| Noted Kannada writer Vaidehi is hailed by critics and readers alike for her evocative portrayal of the inner world of women. |
| She writes with deep compassion and understanding about women who live amidst sorrow and poverty but somehow find the strength to go on living. |
| She focuses on the ordinariness of their lives, writing about the midwife turned gatekeeper at the town's new cinema, the half-crazed woman who thinks she's pregnant, the compulsions of an honest but poor man's wife, or the upheaval caused when a girl confesses to her neighbour that she wants to be a prostitute. |
| The stories, which are full of wry humour and acute social description, are celebrations of the fact that "a wave once created only grows bigger and bigger; it can never recede". |
| Harum-Scarum Saar and Other Stories Bama (translated by N Ravi Shanker) Women Unlimited 105 pages Rs 150 |
| A collection of short stories set amongst the lower-caste Dalits of Tamil Nadu, this translation retains all the piquance and inventiveness of the original "Kisumbukkaran". The weapons of the weak here are the bawdy, irreverent language they use against their upper-caste "betters" and the accumulation of small acts of defiance. |
| The rustic humour takes the indignity of lower-caste life in its stride and the stories bristle with the raw energy and vitality that comes from living close to the ground (Bama herself is a lower-caste Dalit). |
| Like the Flowing River Paulo Coelho Harper Collins Rs 295 232 pages |
| This is an intimate collection of Coelho's "reflections and stories", written between 1998 and 2005. The author offers his personal thoughts on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, travelling and the nature of good and evil. An old woman explains to her grandson how a mere pencil can show him the path to happiness. |
| Instructions on how to climb a mountain reveal the secret to making your dreams a reality. The story of Genghis Khan and the falcon is about the folly of anger and the art of friendship. |
| The tales cover life and death, destiny and choice, love lost and found "" in short, everything that has combined to make Coelho one of the most popular (and inevitably, among the most mocked) writers of the past decade. |
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