Hachette India | Jaya's blog

“Between Two Rivers” by Moudhy Al-Rashid

I read this book in one sitting. At times, it does get a little challenging to remember the names that are from the past, but after a while, even that is no longer an impediment to reading this marvellous book. Moudhy Al-Rashid falls in love with cuneiform by sheer accident. She is on her way to becoming a lawyer but one fine day, whiling away her time in London, she enrolls in an intensive course called “The Book in the Ancient World”. It changed her life. The British Museum tutor, Irving Finkel, showed his students artefacts from Mesopotamia and talked about their historical significance. To an untrained eye, like Moudhy Al-Rashid’s at the time, these artefacts looked like lumps of clay but as Finkel spoke, it became clear that clay tablets contained neat cuneiform writing from a different millennia. They had been dug up by Hormuzd Rassam, the Mosul-born archaeologist in 1881.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Moudhy Al-Rashid analyses prominent artefacts with cuneiform found in Mesopotamia. It is a fascinating set of essays. The last one is on the women mentioned especially Enheduanna.

In 2022, the BBC had published an article on Enheduanna as well. “Enheduanna: The world’s first named author“, 26 Oct 2022.

Here is the book blurb for Between Two Rivers. It is published by Hodder and Stoughton/ Hachette India:

Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog’s paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child’s teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world’s first museum, and a working mother struggling with ‘the juggle’ in 1900 BCE.

Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

I have never read a book on Mesopotamia that so beautifully brings to life the people themselves. There are beautiful descriptions of what it is to be pregnant, to give birth, to have small children, to love a dog. I love the way in which she’s not just writing about priests or kings, but is giving us a clay tablet on which a little child has bitten, so you have the imprint of his teeth. It melts away the sense of time. A wonderful read. — TOM HOLLAND

An ode to the power of history. It builds a persuasive case for history writing as a particularly human impulse, and for how lives of people living thousands of years ago can reflect and shape our modern lives in unexpected ways … Al-Rashid punctuates her prose with personal recollections and humour, as well as touching reflections on her experience of motherhood. She is our companion, tour guide and teacher … a plethora of fun historical facts … To write a book like this one, the author needs to have both mastery over the subject material and an engaging style of communication. Al-Rashid excels in both areas. For general audiences, Between Two Rivers is a fascinating, balanced introduction to this complex – and at times elusive – ancient world. ― The Conversation

This book is an extraordinary invitation to the magical land of Mesopotamia, written like your best friend is sitting with you next to a cozy fire with a warm drink, spinning mesmerizing tales of the fascinating land which birthed our modern world. It is a stunning debut effort, written by both a wonderful scholar and talented social media communicator. — PROFESSOR SARAH PARCAK

Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece. — GEORGE MONBIOT, author of Feral and The Invisible Doctrine

A marvellous book, which not only brims with humanity but offers fascinating and often funny insights into everyday life in this crucial era of world history. Fart jokes to exam stress, motherhood and tax evasion: you’ll find something here that reminds you that this ancient history is not as remote as you might think. Al Rashid describes her job of reading ancient Mesopotamian texts as like shaking hands with strangers. — JAMES BARR, author of A Line in the Sand

Her infectious enthusiasm imbues Between Two Rivers, a lively and beguiling history of ancient Mesopotamia … I found myself completely enthralled by an ancient period and civilisation I previously knew very little about. — CAROLINE SANDERSON ― What to Read Now

A lively portrait of this ancient civilisation … Al-Rashid is an engaging and knowledgeable guide … Many of her characters – bored schoolboys, tired parents and squabbling siblings – are extremely relatable … Between Two Rivers provides remarkable insights into ancient lives … even at a distance of nearly four millennia, it is impossible not be moved ― Sunday Times

A highly readable introduction to an era of history that deserves to be better known. — Starred Review ― Kirkus

Wonderfully vivid. ― Literary Review

A tender, moving and vivid history of ancient Mesopotamia and how it still speaks to us. — ROBERT MACFARLANE

Absorbing, learned and witty, Between Two Rivers is far more than an account of ancient Mesopotamia. Al-Rashid offers an ingenious, passionate ‘history of histories’, spinning outwards from relics collected by a royal priestess more than 2,500 years ago. In discovering familiar human joys and sorrows – surviving in times of peace and war, dealing with royal and divine demands, the desperate love for our children – we vividly witness how lives across the millennia are revealed and connected by archaeology and cuneiform. — REBECCA WRAGG SYKES author of Kindred

Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid’s must-read, millennia-spanning history, cleverly wrought from tablets written in the world’s oldest script … spellbinding … a fresh and very human portrait of the region… Through her clever sifting of the texts, we see how cuneiform … helped to bind these civilisations together across millennia… We also discover, in Al-Rashid’s vivid rendering of the texts, very moving details from the lives of real people in Mesopotamia over the ages … Al-Rashid’s academic background gives her a wonderful confidence as she roves around the literary and archaeological evidence. She is also a gifted storyteller, able to spin a yarn of gold from the very fragmentary sources … This is a delightful book, and a must-read for anyone interested in these civilisations. I hope it serves to shine a larger spotlight on this extraordinary period in humanity’s past. — Emily Wilson ― New Scientist

Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid is a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College, where she specialises in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. She completed her B.A. from Columbia University in Philosophy, and after a single day of learning about cuneiform texts at a summer school, decided to pursue the subject with a Master’s degree and eventually a Doctoral degree at the University of Oxford.

She has written for academic and popular journals, including History Today, on topics as diverse as mental illness in ancient Mesopotamia to Late Assyrian scholarly networks. In addition to her writing, she has also appeared on several podcasts, including the BBC Podcasts Making History and You’re Dead to Me. Through her Twitter account, which has over 27,000 followers, she hopes to give ancient Mesopotamia as wide an audience as possible and to humanise its long history. Originally from Saudi Arabia where she grew up, she now lives near Oxford with her family and their four dogs.

2 July 2025

“Travellers in the Golden Realm: How Mughal India Connected England to the World” by Lubaba Al-Azami

02 07 , 2025 No Comments

‘A compelling, highly readable account of the earliest phase of English presence in India’ NANDINI DAS, author of Courting India

When the first English travellers in India encountered an unimaginable superpower, their meetings would change the world.

Before the East India Company and before the British Empire, England was a pariah state. Seeking better fortunes, 16th and 17th century merchants, pilgrims and outcasts ventured to the kingdom of the mighty Mughals, attempting to sell coarse woollen broadcloth along the silk roads; playing courtiers in the Mughal palaces in pursuit of love; or simply touring the sub-continent in search of an elephant to ride.

Into this golden realm went Father Thomas Stephens, a Catholic fleeing his home; the merchant Ralph Fitch looking for jewels in the markets of Delhi; and John Mildenhall, an adventurer revelling in the highwire politics of the Mughal elite. It was a land ruled from the palatial towers by women – the formidable Empress Nur Jahan Begim, the enterprising Queen Mother Maryam al-Zamani, and the intrepid Princess Jahanara Begim. Their collision of worlds helped connect East and West, launching a tempestuous period of globalisation spanning from the Chinese opium trade to the slave trade in the Americas.

Drawing on rich, original sources, Lubaaba Al-Azami traces the origins of a relationship between two nations – one outsider and one superpower – whose cultures remain inextricably linked to this day.

Read an extract from the book published on Moneycontrol. The book is published by Hachette India.

Dr Lubaaba Al-Azami is a cultural historian and Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at the University of Manchester. Lubaaba is also Founding Editor of Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs, memorients.com), a transnational digital platform on premodern encounters between England and the Islamic Worlds.

2 July 2025

“A Man of Two Faces” by Viet Thanh Nguyen

16 06 , 2025 No Comments

Award-winning writer and academic Viet Thanh Nguyen is a name that many in the literary world are familiar with. As a Vietnamese-American, he is acutely aware of his two identities and the histories he carries within himself. This is one of the recurring themes of his memoir, A Man of Two Faces. He has written plenty of books, most notably his Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2016 The Sympathiser. It was recently turned into a TV series with Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr. His books are published in India by Hachette India.

In 2023-24, Viet Thanh Nguyen delivered the prestigious Norton Lectures. In the lectures as well as in the discussions that follow, he addresses many of the aspects of being an immigrant in the USA that are at the heart of his moving memoir A Man of Two Faces.

We have recorded more than 134 episodes of TOI Bookmark. Each one is special and memorable. Every conversation is unique. It was an honour and a privilege to record this episode with Viet Thanh Nguyen. He is exceptionally busy with a demanding schedule. Yet, once we had figured out a mutually convenient time to record, across time zones, days and dates, he was immensely courteous and gave us his focussed attention. It did not seem as if he had been in back-to-back meetings/interviews during the day. It was Memorial Weekend in the USA, but he was working.

