Tag: History
Showing all 7 results
A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes
Rs. 1,990.00Read moreStephen Hawking
- Royal Society Science Book Prize Nominee for General Prize (1989)
‘Master of the Universe…One scientist’s courageous voyage to the frontiers of the Cosmos’ ― Newsweek
‘This book marries a child’s wonder to a genius’s intellect. We journey into Hawking’s universe, while marvelling at his mind’ ― The Sunday Times
‘He can explain the complexities of cosmological physics with an engaging combination of clarity and wit…His is a brain of extraordinary power’ ― Observer
‘To follow such a fine mind as it exposes such great problems is an exciting experience’ ― The Sunday Times
Becoming
Rs. 2,990.00Read moreMichelle Obama
- #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
- OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
- NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER
- ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS
- BRITISH BOOK AWARDS, NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
- THE SUNDAY TIMES, MEMOIR OF THE YEAR
- BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, EVENING STANDARD
- Audie Award for Autobiography/Memoir (2020)
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Current Interest (2018)
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Memoir & Autobiography (2018)
- NAACP Image Award Nominee for Biography/Autobiography (2019)
An inspirational memoir that also rings true — Gaby Wood ― Daily Telegraph, Five Stars
Obama’s memoir is a genuine page-turner, full of intimacies and reflections. . . Allied to this candour is a steeliness of purpose. It is no exaggeration to say that every page of this book is, explicitly or otherwise, a reproach to Donald Trump, and a call-to-arms to those who would defeat the 45th President and all that he stands for — Matt D’Ancona ― Evening Standard
This is a rich, entertaining and candid memoir. And overall she’s a fun person to sit alongside as she tells you the story of her life, warts and all. . . it is as beautifully written as any piece of fiction, with a similar warm languid tone to Ann Patchett’s novel Commonwealth — Viv Groskop ― i, Five Stars
This revealing memoir offers new insights into her upbringing on the south side of Chicago and the highs and lows of life with Barack Obama. . . Becoming is a 400-page expansion of this essential doctrine [‘when they go low, we go high’], without compromising a refreshing level of honesty about what politics really did to her. I have read Barack Obama’s two books so far, and this is like inserting a missing piece of reality into the narrative of his dizzying journey — Afua Hirsch ― Guardian
I found myself lifting my jaw from my chest at the end of every other chapter, not because of any seedy insight into stories I’d always wondered about, but because, armed as I was with knowledge about her career, her mannerisms, and even her elbow-heavy dancing, this was not the Obama I thought I knew. She was more — Kuba Shand-Baptiste ― Independent
Inspiring. . . After 421 pages of Becoming, I closed the book hoping that one day she would use her formidable intelligence, humanity – and humour – to offer a more tangible vision for how America might fight the rising tides of polarisation and hate ― Financial Times
Open and engaging. . . Obama writes with candour about the good times and bad ― Daily Express
Of course, Becoming is Michelle Obama’s story, of how she moved from a girl on the South Side of Chicago to becoming one of the most powerful women in the world. But in the final pages of the book, Obama writes, “It’s all a process, steps along a path. Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor.” Here, Obama is pushing us to reckon with our own becomings – to realise our own story and to have the power to tell it ― The Pool
She’s a woman we’ve all fallen in love with because she radiates joy and wisdom, and Becoming encapsulate this perfectly. It’s also deeply honest – reading it makes you feel as though she’s your close friend opening up to you ― Red Online
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Rs. 2,490.00Read moreSteven Pinker
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2018)
- THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
‘Bristles with pure, crystalline intelligence, deep knowledge and human sympathy’ –Richard Dawkins
My new favourite book of all time — Bill Gates
Pinker is right. Not just a bit right, but completely, utterly, incontrovertibly right … for most people, life is better, even if they don’t realise it — Dominic Sandbrook ― Daily Mail
Brimming with surprising data and entertaining anecdotes … a genuinely enlightening book — Jan-Werner Müller ― Financial Times
In Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker extols the amazing achievements of modernity, and demonstrates that humankind has never been so peaceful, healthy and prosperous. There is of course much to argue about, but that’s what makes this book so interesting. — Yuval Noah Harari
Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need — David Brooks ― The New York Times
In his new book, Enlightenment Now, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker makes a more convincing case for the sciences benefiting the arts ― New Scientist
A characteristically fluent, decisive and data-rich demonstration of why, given the chance to live at any point in human history, only a stone-cold idiot would choose any time other than the present — Sam Leith ― Spectator
From Third World to First: The Singapore Story – 1965-2000
Rs. 4,990.00Read moreLee Kuan Yew
In this memoir, the man most responsible for Singapore’s astonishing transformation from colonial backwater to economic powerhouse describes how he did it over the last four decades. It’s a dramatic story, and Lee Kuan Yew has much to brag about. To take a single example: Singapore had a per-capita GDP of just $400 when he became prime minister in 1959. When he left office in 1990, it was $12,200 and rising. (At the time of this book’s writing, it was $22,000.) Much of this was accomplished through a unique mix of economic freedom and social control. Lee encouraged entrepreneurship, but also cracked down on liberties that most people in the West take for granted–chewing gum, for instance. It’s banned in Singapore because of “the problems caused by spent chewing gum inserted into keyholes and mailboxes and on elevator buttons.” If American politicians were to propose such a thing, they’d undoubtedly be run out of office. Lee, however, defends this and similar moves, such as strong antismoking laws and antispitting campaigns: “We would have been a grosser, ruder, cruder society had we not made these efforts to persuade people to change their ways…. It has made Singapore a more pleasant place to live in. If this is a ‘nanny state,’ I am proud to have fostered one.”
