The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes by Donald Thomas

Blurb (from the jacket):

Donald Thomas combines his expertise as a novelist and criminal historian to give a breand-new twist to the adventures of Conan Doyle's famous creation.

Accompanied as ever by Dr. Watson, Holmes here investigates: The alleged bigamy of King George V... The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907... The bizarre circumstances of the death of President Faure of France... Such dramas are not fiction but historical reality. 

The investigations described in this volume relate the part played by the great detective in seven major crimes or scandals of the day, some of them too damaging to the monarchy, the government or the security of the nation to be fully revealed at the time. 

Compiled in narrative form by Dr. Watson soon after the great detective’s death, Holmes’s notes have been kept under lock and key at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Now, seventy years later, we can finally open the secret casebook of Sherlock Holmes.

400 BC by Lewis Helfand, Lalit Kumar Singh (Illustrator)

Blurb (from the jacket):

Fortune favors the bold...

They were an unstoppable force, hired to take the crown from the King of Persia. They were a fearless army of Greek soldiers, and one hundred thousand men fighting as one. They were led by the finest and most courageous generals in all of Greece. They were being led to unimaginable wealth, but that was days ago.

Now their leaders are dead and their army has scattered. Now their numbers have fallen to ten thousand and nothing remains but fear. Now they are men praying not for victory, but for the slim chance of living one more day.

Cut off by impassable terrain and pursued by an army of one million enemy soldiers; they must stand together to survive. To find their way home, one of their own must lead them. And to live one more day...

...they must fight.

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

Blurb (from the jacket):

You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But alas there is a printer's error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the real hero is you, the reader.

The Other Side by Faraaz Kazi, Vivek Banerjee

Blurb (from the jacket):

"A slow rasping sound made me turn. I jumped back, the cell phone leaving my hands and smashing against the concrete floor. Someone was seated on the chair, rocking back and forth. Through the fallen light, I could see those hands placed on the arms of the chair, two gruesome wrinkled limbs with ugly boils plastered over the black skin. The red bangles on its wrists shone in my eyes, momentarily blinding me. That thing and I call it a thing because I could sense it wasn't human as no human could have such a hideous form, as vile an existence as the one seated opposite to my horrified self."

From a honeymoon in the hill that goes horribly wrong to an obsessed lover who wants his first love in life and in death; From a mentally deranged man who collects body parts of various women to stitch together his dream girl to a skeptic who enters a mansion of horrors to win a bet and much more, this book is filled with scenarios that are guaranteed to give you goosebumps and sleepless nights.

'The Other Side' is a collection of thirteen tales of the paranormal; a world that our eyes refuse to see, our ears deny hearing and our senses ignore the feel of. This is a book for someone who is brave enough to take up this invitation to journey through uncharted waters along with the authors, who were inspired by some bizarre experiences to pen down this work where the lines of reality have been blurred by the footsteps of imagination.

Each story takes you on a tour de force of unadulterated horror and draws upon the deepest fear in the human mind- the fear of the UNKNOWN!

The Bad Touch by Payal Shah Karwa

Blurb (from the jacket):

Real-life stories of victims of child sex abuse who emerged victorious!

Harish Iyer is a survivor nay he is a thriver of child sex abuse. He is an award winning social activist who first shared his disturbing story of his sexual abuse on the television show Satyamev Jayate and who gave voice to the issue when most would be silent.

Harishs story will tear the reader apart. He suffers abuse at the hands of his uncle Satheesh, from the time he was seven. Harish was threatened that his parents would be killed if he did not submit to his uncles and sometimes his friends barbarism. Until one fine day when Harish musters up the courage and says No! He takes his mother into confidence who supports him, but Harishs woes do not end there. He is castigated by society, his own father believes Harish to be at fault and so begins Harishs solo battle to help other sufferers like himself.

There are others: noted film director Anurag Khashyap, a victim of incest and sexual abuse, not once but many times over; Jai, living in a Mumbai high rise suffers abuse and a now 34 year old mother who suffered sexual abuse as a 12 year old.

The stories in The Bad Touch will shock, horrify, sadden, repulse and numb the reader. But underlying them is the small ray of hope that if the immediate family is sensitive enough to the signals a child may send out, he or she may be rescued from being victimized.

