Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous
Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous

Author: Manu Joseph

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2017-09-25

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9352770455

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A building collapses in Mumbai. In the debris is a man who is mumbling something in delirium. It appears that he is passing on the real-time movements of a young Muslim couple. Elsewhere, a young intelligence agent is assigned to shadow two terror suspects, one of whom is a teenager and the sweetheart of her street, Laila.Taking up a slice of recent history, the novel glares at the entire system - not just politicians, the bureaucracy, the police and lackeys, but also the good folks. Pervasive in its satire, wicked in its humour and broad-based in its canvas, Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous is one of the most stylish and honest works of fiction about India ever written.

The Illicit Happiness of Other People: A Novel
The Illicit Happiness of Other People: A Novel

Author: Manu Joseph

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2013-01-07

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0393344657

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A quirky and darkly comic take on domestic life in southern India. The PEN Open Book Award called Manu Joseph "that rare bird who can wildly entertain his readers as forcefully as he moves them." In The Illicit Happiness of Other People, Joseph brilliantly brings his talents to the story of an Indian Christian family living far afield in south India. It has been three years since seventeen-year-old Unni Chacko mysteriously fell from a balcony to his death. His family—journalist father Ousep, who smokes two cigarettes at once “because three is too much”; mother Mariamma, who fantasizes gleefully about murdering her husband; and twelve-year-old love-struck brother Thoma with zero self-esteem, have coped by not coping. When the post office delivers a comic drawn by Unni that had been lost in the mail, Ousep, shocked out of his stupor, ventures on a quest to understand his son and rewrite his family’s story. Combining family drama with philosophy, social satire with satisfying storytelling, The Illicit Happiness of Other People reminds us that the greatest mystery of all—the one most worth our time and energy—is understanding the people we love.

Serious Men: A Novel
Serious Men: A Novel

Author: Manu Joseph

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2010-08-02

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 039333953X

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A poignant, bitingly funny Indian satire and love story set in a scientific institute and in Mumbai’s humid tenements. Ayyan Mani will not be constrained by Indian traditions. Despite working at the Institute of Theory and Research in Mumbai as the lowly personal assistant to a brilliant but insufferable astronomer, he dreams of more for himself and his family. Ever wily and ambitious, Ayyan weaves two plots: the first to cheer up his weary, soap-opera-addicted wife by creating outrageous fictions around their ten-year-old son; the other to sabotage the married director by using his boss’s seeming romance with the institute’s first female—and very attractive—researcher. Meanwhile, as the institute’s Brahmins wage a vicious war over theories about alien life, Ayyan sees his deceptions intertwining and setting in motion a series of extraordinary events he cannot stop. Unfailingly funny and irreverent, Serious Men is at once a hilarious portrayal of runaway egos and ambitions and a moving portrait of love and its strange workings. One of 2010’s “First Novels to Savor.” —Sunday Telegraph

Death Watch
Death Watch

Author: Ari Berk

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-11-15

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 1416991158

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When seventeen-year-old Silas Umber's father disappears, Silas is sure it is connected to the powerful artifact he discovers, combined with his father's hidden hometown history, which compels Silas to pursue the path leading to his destiny and ultimately, to the discovery of his father, dead or alive.

No Presents Please
No Presents Please

Author: Jayant Kaikini

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2020-07-28

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 194822691X

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For readers of Jhumpa Lahiri and Rohinton Mistry, as well as Lorrie Moore and George Saunders, here are stories on the pathos and comedy of small–town migrants struggling to build a life in the big city, with the dream world of Bollywood never far away. Jayant Kaikini’s gaze takes in the people in the corners of Mumbai—a bus driver who, denied vacation time, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit’s end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. In this metropolis, those who seek find epiphanies in dark movie theaters, the jostle of local trains, and even in roadside keychains and lost thermos flasks. Here, in the shade of an unfinished overpass, a factory–worker and her boyfriend browse wedding invitations bearing wealthy couples’ affectations—”no presents please”—and look once more at what they own. Translated from the Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana, these resonant stories, recently awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, take us to photo framers, flower markets, and Irani cafes, revealing a city trading in fantasies while its strivers, eating once a day and sleeping ten to a room, hold secret ambitions close.

Nice Try, Jane Sinner
Nice Try, Jane Sinner

Author: Lianne Oelke

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 0544867858

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"Jane Sinner, a 17-year-old dropout, sets out to redefine herself through a series of schemes and stunts, including participating in a low-budget reality TV show at her local community college"--

Land Where I Flee
Land Where I Flee

Author: Prajwal Parajuly

Publisher: Quercus

Published: 2015-06-02

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1623654580

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Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, Prajwal Parajuly has established himself as a distinctive voice in literature about the South Asian diaspora. Now in his debut novel, Land Where I Flee about returning home, Parajuly demonstrates that he is, as Manil Suri noted, "a master capturing, with wit and humor, the day-to-day interactions between his characters." To commemorate Chitralekha Nepauney's Chaurasi--her landmark eighty-fourth birthday--three of Chitralekha's grandchildren are travelling to Gangtok, Sikkim, to pay their respects. Agastaya is flying in from New York. Although a successful oncologist, he is dreading his family's inquisition into why he is not married, and terrified that the reason for his bachelordom will be discovered. Joining him are his sisters Manasa and Bhagwati, travelling from London and Colorado respectively. One the Oxford-educated achiever; the other the disgraced eloper--one moneyed but miserable; the other ostracized but optimistic. All three harbor the same dual objective: to emerge from the celebrations with their formidable grandmother's blessing and their nerves intact: a goal that will become increasingly impossible thanks to a mischievous maid and a fourth, uninvited guest.

The Wind At My Back
The Wind At My Back

Author: Paul Maunder

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1472948122

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In this deeply personal and lyrical exploration of what it means to ride a bicycle, Paul Maunder explores how our memories have a dialogue with landscape and how cycling and creativity are connected. Taking a journey through the places that have shaped him, we ride across wild moorland, through suburbia and city streets, into quintessentially English pastoral scenes. We see too some of the darker parts of the British countryside, sites of great secrecy that intrigue the imagination. This is a book about how landscape can sustain us, and how even an hour's escape can inspire our creative sides. The bicycle allows us to explore and dream, and return in time for dinner.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2008-09-18

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 074758589X

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A riveting and powerful story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship and an indestructible love