New Releases – February 2022
10 min read
A comprehensive list of New Releases from Asia – this list includes some soon-to-release and some already released titles.
Achieving Meaningful Success: Unleash the Power of Me! by Dr Vivek Mansingh and Rachna Thakurdas
About this Book
This book will be an adept lifetime mentor faithfully by your side to guide you through various stages of life. It guides you in achieving meaningful success including tremendous professional success through multidimensional and balanced life goals, which are the key to happiness and fulfilment. The book first focuses on defining the person you aspire to be through a step-by-step process to define your aspirational life goals. Then it guides you in becoming the best version of yourself and worthy of realizing your aspirations. The ideas shared are relevant to people of ages fifteen years onwards, from high school students to early and senior professionals to CEOs. It also includes insights from exclusive interviews with Ratan Tata, Narayan Murthy, Kiran Majumdar-Shaw, Sadhguru, John Chambers, Dr Devi Shetty, Rahul Dravid, Prakash Padukone, Vinita Bali, Vani Kola, and more. These distinguished people have achieved amazing success by passionately pursuing their goal-based journeys and have underlined the ideas shared in the book.
About the Author
Dr Mansingh is a mentor par excellence and is in pursuit of “Mentoring A Million”. He is a global leader, entrepreneur, author, technology visionary, innovator, international speaker and philanthropist. His mentoring strategies have helped thousands of people around the world. He had the privilege of working with David Packard, Bill Hewlett, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and John Chambers. He is currently a GP at YourNest VC Fund and sits on the board of several global organizations. Previously, he served as president, Cisco & Dell R&D; MD, Ishoni Networks (acquired by Philips) and Portal Software (acquired by Oracle). Before returning to India, he held management positions at HP and Fujitsu in Silicon Valley. He was also the founder of ATTI (Aavid) in the US. He is a Gold Medallist from NIT Allahabad, PhD from Queen’s University, Canada, and EMBA at Stanford University. He has six US patents, and vital contributions to two technology books. He is listed in the National Who’s Who of USA, received Chanakya Leadership Award, and IT Man of the Year 2016 from Enterprise Connect, USA.
Rachna Thakurdas Singh has published several books. Her debut novel Dating, Diapers and Denial remained on the bestsellers stand for over a year. The New Indian Express hailed her as a ‘part of the new wave of genuinely funny, smart and self-aware women writers in the country’.
Apples & Oranges: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO IMPLEMENT D&I FOR ORGANISATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS
About the Book
‘Apples and Oranges’ is a compilation of everyday life stories. It expects you to be humane and brutally honest with yourself to make the ultimate change. This is a workbook that kick starts your journey towards a change that is inevitable for the future of work.
About the Authors
Dr. Varsha Sreevatsa has a Ph.D in Psychology. During her Ph.D studies, she worked towards creating awareness on child rights and believes that everyone should be treated fair and equal. This combined with an understanding of people’s power of unique abilities and thought processes, inspired her to found LetsDRIVE, create frameworks and assessments to measure and implement Cognitive Diversity and Total Inclusion and also write a book which organisations and individuals can use to easily implement an impactful inclusion culture.
Rajeev Menon, is an experienced product & innovation professional and a business strategist. He has been working in the area of Human Capital Measurement for over 16 years and is an elected board member of EAA (e-Assessment Association) . He is also on the board of Snehadhara Foundation, a not for profit that uses the Arts as a medium for building an Inclusive Society for those with Mental Disabilities. At LetsDRIVE , he works to evangelise and consult on Cognitive Diversity and Total Inclusion. He brings insights on the conceptual framework, product design and consumer psychology to the global audience. Rajeev also writes and consults on HR practices, technology & business and mentors startups. A student of people practices and interactions in organizations, he believes that technology will impact interactions very positively and help improve employee interconnections from transactional to collaborative.
