| This is a book about sex, love and rock and roll, and about the dreams of youth colliding head-on with the grown-up world, centred on the adventures of three young men. |
| It's a hot summer night in 1977 "" the day that Elvis Presley dies "" and Terry is back from Berlin, basking in the light of his friendship with legendary rock star Dag Wood. But when Dag arrives in London he sets his sights on Terry's photographer girlfriend. |
| Meanwhile, Ray is the only writer on the music weekly "The Paper" who refuses to cut his hair and stop wearing flares. |
| But John Lennon is in town for just one night and Ray believes that if he can interview the reclusive Beatle, he can save his job. And then there's Leon, who is on the run from a gang called the Dagenham Dogs who have taken exception to one of his bitchy reviews. |
| Endless Rain Meera Arora Nayak Penguin Books India 324 pages Rs 295 |
| On the evening of 17 December 1971, Indira Gandhi declares ceasefire against Pakistan, seemingly bringing an end to months of violence and terror along the Indo-Pak border. |
| At just about the same time, in the Kashmir Valley, Salahudin Bhatt has reason to celebrate: the birth of a grandson, whom he names Ali, after Islam's greatest warrior. |
| Yet, Salahudin is uneasy, for the boy's father has inadvertently spoken the words of war in the child's ear, and who knows what that might portend? |
| Despite Salahudin's best efforts to keep the boy out of harm's way with mystic formulas and charms, Ali grows up strangely at odds with the world around him. |
| The minor afflictions in his life, of which there are many, are compounded by the animosity he feels towards Ayesha, his eldest sister, with whom he shares an unspeakable secret. |
| Then, when Ali is eleven, the family is struck by a terrible tragedy. Caught in a haze of disillusionment and youthful idealism as he comes face to face, for the first time, with the horrors wreaked on his beloved Kashir, Ali takes a decision that will change his life, and that of his family, for good. |
| Evoking in fascinating detail the legends and rituals of Kashmiri life as well as the desolation of a land torn apart at its very seams, Endless Rain is a poignant tale about ordinary lives trapped in violent times. |
| Raj of the Rani by Tapti Roy Penguin Books India Rs 295 236 pages |
| The life of the warrior queen of Jhansi has inspired historians, writers and, more recently, film-makers. But for the first time, in biographer Tapti Roy's vivid rendition, Lakshmi Bai is located within the wider context of her time and space. |
| In the uprising of 1857 which came to be known as the "First War of Indian Independence", she was a singular figure in a gallery of heroes. |
| Rani Lakshmi Bai also became the protagonist in a different kind of story "" fiction by British writers to dramatise the horrific experience of the mutiny in which an Oriental queen, full of passion, added a thrilling dimension. |
| But despite an incredible career, it took 80 years for Indians to write a comprehensive description of Rani Lakshmi Bai's life. This is the story of how a young Marathi woman came to wield so much influence in a strongly Rajput-dominated region in the grip of an alien power. |
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