy cause him increasingly to doubt the exact nature of her philanthropy. With his trademark clarity of description and observation, Theroux brings to dramatic life a dark and twisted narrative of obsession and need.

Author: Paul Theroux
ISBN: 9780241144749
Published by: Penguin Books India

You`re Hired!: How to Get That Job and Keep It Too

IS THIS YOU?

Have you ever applied for a job and not been called for the interview?

Ever wondered why?

Don’t be discouraged! Finally, an easy, step-by-step guide, written specially for Indian job contexts and situations, is here to help. This book is all you need to take your first important steps up the corporate ladder.Whether you are applying for a new job or want to perform better in your present position, You’re Hired! How to Get That Job and Keep It Too will help you answer those questions you just didn’t know whom to ask.Fun and easy-to-follow, this book uses actual CVs, emails and resumés to show you the communication and soft skills errors that prevent people from getting ahead, and how you can avoid them.

ISBN: 9780143100577
Author: Nasha Fitter
Published by: Penguin Book India

The Ascent of Money

Niall Ferguson is Herzog Professor of Financial History at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

His books for Penguin include The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World and War of the World.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call it what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history.

From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fuelled Britain''s war effort to the Wall Street Crash and today''s meltdown, this is the story of boom and bust as it''s never been told before.

Whether you''re scraping by or rolling in it, there''s no better time to understand the ascent of money.

ISBN: 9780141035482
Published by: Penguin Book India

Why Smart People Do Stupid Things with Money: Overcoming Financial Dysfunction

Bert Whitehead, MBA, JD, has been a fee-only personal financial advisor since 1972. In 1995, he founded Cambridge Advisors, a growing group of advisors who share his belief in unbiased independent financial advice and consumer advocacy. He is often quoted in leading publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Kiplinger’s, Newsweek, and Consumer Reports Andrew Weil, MD, is a world-renowned pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. In addition to being the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, he is a best-selling author whose books have sold approximately 10 million copies. Dr. Weil is also editorial director of www.drweil.com, writes for Prevention and TIME, and is a frequent guest on Larry King Live, Oprah, and Today.

Bert Whitehead, named one of the “Best 60 Financial Advisors in America” by Worth magazine, has a unique “behavioral finance” approach that goes beyond mere number crunching to help people understand and overcome the complex psychological baggage they bring to their financial decisions. Tested and confirmed by hundreds of Bert’s clients—including celebrities such as Andrew Weil, MD, who wrote the foreword for the book—this system shows readers how to identify areas of financial dysfunction, and offers specific strategies designed to help different personality types achieve financial freedom by working with their own natural inclinations.

ISBN: 9781402766893
Published by: Penguin Books India

Soul Traders: The Truth About Marketing

Jonathan Gabay the founder of the consultancy firm Brand Forensics and is a much sought-after speaker and TV commentator (ITV and Sky). He teaches at the Chartered Institue of Marketing and has written several successful books about marketing.

A highly controversial, behind-the-scenes examination of marketing and how it has changed society and the world.

How do brands profit from war? When did brands endorse rascism? How do terrorists use the Web to recruit extremists? Who really controls the world''s greatest sports? How does business profit from ''green'' consumers? Where does the line between propaganda and marketing stop? You are about to discover that everything you ever suspected about spin doctors, corporations and politicians is in fact true! This controversial book is the missing volume in every business library and consumer''s home. As a social documentary, it reveals the fascinating untold stories behind the world''s most powerful social, commercial, religious and political branded organisations that have shaped the world. Decade-by-decade, Jonathan Gabay reveals the pyschological, cultural and business strategies used to make people crave goods, services and causes - to the extent of selling their very souls. Marketing has been one of the dominant forces in business over the last century and has touched virtually everyone.

Thoroughly researched and sharply told, this is a compelling book about the dark side of marketing.

Includes untold and extraordinary stories of how marketing has been used to further the goals of various organisations.

ISBN: 9781905736515
Published by: Penguin Book India

Practical Meditation: Spiritual Yoga for the Mind

B. K. Jayanti is the European Director of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. She is the Brahma Kumaris Organization's representative to the United Nations, Geneva and has met with Mother Theresa and His Holiness Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. She has trained for more than 30 years with some of the world's most remarkable yogis and is also a much sought-after speaker around the world.