It was a fascinating conversation about reading and writing memoirs while discussing his book A Man of Two Faces. Also, how he had to think through himself, think through the history of his family that he was dealing with, and think through the language he was going to use.

Read an extract from the book published on Moneycontrol.

Incidentally, 30 April 2025 marked fifty years since the conclusion of the Vietnam War.

Listen to the podcast on Spotify:

TOI Bookmark is a weekly podcast on literature and publishing. TOI is an acronym for the Times of India (TOI) which is the world’s largest newspaper and India’s No. 1 digital news platform with over 3 billion page views per month. The TOI website is one of the most visited news sites in the world with 200 million unique monthly visitors and about 1.6 billion monthly page views. TOI is the world’s largest English newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 4 million copies, across many editions, and is read daily by approximately 13.5 million readers. The podcasts are promoted across all TOI platforms. I have recorded more than 134+ sessions with Jnanpith, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shree awardees, International Booker Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, Women’s Prize for Fiction, Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize, Stella Prize, AutHer Awards, Erasmus Prize, BAFTA, Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction etc. Sometimes the podcast interviews are carried across all editions of the print paper with a QR code embedded in it.

Some of the authors who have been interviewed are: Banu Mushtaq, Deepa Bhashti, Samantha Harvey, Jenny Erpenbeck, Michael Hoffman, Paul Murray, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Hisham Matar, Anita Desai, Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzro, Venki Ramakishnan, Siddhartha Deb, Elaine Feeney, Manjula Padmanabhan, NYRB Classics editor and founder Edwin Frank, Jonathan Escoffery, Joya Chatterji, Arati Kumar-Rao, Paul Lynch, Dr Kathryn Mannix, Cat Bohannon, Sebastian Barry, Shabnam Minwalla, Paul Harding, Ayobami Adebayo, Pradeep Sebastian, G N Devy, Angela Saini, Manav Kaul, Amitav Ghosh, Damodar Mauzo, Boria Majumdar, Geetanjali Mishra, Viet Thanh Nguyen, William Dalrymple, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and Annie Ernaux.

16 June 2025

“Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Ship” by Ian Kumekawa

14 06 , 2025 No Comments

Hachette India very kindly sent a copy of this book. I cannot wait to read this. It is just the kind of material that I enjoy reading. If only I could finish my other deadlines asap.

‘Thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original’ PHILIPPE SANDS

A jaw-dropping microhistory of the global economy over the last fifty years told through the many lives of a single ship.

At 94 meters long and 9,500 deadweight tonnes, once called the Bibby Resolution, is an unremarkable hulk, crossing the oceans unnoticed. And yet, the astonishing journey of this boat can tell us the story of the modern world.

First built as a Swedish offshore oil rig in the 1970s, it went on to become a barracks for British soldiers in the Falklands War in the 1980s, a jail off New York in the 1990s, a prison in Portland in the 2000s, and accommodation for Nigerian oil workers off the coast of Africa in the 2010s. It has been called Safe Esperia, HMP The Weare, even ‘The Love Boat’. In each of its lives this empty vessel has been commanded by economic forces much larger than itself: private investment, war, mass incarceration, imperial interests, national sovereignty, inflation, booms, busts and greed.

Through its encounters with a world of island tax havens, the English court system, exploited labour forces, free banking zones or immigration politics, the ordinary boat at the heart of this story reveals our complex modern economy to us, connecting the dots of a dramatically changing world in the making, and warning us of its dangerous consequences.

Capitalism. International law. Imperial decline. National sovereignty. Inflation. Sectoral stagnation. Gentrification. Mass incarceration. Booms. Busts. Racism. Greed. Empty Vessel is the story of globalism in one boat. First built as a Swedish offshore oil rig in the 1970s, it went on to house British soldiers in the Falklands War in the 1980s, prisoners from Riker’s Island in New York’s East River in the 1990s, Volkswagen factory employees in Germany in the 2000s, and Nigerian oil workers off the coast of Africa in the 2010s. In each of its lives it arrived as an empty vessel, filled at the behest of both public and private interests, for purposes of war, incarceration, and commerce – connecting people thousands of miles apart, all shaped by the same global economic transformations. So much of our global economy is composed of specific innovations, decisions, and human experiences as concrete as the barnacles scraped off a hull. Through this party boat, prison, oil rig and war vessel. Empty Vessel reveals this economy to us – and warns of its troubling consequences.

