Literary Occasions: Essays
By V.S. Naipaul
Picador India
Price: Rs 395
A companion volume to The Writer and the World, this is a collection of previously published essays. Naipaul8217;s journey as a writer has become something of a literary legend, and these writings recall that journey 8212; from the inherited ambition to be a writer, to its realisation. 8216;8216;I was eleven, no more, when the wish came to me to be a writer; and very soon it was a settled ambition,8217;8217; he begins in the first essay, 8216;8216;Reading and Writing8217;8217;. For years it was, he reminds us repeatedly, an extraordinary ambition. He has no desire or need to write anything, and he was not even much of a reader. It is Naipaul8217;s enquiry into the origins of this ambition 8212; given to him by his father, a journalist in Trinidad 8212; and the new narrative forms he adopted along the way that threads together the career of a man referred to as the best living writer writing in English.
A Field Guide to Indian Mammals
By Vivek Menon
Dorling Kindersley
Price: Rs 695
Menon claims that this is the first comprehensive guide that attempts to cover all the mammal species of India. Complete with photographs for easy identification, species classification, geographical spread of the animal in the country, its diet, population, behaviour, habitat, conservation threats and much besides, it catalogues more than 400 mammals. There is, for instance, the elusive Clouded Leopard. Its numbers are unknown, it is 8220;very secretive8230; it is rarely seen in the wild. Unlike other leopards it does not leave tell-tale scats and scrapes along its trails.8221; On the other hand, there is the Jungle Cat, the most common wild cat in India and a frequent visitor to human inhabitation.
This book certainly deserves to be tossed into most nature lovers8217; knapsacks.
Waterlines: The Book of River Writings
Edited by Amita Baviskar
Penguin India
Price: Rs 295
Like the many rivers of India, and the diversity of writings spiritual as well as secular, poetry, music and imagery they inspire, this book too brings together a wide range of topics. Stephen Alter, for instance, writes on the mahseer, a species of fish found near the bathing ghats in Hardwar and Rishikesh. Diana Eck explores the place of the Goddess Ganga in Hindu sacred geography. Indira Viswanathan Peterson similarly dwells on the Kaveri in legend and literature.
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