Meditation made easy! If you have 15 minutes to spare, you have enough time to do something that’s spirit-enhancing, energy-boosting, and life-balancing: practice Raja Yoga. This accessible guide by a dynamic, world-renowned yogi explains how—leading you through the simple steps needed to begin a transformational meditation program.

Unlike most forms of yoga, Raja Yoga focuses on the mind. It helps you bring together the scattered forces of your thoughts, allowing you to let go of negativity and fear in order to create inner peace and an enhanced sense of well-being. Once you begin to absorb the teachings in this book, you will begin to think on an elevated level. The result: a more positive attitude, less stress, increased self confidence, and an overall improved quality of life.

ISBN: 9781402766268
Published by: Penguin Book India

Noon, with a View: Courage and Integrity

Known universally as ‘Noon’, Sir Gulam was born in Mumbai and assumed control of the family business at an early age, since when he has spent a lifetime in the food business. Moving to the UK he launched a range of authentic ethnic meals through Noon Products and despite major setbacks built a hugely successful business. In 1996 he was awarded an MBE in recognition of his work as as an employer and his charitable activities. He was knighted in 2002, and in addition to remaining active in business he sits on the boards of several government and charity organizations including the Advisory Board for Naturalisation and Integration.

Throughout his life, Sir Gulam, has made many friends and helped innumerable people, and when the Noon Products factory was destroyed by fire, both friends and clients were there to help him recover.

After selling the business to WT Foods, his own charitable institution, the Noon Foundation, was established, and for his many efforts in this sector he was awarded the MBE. Increasingly, his time was spent working with many different charities and, in 2002, the Queen honoured him with a knighthood.

A few years later Sir Gulam accepted nomination for a peerage but the ‘cash for honours’ storm erupted. He relates the incident from his personal perspective—his anger, humiliation, frustration and depression. He considers his relations with the police, the media, the Government, Tony Blair and other senior members of the Labour Party.

He also reflects upon the tough questions facing Britain today, such as education, immigration, terrorism and the role of the government and private citizens. He pulls no punches and his indomitable spirit commands respect—his story demands to be read.

ISBN: 9780670083619
published by: Penguin Book India

Places of Destiny: 50 Places Where History Was Made

Ben Dupre read Classics at Exeter College, Oxford before pursuing a career in reference publishing. He was Children's Reference Publisher at Oxford University Press from 1992 until 2004 and, all told, has more than 20 years' experience of bringing complex and challenging concepts to the widest possible audience in an accessible but authoritative manner. A gifted performer on both harpsichord and viola da gamba, Ben lives in North Oxford with his family.

In Places of Destiny, Ben Dupre offers a rich selection of dramatic historical events and locations: the resistance of Leonidas'' Spartans, an enduring epic of last-ditch heroism, in the face of Xerxes'' Persians at the lonely pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC; the sack of Rome in AD 410 when the Visigothic army under the command of Alaric swarmed into Rome and subjected the Eternal City to three days of looting; the establishing of a settlement of courageous dissenters, harbinger of a great new nation, on Jamestown Island, Virginia, in 1607; the storming of a prison and the birth of modern republican politics in Paris on 14 July 1789; the extinction, senseless and bloody, of an entire generation of Western European manhood on the shattered plains of the Somme Valley in 1916; and the irruption of terror from the skies into a bright Manhattan morning on the most dreadful day of the infant 21st century. As well as retailing the extraordinary stories of the events associated with each site, Places of Destiny also examines how succeeding generations have commemorated and interpreted those events. Richly informative and deeply thought-provoking, and interspersed throughout with informative maps and colour illustrations, Places of Destiny offers an enthralling and often moving sequence of narratives that will appeal to anyone who enjoys top-notch popular historical writing.