Knotted Grief by Naveen Kishore
About the Book
In his first book of poems, renowned publisher Naveen Kishore shows us—without holding back, and yet with compassion—grief, deep and bewildering; cruelties, public and private. He lays bare the nature of our outer and inner realities, using striking symbolism to reveal what humans are capable of doing to each other. The early part of the collection, ‘Kashmiriyat’, is a visceral monument to shadows, widows and unlived lives, constructed with one hundred and five stanzas. In the ‘selected griefs’ that follow, the wounds are intimate, everyday, but the images remind us of the world’s brutalities—and what, then, is innocent? By depicting large-scale human tragedies and familiar habits and hurts within the same covers, the poet tests himself, and us.
About the Author
Born in Calcutta in 1953, Naveen Kishore received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 1973, and began working as a theatre lighting designer. He established Seagull Books in 1982, a publishing programme focusing on drama, film, art and culture studies. Today, it also publishes literature, including poetry, fiction and non-fiction.
Kishore is the recipient of the Goethe Medal, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and was awarded the 2021 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. He lives and works in Calcutta.
Villany by Upamanyu Chatterjee
About the Book
Walkers in a Delhi neighbourhood park come upon a body on a mid-winter morning—an unidentified body, unremarkable but for an extraordinary scar right between the eyes.
A delinquent teenager—who prefers, to the rest of living, an Ecstasy pill with a beer, and the interior of an expensive car with a gun in his pocket—leaves home one evening for a joyride in his father’s Mercedes.
In the nineteen years separating these episodes, five killings take place—and one near-fatal battery—none of which would have happened if a school bus hadn’t been in the wrong lane. Deals are struck between masters and servants, money changes hands, assurances are given and broken. The wheels of justice turn, forward, backwards and sideways, pause and turn again. Old alliances are tested and new ones are formed in prison cells, mortuaries and court rooms. And every life is a gamble, for no one is entirely innocent.
A meticulously crafted literary thriller, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s seventh novel is a riveting story of crime and retribution, and a meditation on the randomness of evil, death and redemption. It will keep you spellbound till the end.
About the Author
Upamanyu Chatterjee is the celebrated author of English, August: An Indian Story (1988), The Last Burden (1993), The Mammaries of the Welfare State (2000), Weight Loss (2006), Way to Go (2011), and Fairy Tales at Fifty (2014)—all novels;The Revenge of the Non-vegetarian (2018), a novella; and The Assassination of Indira Gandhi (2019), a collection of long stories.
He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2000, and in 2008, he was awarded the Order of Officier des Arts etdes Lettres by the French Government for his contribution to literature.
Rising: 30 Women who changed India by Kiran Manral
About the Book
With stories of 30 amazing contemporary Indian women, this book looks at what shaped them, the challenges they faced, the influences they had, the choices they made and how they negotiated around or broke the boundaries that sought to confine them, either through society or circumstance. From diverse backgrounds, different generations, they have risen through sheer grit, determination, bolstered with passion, and are, today, names to look up to, to hold out as examples to the next generation of young women and girls, giving them courage to reach out to their dreams.
From politics to sport, from the creative and performing arts to cinema and television, from business leaders to scientists, legal luminaries and more, this book features the stories of these much celebrated, fabulous women: Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dikshit, Fathima Beevi, Mahasweta Devi, Amrita Sher-Gil, Amrita Pritam, Sonal Mansingh, Lata Mangeshkar, Anita Desai, M.S. Subbulakshmi, Harita Kaur Deol, Madhuri Dixit, Bachendri Pal, Rekha, Chhavi Rajawat, Karnam Malleswari, Shailaja Teacher, Hima Das, Naina Lal Kidwai, Shakuntala Devi, P.T. Usha, P.V. Sindhu, Ekta Kapoor, Kiran Bedi, Mary Kom, Menaka Guruswamy, Tessy Thomas, Aparna Sen, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Gayatri Devi, among others.
About the Author
Kiran Manral is an award-winning and bestselling author, TEDx speaker, columnist and mentor. She has written books across genres in both fiction and non-fiction. She lives in Mumbai.