In the astonishing trajectory of a humble barge, Empty Vessel delivers an ambitious history of the global economy, linking everything from oil-drilling and offshore finance to military deployments and mass incarceration. I’ve rarely read a book that so deftly entwines a single, accessible story with the broad forces of globalization. A stunningly original history, as phenomenally well-researched as it is eloquently told

— Maya Jasanoff, author of THE DAWN WATCH

Kumekawa’s tale of the Barge . . . is an imaginative and beautifully written allegory of the decades of globalization and the fugitive wealth it supported. What an eye-opening read!

— Charles S. Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University

A captivating story-I read it like a detective novel-and at the same time a profound contribution to the history of economic, financial and material life in the contemporary globalized world — Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History, Harvard University

Kumekawa brilliantly traces the history of one vessel to make the historical forces of globalization concrete. A riveting and important read that shows the strange ties between tax havens and trade, prisons and ports. Offshore is more than a concept; it is a place. Kumekawa is the ideal guide to that place and its complicated inner workings

— Heidi Tworek, Professor of History and Public Policy and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia

When the world went on lockdown, Ian Kumekawa took a different tack, tracking a single barge through its journey across the planet. What he discovers is the hidden material life and labor that make the global economy possible. A brilliant, unforgettable tale of our modern times — Eric Klinenberg, author of 2020

An ingenious, marvelous book. Ian Kumekawa has captured the big economic stories of the past half-century in the perambulations of a single ship. His Vessel drifts across the globe from one major upheaval to the next, a floating, steel witness to extraction, mass production, deindustrialization, incarceration, and war. The result is a high seas picaresque through the systems that tie the modern world together — Henry Grabar, author of PAVED PARADISE

A gripping tale-of a floating prison, the worlds of global and offshore capital in which such ships are moored, and the maritime and legal infrastructures that keep such worlds afloat, even amidst the tidal waves of economic and ecological disaster

— Surabhi Ranganathan, Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge

Empty Vessel, both the book and the accommodation container ship whose checkered history it unfolds, brilliantly illuminates the workings of a global offshore economy that would prefer to remain in the shadows, lingering on the margins of the law, thriving on secrecy, sleight of hand and tax avoidance. By following in the vessels’ wake Kumekawa’s riveting story reveals not just its physical use and functions-as accommodation for British troops, New York prisoners, oil workers, asylum seekers-but explains how the Vessel became an exemplary object caught up in global skeins/schemes of capital and finance — John Brewer, Professor Emeritus, Caltech Division of Humanities and Social Sciences

A thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original journey, told with a flair and reverence for detail that captures all the joys, travails and horrors of life across time, place and water. A fabulous book — Philippe Sands, author of EAST WEST STREET

Kumekawa is an excellent guide to this half a century moment in the history of capitalism. By focusing on something small and very local he allows us to see something big and very global: the forgoing of new inequalities, the retooling of global economic hierarchies, the refashioning of trade and industry, the feverish burning of fossil fuels and the violence and coercions embedded into the neoliberal order supervised by a powerful but recast state. The many-headed hydra of neoliberalism has found its chronicler — Sven Beckert, author of EMPIRE OF COTTON

If you’ve ever struggled to understand what terms like “globalisation” or “financialistion” actually mean, Empty Vessel is the book for you. Kumekawa combines in depth research with powerful storytelling to show the reader, in concrete terms, how modern capitalism really works – and how it has changed over the last several decades — Grace Blakeley, author of VULTURE CAPITALISM

A compelling voyage in and of itself, taking the reader on a journey around the global economy that illuminates the systemic blind spots of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century global economy. A trip on a barge that takes you further than you imagined — Kojo Koram, author of UNCOMMON WEALTH

14 June 2025

HACHETTE INDIA MD THOMAS ABRAHAM RETIRES, RITI JAGOORIE TO SUCCEED HIM

13 06 , 2025 No Comments

12 June 2025, New Delhi:

Hachette India announced that its founding Managing Director, Thomas Abraham, who has been instrumental in shaping the company and strengthening its philosophy, market presence and profitable growth for eighteen years has chosen to retire at the company’s retirement age.

