BOOKS AND AUTHOR
Books
A call to Honour—In the Service of Emergent India: It is the latest book by India’s former External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh.
Raj of the Rani: It is the biography of the Rani of Jhansi by the noted historian Tapti Roy.
In the Line of Fire: It is a memoir of the Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. It is very readable and persuasive and mainly intended for American audience. In this book, General Musharraf portrays himself as a Muslim of enlightened moderation, committed to fight terrorism and extremism, a ruler who wants to restore democracy to his country, which he believes has been denied in Pakistan since Ayub Khan’s military takeover in 1958.
Indian Summers: The book has been written by perhaps India’s most successful coach of cricket team, John Wright.
Red-Corner News Soldier: The books written by Li Zhensheng, a staff photographer with the Heilongjiang Daily. It is perhaps the only visual narrative of how the Mao cult was built on the human residues of revolution.
In the Name of Honour—A Memoir: The latest book by Mukhtai Mai, one of the heroic women of our times. It is an extraordinary chronicle of the courage and vision of an ordinary Gujar peasant woman in Meerwala, Punjab province of Pakistan, unwilling to be broken by injustice or limited by circumstances. The present edition is a chronicle of a brave woman who converted the tragedy of a gangrape into a personal crusade.
Mahatma Gandhi—A Historical Biography: Written by Bidyut Chakrabarty, the book strikes to graphically illustrate the evolution of the Mahatma.
Dhanya Aa Aankh Chhe (My Eyes are Blessed): This is the name of the first anthology of poems by Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.
The Complete Taj Mahal: This book by Ebba Koch brilliantly evokes the beauty of one of the world’s architectural wonders—the Taj Mahal.
India’s Unending Journey: It is the latest book by seasoned journalist Mark Tully. It clearly reveals that the cynical, tenchant but well-meaning critic of India and its leaders has mellowed with time. This is a kinder, gender Tully than the one who wrote No Full Stops in India, India in Slow Motion and The Heart of India.
• Kaavya Vishwanathan’s novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed being recalled from
store shelves, after she admits to copying messages from another book.
• Dan Brown wins the legal battle over claims that he had copied the idea of the ‘The Da Vinci Code’ from another book.
• Kaavya Vishwanathan’s two book deal cancelled by publisher Little, Brown & Co., after allegations of literary borrowing proliferated.
• Kiran Desai, 35 wins Booker prize for The Inheritance of Loss – the youngest woman to claim the Rs. 42 lakh prize.
• Amitav Ghosh – has recently released his new book ‘The Hungry Tide’.
• J.K. Rowling voted the greatest living British writer in a survey, followed by Terry Pratchett, Ian Mcewan, Salman Rushide, Kazuo Ishiguro and Philip Pullman.
SUBJECT-MATTER OF BOOKS
Anand Math: It is a great patriotic novel of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Our National Song. Vande Mataram, is an extract from this book.
Adi Granth: It is the collection of Sikh scriptures by Guru Arjan Dev. It contains verses from Hindu, Sikh and Muslim saints and Sufis.
Ain-e-Akbari: It is a history of King Akbar by Abul Fazal. It is regarded as a pyramid of books on medieval diplomacy and statesmanship.
A Passage to India (E.M. Forster): This is a sharp and colourful satire on British rule in India.
Dr. Zhivago: It is a famous novel by Boris Pasternak. Its theme is Marxist way of life. It was awarded Nobel Prize in 1958.
Good Earth: It is the famous novel by Madam Pearl Buck. It deals with the life of Chinese peasants.
India Wins Freedom: It is an autobiography by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. It gives a threadbare account of the Freedom Movement.
IIaid: It is a famous poem by Homer. It depicts the Trojan War.
Kadambari: It is a famous novel by Bana Bhatt. It depicts pious love.
Leviathan: It is a great treatise on political philosophy by Thomas Hobbes. It sanctions the doctrine of absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the state.
Light of Asia: It is a great poem by Edwin Arnold. It describes the life of Buddha.
Lolita: This is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Its theme is love and sex.
My Experiments with Truth: It is the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi.
Natya Shastra: It is a great treatise on the art of theatre and dance by Bharat Muni.
Odyssey: It is a great epic by Homer. It describes ten years of adventures of Odyessum (also called Ulysses) during his return from Troy.
One World: It is a great book by Wendell Wilkie in which the author advocates internationalism and unity of the world.
Price of Power: It is a book by an American writer, Seymur Hersh, in which the author has accused Morarji Desai, former Prime Minister of India, of being a paid CIA agent.
Panchatantra: It is a collection of tales about birds, animals, etc., by Vishnu Sharma with moral lessons of practical utility.
Rajatarangini: It is a great epic by Kalhana. It contains the most authentic history of Kashmir from the earliest days to 12th century.
Rights of Man: It is a great political treatise by Thomas Paine. In this book the author attacks the civilisation of the 18th century.
