BOOKS YOU DEFINITELY SHOULDN’T MISS THIS WINTER

Compiled by: Chirdeep Malhotra

1) “The Digital Silk Road: China's Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future” by Jonathan E. Hillman

(Non-Fiction | Format: Paperback/Kindle | MRP: 559 INR)

BLURB: Its vast infrastructure projects now extend from the ocean floor to outer space, and from Africa's megacities into rural America. China is wiring the world, and, in doing so, rewriting the global order. As things stand, the rest of the world still has a choice. But the battle for tomorrow will require America and its allies to take daring risks in uncertain political terrain. Unchecked, China will reshape global flows of data to reflect its interests. It will develop an unrivalled understanding of market movements, the deliberations of foreign competitors, and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its systems. Networks create large winners, and this is one contest that democracies can't afford to lose. Taking readers on a global tour of these emerging battlefields, Jonathan Hillman reveals what China's digital footprint looks like on the ground, and explores the dangers of a world in which all routers lead to Beijing.



2) “The Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing: Select Short Stories by Women Writers”, edited by Shireen Quadri

(Short Stories | Format: Paperback/Kindle | MRP: 325 INR)

BLURB: What are the defining elements of short fiction by contemporary women writers? How do they navigate the world around them to create literature? These questions gave shape to the idea of The Punch Magazine’s inaugural anthology, comprising 18 short stories, selected from the pool of submissions by women writers in India and around the world, that showcase just how culture, besides the past, informs and illuminates literature.
The stories featured in this anthology reflect a certain kind of sensibility and sensitivity. It takes us along the pathways these writers forge to create art out of the rhythms and ruptures of life, dwelling on their characters’ experiences and memories of a thousand pleasures and pains suspended in the continuum of time. Steeped in the cultural moorings of the places they are set in—from Kashmir to Kerala, and from Washington and London to Rome—these stories portray the concerns and preoccupations of individuals both within and outside the precincts of home. They speak of our times—the way we live, the way we love.



3) “Reflection: A Collection of Short Stories” by Adam Ostaszewski

(Short Stories | Format: Paperback/Kindle | MRP: 199 INR)

BLURB: Stories that take you on a mysterious journey to Mars and a planet inhabited by descendants of humans and aliens. A book describing Europe during an epidemic, with an all-powerful European Security Service keeping the peace. Tales of an investigation into a suspicious death on an orbital platform, a daring action by Polish forces in Iraq and the Last Hero of the Kingdom. The "Reflection" and "Ares Mission" stories were recognised at the 1st and 2nd Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction Competition and published in English as part of collections of prize-winning works.



4) “A Marriage, an Affair, and a Friendship” by Sabarna Roy

(Fiction | Format: Hardcover/Kindle | MRP: 299 INR)

BLURB: This is a story where Rahul, Paromita, Suroma and Samaresh bisect and intersect boundaries of marriage, affair and friendship, evolving into an intriguing cocktail and mix of human relationship. Sabarna Roy looks at a marriage, an affair, and a friendship in a very interesting, and a fast-paced prose and gravitates to the idea of an open marriage in a modernist setting. It is a highly enjoyable read that strikes at our prejudices and regressive thoughts in a subtle and fleeting manner. A must read. True to his style, Sabarna experiments within the format of prose writing inside a single piece of novella. A starkly visual human drama!