Headhunted from his role as CEO & President of Penguin India, Abraham joined Hachette India as MD in 2007, steering the company from an INR 8 crore start-up to an INR 100 crore thriving publishing house; doing so for the second time (he’d earlier taken Penguin from a 30 cr level trebling turnover to the 100 cr bracket) .

Alongside growth, over the past few years Abraham delivered a steady bottom-line of over 15% unequalled by any other trade publishing company on both value and percentage terms. During his tenure, the company set several records for hardback sales on release, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Sachin Tendulkar’s Playing It My Way. While the company’s dominant revenue stream is from its imports, the local divisions publish an eclectic list that includes 100,000 plus sellers Indra Nooyi, Roopa Pai, as well as marquee authors Anuradha Roy, Manjula Padmanabhan, Cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, Chess World Champion Viswanathan Anand, Super Chefs Manish Mehrotra and Ritu Dalmia, and Business author Subroto Bagchi among others. Abraham personally curated and reissued a legacy imprint, Yellowbacks (comprising classics of adventure, crime and pulp fiction) in India which will be released in the UK and US at the end of 2025.

‘It’s been a tremendous journey, and I’ve loved every moment of it, but after 25 years of running operating companies, it’s time to step back and read something for pleasure beyond P&Ls and balance sheets. I’m delighted that I’m able to leave at an all-time high for us, and with the talented team we have, I have no doubt it will continue to go higher. This journey would not have been possible without the unstinting support from Richard Kitson, David Shelley, and Charlie King, the wonderful teams at Hachette India and Hachette UK’, said Abraham.

Richard Kitson, Deputy CEO of Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group and Chair of HUK International said: ‘Thomas has been the most amazing MD and colleague since he helped found Hachette India 18 years ago. Since then, the company has grown every year and is now the 3rd largest narrative trade publisher in the country with a brilliant team working there and so many individual successes that he has been responsible for. Thomas is one of the most strategic leaders I’ve had the pleasure to work with as well as being one of the warmest and most generous with his time and knowledge. He also knows more than anyone about such a diverse range of subjects, particularly the Hodder Yellowbacks, Sherlock Holmes and out of copyright authors in general, as well as jazz or classic rock music from the 60s and 70s. He will be hugely missed by us all at Hachette – in India and the wider group – and we wish him a long and happy retirement.’

Following Abraham’s retirement, Riti Jagoorie will step up from her current role as VP of Product & Marketing in January 2026 to lead the business, which has delivered growth of over 12% over the past ten years. Reporting to Charlie King, CEO of Hachette UK International, she will lead the Board at Hachette India.

Jagoorie joined Hachette India in 2008 as one of its first employees and the product manager for Little, Brown & Headline. Her exceptional performance saw her promoted to Head of Product and deliver strong results with UK divisions, including: Little, Brown, which grew from a INR 50 million list in 2008, to INR 350 million in 2024; Hodder from INR 20 million to INR 110 million, and Profile (represented in India by Hachette) from INR 23 million in 2013 to INR 175 million in 2024. She led the marketing and publicity campaign for Indra Nooyi’s My Life in Full, which has sold 140,000 copies since its release in 2021, and she picked and promoted bestsellers like The Devotion of Suspect X, The Silent Patient and The Empire of the Moghul series, to name a few. One of her key strengths has been her ability to work closely with booksellers across the country and curate the immense range of titles published by the Hachette group.

‘I feel so fortunate to be a part of Hachette India and to bring the brilliant books we publish to readers all over the world. It has been such a privilege to work with and learn from someone as incredibly knowledgeable, experienced and inspiring as Thomas. I am grateful to him for hiring me, for always encouraging and guiding me and for trusting me to take this company forward’, said Jagoorie. ‘I am also very thankful to the top leadership at Hachette: David, Richard and Charlie, for this amazing opportunity. Thomas has built a solid business with a great team and a fantastic track record and I am excited to step up and ensure that we honour that legacy and continue to deliver the best results – for our books and our authors’, she added.

Thomas Abraham remarked: ‘Riti has been with the company since it began operations from day one. She’s grown with the company, been absolutely integral to our success, and her contribution has been invaluable. I’m so pleased and proud that she will lead the business. Her instinct for books and her flair for business are exceptional, and I’m in no doubt that she will take the company to new heights.’