Lee also describes one of his most controversial proposals: tax breaks and schooling incentives to encourage educated men and women to marry each other and have children. “Our best women were not reproducing themselves because men who were their educational equals did not want to marry them…. This lopsided marriage and procreation pattern could not be allowed to remain unmentioned and unchecked,” writes Lee. Most of the book, however, is a chronicle of how Lee helped create so much material prosperity. Anticommunism is a strong theme throughout, and Lee comments broadly on international politics. He is cautiously friendly toward the United States, chastising it for a “dogmatic and evangelical” foreign policy that scolds other countries for human-rights violations, except when they interfere with American interests, “as in the oil-rich Arabian peninsula.” Even so, he writes, “the United States is still the most benign of all the great powers…. [and] all noncommunist countries in East Asia prefer America to be the dominant weight in the power balance of the region.” From Third World to First is not the most gripping book imaginable, but it is a vital document about a fascinating place in a time of profound transition. –John J. Miller
Home in the World: A Memoir
Rs. 3,190.00Read moreAmartya Sen
it strikes me that Sen is more than an economist, a moral philosopher or even an academic. He is a life-long campaigner, through scholarship and activism, via friendships and the occasional enemy, for a more noble idea of home – and therefore of the world. — Edward Luce ― Financial Times
hypnotic … Amartya Sen’s exemplary life is a lesson in engagement with the world in which he is so at home; he is a real advertisement for someone who is happy being “a citizen of nowhere”, or everywhere. — Ferdinand Mount ― Prospect
Sen is so engaging, so full of charm and has such a clear gift for the graceful sentence. It’s a wonderful book, the portrait of a citizen of the world … full of its author’s beguiling personality, elegance and wit of presentation, and joyous in its celebration of the life of the mind. — Philip Hensher ― Spectator
Sen’s sensibility still seems Tagorean. There is the same affinity for freedom and imagination, a similar commitment to the vulnerable and the downtrodden, but most of all a shared sense that we don’t yet know all there is to know about the world. — Abhrajyoti Chakraborty ― Guardian
The clarity of Sen’s thought and the lucidity of his prose are delightful and entertaining but the lightness of his touch can often be deceptive because it sometimes conceals the depth and range of Sen’s erudition, the intensity and the passion of his commitment to certain values and ideas and his relentless quest to bring together the home and the world. — Rudrangshu Mukherjee ― The Wire India
a charming, immensely readable, and very enjoyable voyage through the making of a great mind … we are just led with rare good humour and gentle wit through the formative years of his life … This is a very accessible book, “fun” to use one of Sen’s favourite words, written in beautifully constructed short sentences that explain the most profound observations with commendable brevity … It is Sen’s capacity to maintain a simple style while telling amusing stories or explaining complex issues (as he does occasionally) that is both unique and captivating … This memoir is an unforgettable story of the evolution of a thinking and enquiring and all too human a mind, as also a tribute to one who has harnessed his abundant academic talent to the needs of the humblest and poorest — Mani Shankar Aiyar ― Open the Magazine
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know
Rs. 2,990.00Read moreMalcolm Gladwell
A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2019)
I love this book . . . reading it will actually change not just how you see strangers, but how you look at yourself, the news – the world. Reading this book changed me. ― Oprah Winfrey
Fascinating . . . you should read the book . . . He’s tackling the dark side of human nature – what do we ever know about other people? — Sathnam Sanghera ― The Times Magazine
Now that practically everybody seems to be spoiling for a fight, I have found Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers invaluable . . . His moral – to approach new people with caution and humility – has become my motto. ― Evening Standard
Taut, provocative, smart . . . Gladwell’s cool, playful intelligence has made him one of our leading public thinkers ― New Statesman
A book examining the ways we misinterpret or fail to communicate with one another could not feel more necessary . . . the page-turning urgency of a thriller — Chris Barton ― Los Angeles Times
Superb writing. Masterful . . . bears all the marks that have made Gladwell one of the most successful non-fiction authors of his generation. — Pilita Clark ― Financial Times
A dazzling book . . . Gladwell is a rock star of nonfiction . . . ideas are slowly revealed until the reader arrives at a conclusion they didn’t expect. Gladwell is advancing ideas and, sure, they are all open to challenge . . . but they are stimulating and convincing – and you won’t regret a minute you spend mastering them ― The Times
A wonderful provocation which Gladwell delivers like no other, an awakening to just one of the fascinations that lie in ordinary human experience . . . as ever, Gladwell’s genius is in the telling. ― Spectator
Malcolm Gladwell made his name bringing intellectual sparkle to everyday subjects, and his new book – about how strangers talk to each other – is no exception. — Sean O’Hagan ― Observer
Too Small to Fail: Why Some Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World
Rs. 3,690.00Read moreR. James Breiding
An idea whose time has come. – STEVEN PINKER, JOHNSTONE FAMILY PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
With global governance being challenged, this book offers provoking thoughts and ideas from the smaller nations as to what redefining success looks like. – PAUL POLMAN, CO-FOUNDER & CHAIR, IMAGINE, FORMER CEO, UNILEVER
An excellent portrayal of how lack of entitlement drives small nations’ success: they expect to have to adapt to outside forces, so they do. –JANAN GANESH , ~ COLUMNIST, THE FINANCIAL TIMES
If you are happy with your country and its development, don’t read this book. But if you think your country could do Significantly better, this book will show you how. LARS KOLIND . CHAIRMAN, THE WORLD SCOUT FOUNDATION
