Cultural books from India
Recommended cultural books (10)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into cultural here are some cultural books from India for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman EN
Description:
In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.
2.
Description:
A young District Collector is posted to one of the furthest outposts of rural Rajasthan. As he becomes more and more involved with the lives and troubles of the common people in his district, he finds himself sucked deeper and deeper into the dark heart of the desert.
3.
Friend of my Youth by Amit Chaudhuri EN
Description:
A novelist named Amit Chaudhuri visits his childhood home of Bombay. The city, reeling from the memory of the 2008 terrorist attacks, weighs heavily on Amit's mind, as does the unexpected absence of his childhood friend Ramu, a drifting, opaque figure who is Amit's last remaining connection to the city he once called home.
4.
Love After Marriage by Bhagya Chandra EN
Description:
Revised and re-edited, September 2014 Compassionate and deeply emotional, 'Love after Marriage' is a contemporary love story about Deepak and Roshni, a young couple flung together in a traditional arranged marriage. The story authenticates the concept of an arranged marriage, which has prevailed in India for several hundred years. It centers on the conviction that husband and wife, strangers at the time of marriage, can develop a stronger love if they are honest and committed to each other. In Love after Marriage, Deepak and Roshni embark on the timeless journey of marriage, only to discover t... continue
5.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie EN
Description:
The story of Saleem Sinal, born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, the moment India became independent. Saleem's life parallels the history of his nation.
6.
No Presents Please by Jayant Kaikini EN
Description:
No Presents Please is a vivid evocation of city life, exploring the sub-locales and spatial identities of Mumbai and the struggles of small-town migrants. Jayant Kaikini's gaze takes in the people living on the margins - a bus driver who, when denied annual leave, 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. From Irani cafes to chawls, old cinema halls to local trains, the author seeks out and illuminates moments and feelings of existential anxiety, path... continue
7.
Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca EN
Description:
"Reha feels torn between two worlds: school, where she's the only Indian American student, and home, with her family's traditions and holidays. But Reha's parents don't understand why she's conflicted--they only notice when Reha doesn't meet their strict expectations. Reha feels disconnected from her mother, or Amma, although their names are linked--Reha means "star" and Punam means "moon"--but they are a universe apart. Then Reha finds out that her Amma is sick. Really sick. Reha, who dreams of becoming a doctor even though she can't stomach the sight of blood, is determined to make her Amma ... continue
8.
Reflections of an Extraordinary Era by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee EN
Description:
An inspirational and vivid behind-the-scenes biography of the Gandhi family and the tumult of India's independence by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. The granddaughter of both Gandhiji and Rajaji, Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee's childhood was peopled by freedom fighters and leaders who laid the foundation for an independent India. She is seventy-eight now, but there was a time when, as a sprightly little girl growing up in Delhi in the 1940s, Tara bore witness to World War II, the tumultuous run-up to India's freedom, its tragic partition and Gandhi's assassination in 1... continue
9.
The Newlyweds : Rearranging Marriage in Modern India by Mansi Choksi EN
Description:
"In India, there are 650 million people under the age of 35. These are men and women who grew up with the Internet, and the advent of smartphones and social media. But when it comes to love and marriage, they're expected to adhere to thousands of years of tradition. It's that tension between obeying tradition and accepting modernity that drives journalist Mansi Choksi's [book]"--
10.
The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani EN
Description:
Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family's past.