Annus Horribilis: Poems by Avinab Datta-Areng
About the Book
Annus Horribilis is concerned with the violence of thinking, alone. The voices in these poems move through relationships, family, friendship, external disintegration, the labour of loving, being loved and of caring, where they are constantly confronted with the familiar turning foreign, the quotidian becoming a scene of absolute hostility, and where a word otherwise spoken easily becomes incommunicable. The book grapples with a (habitually futile) desire to communicate what should only be communicable-looking for some friend in language-that won’t lead to misunderstanding or, worse, silence. It searches for a language in which thought might survive and perhaps even reach out towards others.
About the Author
Avinab Datta-Areng currently lives in Goa. He’s been a recipient of the Charles Pick fellowship and the Vijay Nambisan fellowship. He’s also the editor of nether. This is his first book.
Little Cub Says Bye-Bye Board book by Suvi Naidoo and Nirzara Verulkar (Illustrator)
About the Book
When the day is over, it is nice to say goodbye to everyone around us. So here is Little Cub, saying bye-bye to all that he sees—from the sun and trees, to his friends Deer, Bulbul and Gharial. To each one, Little Cub says goodbye in a new way. Bright and cheerful, Little Cub Says Bye-bye will show young ones that it is nice to say bye-bye, and also teach some new words for goodbye.
About the Author
Suvi Naidoo is a children’s writer and storyteller based in Bombay.
Stars from the Borderless Sea by Shalini Mullick
About the Book
What is true love? Who are soulmates? Can love be defined by the constructs of society and convention? Can an affair rescue a marriage? Can true love ever tear people apart?
Two college mates fall in love, only to be separated-their love stays steady, though they meet just twice in forty years. A close-knit family, shadows from the past, a lingering suspicion, and a relationship put to the test. An emotionally unavailable husband, a hurt wife; and an affair that redeems and transforms.
Three strong women, and their journeys. And love, as mature and strong as them. In these times of speed dating, hook-ups, and break-ups, Stars from the Borderless Sky, a collection of three riveting stories, takes an unconventional, honest, empathetic look at that most universal of human emotions—love.
About the Author
Shalini is a writer with a diverse portfolio spanning fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her flash fictions, drabbles and stories have been featured on many online platforms. She was selected as Juggernaut Selects author for her e-single “Happily Divorced”. She was also one of the winners of the eShe short story contest. She has published 2 short stories each in the anthologies “Sharing Lipstick” and “Women.Mutiny”. One of her short stories was selected for publication in the anthology “Everything Changed After That”, which was unveiled at the Ananke Women in Literature Festival in 2021. Her work on many reputed platforms like eShe Magazine, Women’s Web, Eyra magazine and Incredible Women of India has been well received. She was awarded the Orange Flower Award for Short Fiction in 2022, and for writing on LGBTQ+ issues in 2021.
She was also a finalist for the same award for writing on humour in 2021. She was also the winner of the #tellastoryinsixwords Challenge by Crossword bookstores and a judge for myWish4U talent contest organized by Smile Foundation. She has won the ‘Muse of The Month’ contest organized by Women’s Web on multiple occasions. Shalini empathizes with the challenges and unique situations that women are often confronted with and weaves this understanding in her writing. In her other avatar, she is a practicing doctor, specializing in respiratory pathology with many scientific research papers and textbook chapters to her credit. Medical Humanities is an area in which she has a keen interest, and her poetry has been published in reputed journals.
She is copyeditor and on the Review board of the journal ‘Research and Humanities in Medical Education’. A late entrant to the world of writing, Shalini finds it takes her away from noise, and towards silence. It is also a good excuse to avoid hitting the gym; and stops her from helicopter parenting her teenage children. She is happiest in the company of books, chocolate and old Hindi movie songs. Though she has beautiful memories of her years in Bangalore and has now put down roots in Gurgaon, she remains a Dilliwali at heart. Stars from the Borderless Sea is her first book. You can read more about her at http://www.shalinimullick.com
If you are interested in reviewing any of these titles, please write to editor@kitaabinternational.com.
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