Shahnama: It is a great Persian epic by Firdausi. It contains a large number of heroic legends about ancient Persia, including one between Sohrab and Rustam.
Shakuntala: It is a great drama by Kalidas. It depicts the traditional Hindu culture in its oriental majesty.
Social Contract: It is a great philosophical treatise by Rousseau. It was greatly responsible for the French Revolution.
The Prince: It is a great treatise on absolute government by Machiavelli. In this the author shows indifference to immoral means for political purposes.
The Wasteland: It is a great English poem by T.S. Eliot.
The Vedas: These are four in number: Rig Veda is in the praise of God, Yajur Veda contains mantras for performance of Yajnas, Atharva Veda contains musical chants, while Atharva Veda contains magical chants.
The Upanishads: These are the oldest books on Aryan philosophy and theology.
The Puranas: These are 18 in number. These are old books of the Hindus and describe origin of the world, etc.
Wealth of Nations: It is a great treatise on economics by Adam Smith. It preaches free trade.
POPULAR QUOTATIONS
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. (Gray)
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. (Keats)
If winter comes, can spring be far Behind? (Shelley)
Beauty is truth, truth is beauty. (Keats)
The Government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from earth. (Abraham Lincoln)
Reading make a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man. (Bacon)
Our sweetest songs are those that tell us of saddest thought. (Shelley)
I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)
To be or not to be, that is the question. (Shakespeare)
Inquilab Zindabad (Mohd. Iqbal)
Live and let others live (J.S. Mill)
Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains (Rousseau)
England expects every man to do his duty. (Lord Nelson)
Frailty, thy name is woman. (Shakespeare)
Much it grieved my heart to think what man has made of man. (Wordsworth)
East is East and West is West. (Rudyard Kipling)
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. (John Milton)
Old order change yielding place to new. (Tennyson)
All the world’s stag. (Shakespeare)
More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. (Tennyson)
Let a hundred flowers bloom. (Maotse Tung)
I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears. (Winston Churchill)
Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated. (George Bernard Shaw)
Distrust all men in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
The ink of the scholar is more sacred then the blood of the martyr. (Prophet Muhammad)
Every man is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. (Mark Twain)
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but is very important that you do it. (Mahatma. Gandhi)
A man who bows down to nothing can never bear the burden of himself. (Dostoevsky)
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty. (Henry Ford)
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. (Winston Churchill)
If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable. (John F. Kennedy)
A Moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. (Jawaharlal Nehru)
Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed. (Epicurus).
Beware of the learned man’s false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance. (Bernard Shaw)
The will to win is a matter of training. The manner of winning is a matter of honour. (Margaret Thatcher)
Violence is the weapon of the weak; non-violence that of the strong. (Mahatma Gandhi)
If anger be the basis of our political activities, the excitement tends to become an end in itself, at the expense of the object to be achieved. (Rabindranath Tagore)
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. (Rainhold Niebuhr)
If thou desirest a glory that never vanishes, then seek not to embrace a glory that vanishes. (Ibn Ata’illah)
Falsehood shall be destroyed; truth in the end shall prevail. (Adi Granth)
The road to a friend’s house is never long. (Danish proverb)
He who gave to you kingship, gave to us the wealth of faith in righteousness. (Guru Gobind Singh)
Laws are always useful to those who have possessions, and harmful to those who have nothing. (J.J. Rousseau)
It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. (Mark Twain)
The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience. (Winston Churchill)
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even when there’s no river. (Nikita Khrushchev)
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. (Nelson Mandela)
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. (Henry David Thoreau)
He alone is truly non-violent who remains non-violent even though he has the ability to strike. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come. (Rabindranath Tagore)
Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. (Mahatma Gandhi)
The right to vote is a sacred right and an onerous responsibility that you owe to the motherland. (A.P.J. Abdul Kalam)
Our task now is not to fix the blame for the past, but to fix the course for the future. (John F. Kennedy)
For the faithful, the work lies within, not without. (Ramana Maharishi)
Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it. (Sir Winston Churchill)
Don’t think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. (Helen Kelly)
The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. (The Buddha)
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit. — Milton Friedman
The foolish are like ripples on water, for whatsoever they do is quickly effected. But the righteous are like carvings upon stone, for their smallest act is durable. (Horace)
Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. (Winston Churchill)
We cannot expected people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws. (Anonymous)
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. (Indira Gandhi)
God has not promised skies always blue; Flower-strewn pathways all our life through; God has not promised sun without rain; Joy without sorrow, peace without pain. (A.P.J. Abdul Kalam)
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. (Martin Luther King)
Women bring prosperity. By cherishing women, one cherishes the goddess of prosperity. By suppressing women you prevent growth. (The Mahabharata)
Human nature is not altogether unchanging but it does remain sufficiently constant to justify the study of ancient classic. (S. Radhakrishnan)
Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity. (Karl Marx)
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. (Lance Armstrong)
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