Group CEO Charlie King said: ‘I am absolutely delighted that Riti is stepping up to become MD of Hachette India. She has contributed so much to the business over her 17 years with Hachette as an integral member of Thomas Abrahams’ senior team. Riti has razor-sharp commercial instincts, strong editorial judgement, excellent people-skills and – most importantly – an exciting vision for the future of Hachette’s business in India. I am greatly looking forward to working with Riti and the team to continue building on an extraordinary time of growth under Thomas’s leadership.’
About Hachette India

Hachette India is the Indian arm of Hachette UK, which is the second largest trade publishing company in the world, and is itself owned by Hachette Livre, France’s largest publisher and part of the Lagardère Group. The Hachette Group is the oldest trade publisher in the world having celebrated 250 years in 2018.

The Bookseller, 12 June 2025

13 June 2025

“Test Cricket: A Biography: The Story of Test Cricket 1877 to Today” by Tim Wigmore

11 06 , 2025 No Comments

I absolutely enjoyed reading Tim Wigmore’s book on text cricket. I barely watch the game now but while reading the book, I realised how much I knew. Even if one is unfamiliar with the game or details, this is an absolutely delicious book. Tim Wigmore’s writing is as elegant as the game he writes about. It has been published by Hachette India.

The first narrative history of Test cricket as it nears its 150th birthday, telling the story of how the game has evolved since 1877, told through the moments and personalities that have shaped the format. With a focus on the game and its broader significance alike Tim Wigmore gives Test cricket its historical and social context, whilst reminding us that it’s unrivalled as a fascinating sporting spectacle. Meticulously researched and told with the passion of an award-winning writer, Test Cricket is also illuminated by a series of gripping fresh interviews with more than forty stars of international test cricket.

Here is a book extract published on Moneycontrol.

I interviewed Tim Wigmore for TOI Bookmark. Here is the Spotify link:

Tim Wigmore is the author of Test Cricket: A History, a new narrative history based on dozens of new interviews and years of research. He is also the author of Crickonomics, a Waterstones Sports Book of the Year, and Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, which won the Wisden Book of the Year and Daily Telegraph Cricket Book of the Year in 2020. He is a sports writer for The Daily Telegraph, and has also written for The Economist, The New York Times, ESPNCricinfo and The New Statesman.

11 June 2025

“The Unicorn Woman” by Gayl Jones

10 06 , 2025 No Comments

I have received a copy of Pulitzer Prize finalist Gayl Jones’s novel The Unicorn Woman. It has been published by Hachette India.

This extraordinary new novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not to glory, but to their Jim Crow communities.

A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he’s a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.

His odyssey takes him not only from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky to Memphis, Tennessee, but back into his own memories, as he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and his encounters with a dazzling array of almost mythical characters: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, bigots, and – most unforgettably – the Unicorn Woman herself.

With her inimitable eye for beauty, tragedy and humour, Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of the Black imagination in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.

Gayl Jones’s work represents a watershed in American literature. From a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable; from a historical standpoint, she stands at the very cutting edge of understanding the modern world, and as a Black woman writer, her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humour, and incisiveness, is unmatched. Jones is a writer’s writer, and her influence is found everywhere — Imani Perry

10 June 2025

“Raj Khosla: The Authorized Biography”

07 06 , 2025 No Comments

I received a copy of Raj Khosla: The Authorized Biography, published by Hachette India. It is the definitive biography. I am looking forward to reading it. Meanwhile, here is the book blurb.

The 1940s witnessed the scripting of an origin story that would go down in the books. A young man was signed on by Guru Dutt as assistant director after eager assurances of his competency in Hindi, a white lie that was soon unmasked.

This was Raj Khosla, an aspiring playback singer, eager to get a foot in the door any which way. In a plot twist he would have approved of, he became instead a filmmaker who made a habit of hits, routinely setting the box office on fire.

He made taut thrillers (C.I.D.) , family dramas (Do Raaste) , timeless romances (Do Badan) and action spectacles (Dostana) . Few filmmakers have demonstrated such versatility and command over their craft. He was behind some of Hindi cinema’s most enduring soundtracks, from ‘Lag ja gale’ to ‘Jhumka gira re’ to ‘Jaane kya baat hai’. Yet, Raj’s legacy remains confined to the odd footnote. Through interviews with family, friends and coworkers – including Asha Bhosle, Waheeda Rehman, Mumtaz, Asha Parekh, Sharmila Tagore, Dharmendra, Manoj Kumar, Prem Chopra, Bindu, Mahesh Bhatt and Aamir Khan – this biography addresses this glaring gap in the history of Bollywood. Examining Raj Khosla’s work, it reveals a director and a man who was as talented and sensitive as he was flawed. The result is a tender treatment that lays bare a caring employer,a

Napoleon fanboy, a maudlin soul who wore his heart on his sleeve, a passionate lover of music, and a man who transformed Hindi cinema.

