BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS WEEK

A Place in My Heart

Anupama Chopra

Penguin Random House, Rs 499

‘A Place in My Heart’ is a many-splendoured thing. It is a listicle. It is a celebration of the power of storytelling. It is also an account of a life lived in the Bollywood trenches. National Award-winning author, journalist and film critic Anupama Chopra writes about fifty films, artistes, and events that have left an indelible impression on her and shaped her twenty-five-year-long career. Shah Rukh Khan is here. So are ‘Super Deluxe’ and the Cannes Film Festival. ‘A Place in My Heart’ is a blend of recommendations and remembrances, nostalgia and narratives. It is a smorgasbord of cinematic delights, written, as Marie Kondo would say, to ‘spark joy.’ Above all, this book is a testament to Anupama Chopra’s enduring love for all things cinema.

A SACRED JOURNEY: THE KEDARA KALPA SERIES OF PAHARI PAINTINGS AND THE PAINTER PURKHU OF KANGRA

Karuna Goswamy & B.N. Goswamy

Niyogi Books, Rs 3,000

The Kedara Kalpa is a relatively little-known Shaiva text; and only slightly better known than it are the two dispersed series of paintings to which this study is devoted. But both raise questions that are at once elegant and deeply engaging. Ostensibly, they treat of a journey by five seekers who set out to reach the realm of the great god, Shiva—walking barefoot through icy mountains and deep ravines, frozen rivers and moon-like rocks, running on the way into temptations and dangers the like of which no man before them had encountered—and, in the end, succeed. The text is visualised with brilliance sometimes by members of a talented family of Pahari painters.

Classified: Hidden Truths in the ISRO Spy Story

J. Rajasekharan Nair

Srishti Publishers, Rs 350

Did you know that the CIA had sabotaged ISRO’s top secret operation to transfer cryogenic rocket technology from Russia to India? Ever wondered what is the real reason why S. Nambi Narayanan does not want the whole truth behind the ISRO spy story to surface? Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was rocked by a spy case in 1994, taking down in its wake six persons, including S. Nambi Narayanan. They were blamed for passing critical rocket technology to a neighbouring nation and booked for the same. Classified exposes the hidden truth behind the spy story and how it highlighted the fractures of our premier institutions. It shows us how the spy case stripped them bare, down to their bones.