December Picks: Five New Books by Indian Writers You Need to Read

Someone to Love by Ruchita Misra

Koyal and Atharv are best friends, and it’s obvious that they’re destined for each other. But somehow, they don’t seem to know it just yet. They grow closer and closer together, turning to each other for everything. But fate intervenes, and Koyal finds herself trapped in a damaging relationship that hacks away at every inch of self-respect she possess, while Atharv moves away and carves a life for himself with someone else. Many, many years later, when their paths cross once again, will their destinies be interlinked at last? Or have they already lost their chance to find someone to love? From the bestselling author Ruchita Misra, here is another moving story of learning to love all over again.

(To buy your copy online, click here: http://amzn.to/2ieke82)

50 Films That Changed Bollywood, 1995-2015 by Shubhra Gupta

In 1995, with the release of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the nature of Hindi cinema changed. A new crop of film-makers began to challenge and break away from established tropes. Over the next twenty years, a number of Hindi films have consistently pushed the envelope in terms of content and technique, creating a new kind of cinema, one that was often at par with international standards.

Shubhra Gupta looks at fifty such modern classics that have redefined Hindi cinema. While analysing how these films – from DDLJ and Rangeela to Satya and Dev. D to Bajrangi Bhaijaan – have shaped and impacted popular culture, she also offers a fascinating glimpse into the changing patterns of film-making in India.

(To buy your copy online, click here: http://amzn.to/2hoQsvj)

What the Nation Really Needs to Know: The JNU Nationalism Lectures

Who or what is ‘anti-national’? The question was foregrounded in a series of unprecedented events that unfolded in Jawaharlal Nehru University from February 2016. As a creative response, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association organized a teach-in for a month between 17 February and 17 March 2016. The lectures addressed the meanings, histories and experience of nationalism, and its unresolved dilemmas, in India and beyond.

The teach-in lectures soon gained unanticipated audiences across India and in international forums. The book, therefore, is both an archive of that historic moment and a tribute to the effort that succeeded in refocusing national attention on the university as the space for sustaining serious, well-historicized and critical thought.

(To buy your copy online, click here: http://amzn.to/2iemX1n)

Becoming Resilient: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to Transform Your Life by Nimmi Hutnik

Do you often wake up dreading the day, feeling low? Do you feel tired all the time?

This book is for those who suffer bouts of depression and anxiety and other difficult emotions like anger, jealousy, panic, shame and guilt. It will help you learn to deal with difficult moods and enable you to manage stress better and improve your relationships. But it doesn’t stop there. Once you are on a level keel emotionally, it will empower you to develop a platform for resilience and growth in your life, and provide a road to that ultimate goal: happiness.

The author, Nimmi Hutnik, is an accredited cognitive behaviour therapist and a chartered counselling psychologist and she provides therapy, coaching and supervision in person and via Skype.

(To buy your copy online, click here: http://amzn.to/2hNIpcn)

Standing on an Apple Box: The Story of a Girl among the Stars by Aishwaryaa Rajinikanth Dhanush

This memoir in vignettes offers unexpected glimpses into Aishwaryaa’s own life and that of her stupendously popular father, actor and superstar Rajinikanth. With heart-warming honesty, it reflects on the many roles a woman has to juggle at home and outside – often, as in her case, under the eyes of cameras and celebrity-watchers.

The book was published to coincide with her father’s birthday, and is full of delightful stories and memories of growing up in cinema-land. It’s intensely personal, but also inspirational in the way it reflects on the joys and difficulties of being a woman in our time.

(To buy your copy online, click here: http://amzn.to/2htjjSv)