ISBN: 9781847248336
Published by: Penguin Book India

Listening to Grasshoppers

Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Two volumes of her non-fiction writing, The Algebra of Infinite Justice and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, were published by Penguin India in 2001 and 2005 respectively. She lives in New Delhi Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Two volumes of her non-fiction writing, The Algebra of Infinite Justice and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, were published by Penguin India in 2001 and 2005 respectively. She lives in New Delhi

Combining brilliant political insight and razor-sharp prose, Arundhati Roy in these essays, takes a hard look at the underbelly of the world’s largest democracy, and shows how the journey that Hindu nationalism and neoliberal economic reforms began together in the early 1990s is unraveling in dangerous ways.

Beginning with the state-backed killing of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, she writes about how ‘progress’ and genocide have historically gone hand in hand; about the murky investigations into the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament; about the dangers of an increasingly powerful and entirely unaccountable judiciary; and about the collusion between large corporations, the government and the mainstream media. The collection ends with an account of the August 2008 uprising in Kashmir and an analysis of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai. ‘The Briefing’, included as an appendix, is a fictional text that brings together many of the issues central to the collection.

As it tracks the fault-lines that threaten to destroy India’s precarious future, Listening to Grasshoppers asks fundamental questions about democracy itself, a political system that has, by virtue of being considered ‘the best available option’, been put beyond doubt and correction.

ISBN: 9780670083794
Published by: Penguin Book India

Eunuch Park: Fifteen Stories of Love and Destruction

Palash Krishna Mehrotra was born in Mumbai in 1975 and was educated at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, the Delhi School of Economics and Balliol College, Oxford. The editor of Recess: The Penguin Book of Schooldays, he is also a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and writes a regular column for Mail Today. Palash lives in Dehra Dun with his grandmother. He is currently working on a non-fiction book on young India, The Butterfly Generation.

Palash Krishna Mehrotra writes about prostitutes, cross dressers, murderers, drug addicts, students and stalkers, portraying their perversions and vulnerabilities with equal insight, taking us deep into the dark and seamy soul of India.

Set in the murky underbelly of big cities and small towns, slums and dotcoms, college hostels and rented rooms, Eunuch Park: Fifteen Stories of Love and Destruction is a collection like no other. Gritty, grim and depraved, these are candid vignettes of an India most of us are afraid to acknowledge.

ISBN: 9780143099925
Published by: Penguin Book India

26/11: The Attack on Mumbai

The attack on Mumbai shocked the world. For three days terrorists wreaked havoc over multiple venues in India’s commercial capital, leaving a trail of blood, death and destruction. Reporters from Hindustan Times tracked the events as they unfolded at Cama Hospital, the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus and followed the three-day siege at the Taj and Trident Hotels and at Nariman House. The collection brings together their dispatches as well as commentaries, profiles and columns published during the siege and its aftermath. This is a dramatic snapshot of the victims, heroes and perpetrators of the attacks and also of the outrage that still grips the nation.

Author: Hindustan Times
ISBN: 9780143067054
Published by: Penguin Book India

A Tale of Two Revolts: India 1857 and the American Civil War

A former parliamentarian in India, Rajmohan Gandhi currently teaches in the USA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Apart from several biographies, his works include Understanding the Muslim Mind and Revenge and Reconciliation: Understanding South Asian History, both published by Penguin India .

Two wars––the 1857 Revolt in India and the American Civil War—seemingly fought for very different reasons, occurred at opposite ends of the globe in the middle of the nineteenth century. But they were both fought in a world still dominated by Great Britain and the battle cry in both conflicts was freedom.
Rajmohan Gandhi brings the drama of both wars to one stage in A Tale of Two Revolts. He deftly reconstructs events from the point of view of William Howard Russell—an Irishman who was also perhaps the world’s first war correspondent—and uncovers significant connections between the histories of the United States, Britain and India. The result is a tale of two revolts, three countries and one century. Into this fascinating story Rajmohan Gandhi weaves the choices of five extraordinary inhabitants of India—Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Jotiba Phule, Allan Octavian Hume and Bankimchandra Chatterjee—and of three towering figures of world history—Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy and Abraham Lincoln—to show the continuities between the nineteenth century and the world we live in today.
Scholarly, insightful and gripping, A Tale of Two Revolts raises new questions about these wars that changed the world.

ISBN: 9780670083558
Published by: Penguin Books India