Rapid Raider

Rs 199

This has Eunice de Souza’s poems,from old anthologies such as Fix (1979) and later ones such as Ways of Belonging (1990),plus a few published for the first time. Her earlier poetry mostly reveals the innards of Catholic homes in jagged lines and with enough irony,but it is in the later poems that you are better rewarded. Whether she is speaking of death (“Where you are there is no harp nor halo/ nor,what you preferred,an endless ashen dawn/ beyond the reach of sun) or of her pet pahari parrot (“hook-nosed king of succulent skies”),the images suddenly revel in a beautiful fluency.

Dancing Earth

Edited by Robin S. Ngangom & Kynpham S. Nongkyurih

Rs 350

If you are in the mood for more poetry,this anthology brings together the best from the Northeast. At last. There are soul-birds hovering over a funeral,stone goddesses on grey hilltops and a last wish to be killed by a gun made in India. Mona Zote,a 36-year-old,writes,“What should poetry mean to a woman in the hills/ as she sits one long sloping summer evening/ in Patria,Aizawl…. Poetry must be raw like a side of beef/ should drip blood,remind you of sweat/ and dusty slaughter and the epidermal crunch/ and the sudden bullet to the head.”

The Complaints

Ian Rankin

Rs 595

Are you still mourning the exit of Inspector Rebus? Take heart,Rankin fans,here is Malcolm Fox,your new detective. Fox,a 40-something,radio-listening,tomato juice-drinking,recovering alcoholic,is not quite Rebus,but is a cop who investigates cops. In recessionary Edinburgh,Fox has successfully exposed a fellow police officer. Now he is on to a new case,about a young cop who is accused of being part of a paedophilia ring,but with whom he strangely becomes friends. Could he be really bad? Could they both be set up?

Leaving India: My Family’s Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents

Minal Hajratwala

Rs 595

Gathering roots is a necessary enterprise. When bits of history are found hanging from the branches of your family tree,it becomes all the more fascinating. Hajratwala leaves the US to meet her clan’s genealogist sitting behind an old palace in Vadodara,and she begins tracing her family’s routes and roots — a great-great-uncle who made bunny chow in his restaurant in South Africa,a great-grandfather who travelled to Fiji to open a tailoring shop which evolved into a retail behemoth,a grandfather who participated in the Dandi March. Hajratwala writes evocatively and obsesses over details,but the latter can at times crowd out the reader’s interest.