On the racks – October 20
Work Hard-ly
Author : Monica Iyengar
Publisher : Rupa Publications
Pages : 118; ₹170
Divided into 13 chapters, the book discusses time management, team management, balancing professional and personal life, leadership qualities, women in the workplace, and more for the younger generation with a short attention span. In the corporate world, curb your enthusiasm and learn from the lazy, smooth-talking colleague how to tilt the system in your favour with tips from this book. Anecdotes of a crazy boss, nosey co-workers, and a clueless HR will leave you chuckling. For those who often wonder why the incompetent ones are doing better, this book will help in making you efficient and reduce work pressure.
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The Rape Trial
Author : Bidisha Ghosal
Publisher : Notion Press
Pages : 548; ₹555
Beyond a courtroom drama this book narrates the story of Avni Rambha, a rape victim. Rapist Rahul Satyabhagi, son of a rich and powerful politician, is acquitted, despite having strong evidence against him. Rahul goes on to become the leader of a men’s rights activist group. Eight years later, a video of Rahul obscenely describing the rape turns up on the internet. But no arrest happens. Even more powerful now, he decides to silence everyone involved in exposing him. Little does he know that he is going to meet Avni’s friends Hitaishi and Amrutha, who have decided to punish him. Meanwhile, rapists in the city are being kidnapped, tortured and dumped on the streets. A team under DC Dixit investigate the gruesome torture of Rahul Satyabhagi. Are the three friends behind it?
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Burnt Sugar
Author : Avni Doshi
Publisher : Hamish Hamilton
Pages : 240; ₹1,407
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 this is a love story about love and betrayal between a mother and a daughter. Tara, a wild woman in her youth, abandons her loveless marriage to live in an ashram with her child Antara, and falls in love with a guru. Antara retells her tale about living at the ashram, and her suffering under her mother’s self-centered version of self-actualisation. Now Tara is old and forgetful and Antara is tasked with taking care of her mother she never loved. This book talks about the change of roles from being a daughter to becoming a caregiver for an elderly mother and portrays the complicated feelings a caregiver can experience. The anger and helplessness that stems from the feeling of being inadequate in the role of a daughter to being taken for granted while the sick person is showered with understanding and pity, this book is packed with unsettling emotions.
