Diwali does not always bring 'Lakshmi' to Bollywood

New Delhi, 27 Oct 2012 IANS:
Wanton and creative... The IANS bookshelf this weekendcaptures the nip
in the air with a cartload of light reads.
1.Book: "Mistakes Like Love and Sex"; Written by Madhuri Banerjee;
Published by Penguin-India; Price: Rs.199
"Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas" was a runaway bestseller
and ruled the bestseller lists for weeks together. In the second book,
which is equally thrilling, Banerjee traces further the adventures of
Kaveri, the central character. Cheated by her young and handsome
Spanish boyfriend, Kaveri is back in India to follow a career as an
artist and to find her dream man.However,getting involved with an
older man, making out with the hottest star in Bollywood, teaching a
hot, upcoming actress Hindi ... hergoals seem nowhere in
sight.Starting afresh seems to have thrown her off completely and she
begins tosee the superficial life that she's been leading. It's time
to take some hard decisions.
With fresh hope and a new philosophy, Kaveri begins tofocus on her
goals. Things begin to look up when there is a kindling of romance
across Twitter and she starts to understand her true calling.
2.Book: "The Dark Rainbow";Written by Vikrant Dutta; Published by Roli
Books; Price: Rs.295
When Tabu and Rekha share an apartment in Mumbai, they never realise
that their search for love and solace with men would come a cropper
and they would be sadly disillusioned with an emotional void and a
lack of trust. The comfort level they share translates into an
emerging bond which has a definitive promise of fulfilment which
transcends the barriers of friendship and evolves into love.
A story of love and longing, the book brings alive the colours of true love.
3.Book: "Astray"; Written byEmma Donoghue; Published by Picador, Price: Rs.599
The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Donoghue's
short stories inspired by reality have all gone astray. They are
emigrants, runaways, drifters. They cross other borders too, those of
race, law, sex and sanity. They travel for love and money, incognito
or under duress.
The writer describes a plot by a slave and his master's wife to escape
captivity.
In another story, she writesabout the difficulties of gold mining in
the Yukon and scopes out a Puritan community in Massachusetts
unsettled by an invented sex scandal.
The stories are candid with surprises at every turn thatare almost
shocking at times.
4.Book: "The Silent House"; Written by Orhan Pamuk (Translated in
English for the first time); Published by Penguin Books; Price: Rs.599
Available for the first time inEnglish, this is one of the writer's
most popular Turkish works in his country. Each summer, three siblings
come to visit their old grandmother, in her dreary seaside home.
Faruk, the eldest is alcoholic, recently divorced and adrift. Metin,
the youngest is full of hunger, dreaming of studying in America. And
in between themis their sister, Nilgun, a fieryyoung revolutionary,
hurtling towards womanhood.
Over the week, the family faces first love, old ghosts and childhood
memories. Watching them is the dwarf Recep, the housekeeper, who has
stories of his own. Haunting, and tender, "SilentHouse" was published
to great acclaim in Turkey in 1983 and remains one of Pamuk's most
popular works in the country.
5.Book: "Bobby The Complete Story"; Written by Khwaja Ahmad
Abbas/Reprinted after 40 years; Published by HarperCollins India;
Price: Rs.199
When the film "Bobby" was released, its writer K.A. Abbas, in an act
years ahead of its time, also published the novelized version of the
film, "Bobby: The Complete Story", to great commercial success. It
includes K.A. Abbas's originalpreface and a perceptive new foreword by
Suresh Kohli.
The release of the book marks 40 glorious years of the film's release,
its star Rishi Kapoor's 60th birthday and Abbas's centenary.
In 1973, the film shattered box-office records all over India. It
introduced two youngstars who became instant heart-throbs, and ushered
in a new genre of Hindi films,the teeny-bopper romance. Italso bailed
out the legendaryRK Films after Raj Kapoor's"Mera Naam Joker" magnum
opus.