Amborish Roychoudhury is the author of In a Cult of Their Own: Bollywood Beyond Box Office and Sridevi: The South Years. His work has appeared in Hindustan Times, Firstpost and Outlook India, among others. His first book won him a special mention at the 66th National Film Awards. He has served on film festival juries and explores India’s cinematic legacy through his work.

Anita Khosla did her postgraduation in mass media from Sophia College, Mumbai, and went on to pursue a career in journalism, writing for Screen, Filmfare and Eve’s Weekly back in the 1980s. Today, she serves as the proprietor of Raj Khosla Films, is a proud mother and grandmother, and lives in Gurugram.

Uma Khosla Kapur, an alumnus of St. Bede’s College, Simla, is a homemaker, wife and mother, in addition to being a director at Raj Khosla Films. She has inherited her father’s great passion for music, and lives with her husband G.M. Kapur in Kolkata.

7 June 2025

Introducing the Summer of GRISHAM

04 06 , 2025 No Comments

Hachette India has released a new look for the legal thrillers by John Grisham. They are these gorgeous summery colours. Surprisingly, the use of various shades of pink/flame pink seem to do wonders for the new book jackets. The covers shown in the Amazon India links below are of the older editions. Nevertheless, they will take you directly to the book page to choose whichever option you would like to buy.

John Grisham is the author of more than fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge’s List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

4 June 2025

“Our Future is Biotech” by Andrew Craig

30 05 , 2025 No Comments

Welcome to the biotech revolution

In the last century, technology has transformed the human experience across the world. This has been super-charged by the arrival of the internet, smart phones, AI and machine learning, and created trillion-plus dollar companies and household names like Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Our Future is Biotech explains why biotech is next: because our biggest remaining challenges as a species concern biological systems.

Biotech companies will solve our most intractable problems, from cancer, dementia, obesity and diabetes to elderly care, mental health conditions, and even clean power generation, agricultural production and environmental degradation.

Biotech means that we can all live better, safer, healthier, wealthier, happier, and longer lives. The industry has already delivered “miracle cures” for several diseases, and there is more to come. But despite this, few people are aware of the phenomenal progress being made. Our Future is Biotech addresses this, explaining what biotech is, what is coming next, and how you might profit from it too.

Tech has been the most important theme for human progress for the last century. Biotech is next.

The book has been published by Hachette India.

Read an extract from the book on Moneycontrol.

Andrew Craig is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and founder of personal finance business Plain English Finance. His stated mission with the company is “to improve the financial affairs of as many people as possible”.

Andrew’s first book, How to Own the World, has been one of the top-selling personal finance books in the UK for several years, and currently enjoys thousands of reviews across Amazon, Audible and Goodreads. It has also been published in China, India and Vietnam.

Since founding Plain English Finance, Andrew has appeared in numerous national and specialist financial publications including: The Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, The Financial Times, The Mirror, City A.M., The Spectator, Shares and MoneyWeek magazines, YourMoney, This is Money and Money Observer. He has been interviewed on Sky Television, Bloomberg and Shares Radio, and was featured in Michael Winterbottom’s 2015 documentary-comedy The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Andrew began his finance career at SBC Warburg in the late 1990s. Since then, he has held various senior equity roles at leading investment banks, both in London and New York. In that time, Andrew has met with the senior management teams of well over one thousand companies and with hundreds of professional investors, and has regularly been involved in high-profile stock market transactions. These have included the Kingdom of Sweden’s sale of Nordea Bank AB in 2013 (totalling 7.6 billion dollars) and the stock market flotation of several dozen companies including the likes of easyJet, Burberry, Campari, Carluccio’s, the Carbon Trust and lastminute.

From January 2015 to June 2021, Andrew was a partner at an investment bank specializing in biotechnology and life sciences, WG Partners LLP.

Andrew lives in Hampshire, England, with his wife, Rachel, and their two small children, Ella and Oscar.

30 May 2025

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