This book is a mission: to help ebb the trauma of survivors and inspire them with stories like Harishs and to create awareness of the issue of child sex abuse amongst parents/guardians

The Common Man Casts His Vote by R.K. Laxman

Blurb (from web):

From financial crises to the woes of householders, from political instability to rampant corruption, Laxman’s cartoons capture the entire gamut of contemporary Indian experience. Hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time, this is a treasure house of humor from one of the most striking voices commenting on Indian socio-political life today.

Faceless by Nizam Ahmed

Blurb (from the jacket):

What do you do when you try to commit suicide, and end up discovering you have superpowers? 

Kabir faced this question just when he had done enough to get rid of a life he couldn't get along with. 

Foolishly encouraged by his new-found abilities, he decides get even with a cunning boss at work; win back his colleague Nat's love, and be an admired superhero. 

So starts his crazy journey – a clumsy rescue act for a girl called Riona; a dramatically rigged introduction at the Qutub Minar; mathematical manipulations at flying; use of Facebook as a weapon, and surreal encounters with a wily Russian, and a mysterious monk. 

Just when he thinks he has a hang of it, he runs into the Devil - a manic ringleader of kidnappers - who is clearly more than a match for him.

As he stares at the barrel of the gun that the Devil has pointed at his head, he realizes how terribly inappropriate being a superhero has been.

The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad

Blurb (from the jacket):

Winner of the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Man Asian Literary Prize 

‘Superb. The work of a gifted storyteller who has lived in the world of his fiction, and who offers his readers rare insight, wisdom and—above all—pleasure’ - Mohsin Hamid

The Wandering Falcon is the unforgettable story of a boy known as Tor Baz—the black falcon—who wanders between tribes in the remote tribal areas where Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet, defying his fate and surviving against all odds. The world he inhabits is fragile, and unforgiving, one that is fast changing as it confronts modernity. In Jamil Ahmed’s award-winning debut, this highly traditional, honour-bound culture is revealed from the inside for the first time with vivid colour and imagination.

An Immortal Story by Satyendra Dhariwal

Blurb (from the jacket):

"You might have read many stories, you might have seen many colors of life. But here you will see all colors of life in one story"

Do you have a permanent dream? I know the answer of the majority will be yes. Vinayak(the lead character) had one too. But what if your dream will scatter like a pack of cards and it becomes certain that you can never achieve your goal.

What if you lose someone dear, your studies left in between, unwillingly get married at an early age, have to bear most of the responsibilities and internal strife of your joint family (that too at an early age), hated by your wife and in-laws, lose your health and natural-you and finally find yourself doing an unwanted 3rd grade clerical job.

Is it possible to see another dream now(while pain for the first one still lingers), is it possible to focus when you are struggling for almost everything? The answer is yes. This is a story of a boy who lost precious years of his early twenties just to find out what could be his second dream since from childhood he wanted to do something ‘big.’ He had to fight almost everything to achieve his dream. An Immortal Story is the story of struggle with own, struggle for love, struggle with life, with society and for career. This is the story of tolerance beyond limit. If you are down in any field of life this story will hold your hand, let you up and give the courage to follow your positive side of heart. Welcome to ‘An Immortal Story’–A life-giving tale.

The Obliterary Journal: Volume 1 by Rakesh Khanna (Editor), Rashmi Ruth Devadasan (Editor)

Blurb (from GoodReads):

A collection of comics, street art, typography, and illustrated stories from India and beyond. Includes:

*) A classic Bengali gangster comic in translation

*) Traditional Odisha palm-leaf engravings of alien robot invaders

*) 12th century Sanskrit algebra problems

*) Bus painters from Suriname

*) New work from Vidyun Sabhaney, Amitabh Kumar, Roney Devassia, and Aarti Sunder

*) Bleeding lizards

*) Defecating cyclopses

*) Psychopathic killer tomatoes

*) and much, much more!

The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

Blurb (from the jacket):

Gifted with a mind that continues to impress the elders in his village, Ichmad Hamid struggles with the knowledge that he can do nothing to save his friends and family. Living on occupied land, his entire village operates in constant fear of losing their homes, jobs, and belongings. But more importantly, they fear losing each other.

On Ichmad’s twelfth birthday, that fear becomes reality. 

With his father imprisoned, his family’s home and possessions confiscated, and his siblings quickly succumbing to hatred in the face of conflict, Ichmad begins an inspiring journey using his intellect to save his poor and dying family. In doing so he reclaims a love for others that was lost through a childhood rife with violence, and discovers a new hope for the future.