Five books to look forward to in January 2018

After a significant year for publishing in India the upcoming month of January in 2018 will set the literary mood for a new beginning The Jaipur Literature Festival will see the release of several significant books apart from hosting over 200 sessions that will witness participation from writers and thinkers from across the world With a lot taking place simultaneously and options as diverse as ever bookworms have quite a choice to makeThe IANS recommendations for January pares a long list to present the five most promising titles that bookworms must take note ofHere are the five books that we cannot wait to read this January1 Why I Am A Hindu by Shashi Tharoor AlephIn Why I Am a Hindu Tharoor gives us a profound book about one of the worlds oldest and greatest religions Starting with a close examination of his own belief in Hinduism he ranges far and wide in his study of the faith He looks at the myriad manifestations of political Hinduism in the modern era including violence committed in the name of the faith by rightwing organisations and their adherents He is unsparing in his criticism of extremist bhakts and unequivocal in his belief that everything that makes India a great and distinctive culture and country will be imperiled if religious fundamentalists are allowed to take the upper hand2 Pakistans Nuclear Bomb by Hassan Abbas PenguinIn Pakistans Nuclear Bomb Abbas profiles the politicians and scientists involved in the development of the countrys atomic bomb and the role of China and Saudi Arabia in supporting its nuclear infrastructure Drawing on extensive interviews the book also unravels the motivation behind the Pakistani nuclear physicist Dr AQ Khans involvement in nuclear proliferation in Iran Libya and North Korea and argues that the origins and evolution of the Khan network were tied to the domestic and international political motivations underlying Pakistans nuclear weapons project and its organisation oversight and management3 Small Acts of Freedom by Gurmehar Kaur PenguinIn February 2017 Gurmehar Kaur a 19yearold student joined a peaceful campaign after violent clashes at a Delhi University college As part of the campaign Kaurs post made her the target of an onslaught of social media vitriol Kaur the daughter of a Kargil war martyr suddenly became the focal point of a nationalism debate Facing a trial by social media Kaur almost retreated into herself But she was never brought up to be silenced Real bullets killed my father Your hate bullets are deepening my resolve she wrote at the time Today Kaur is doubly determined not to be silent Small Acts of Freedom is her story4 Keepers of the Kalachakra by Ashwin Sanghi WestlandA seemingly random selection of heads of state is struck down like flies by unnamed killers who work with the clinical efficiency of butchers Except that they leave no trace of their methods Sanghi returns with another quietly fearsome tale this time of men who guard the Kalachakra The Wheel of Time Sanghi describes a world of people at war with one another a boomeranging conflict of faiths that results in acts of such slow and planned human cruelty that they defy imagination Zigzagging from Ramas crossing to Lanka to the birth of Buddhism from the charnelgrounds of naked tantric practitioners to the bespoke suits of the Oval Office and from the rites of Minerva shrouded in frankincense to the smokedarkened ruins of Nalanda the mystery novel is a journey that will have you gasping for breath5 Diwali in Muzaffarnagar by Tanuj Solanki HarperCollinsFriendship between two teenage boys dissolves in the aftermath of an act of violence typical of the place they live in the north Indian town of Muzaffarnagar A young man comes to the same town to celebrate Diwali with his family and learns that given his roots his cosmopolitanism might not be an option any more A young woman hitherto unburdened by family duties grapples with the absence of grief upon her fathers death Elsewhere a recently married couple is pulled apart by a crisis rooted in the womans traumatic childhood In Solankis book of short stories young men and women travel between the past and the present the metropolis and the small town and the alwaysatodds needs of life Solitude and familyCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news current affairs from Mumbai local news crime news and breaking headlines hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go