After having been underwhelmed by Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead", I was reluctant to read another of her hyped books. "We the living" is set in the Soviet after the Czar was overthrown in a revolution.

Kira's family returns to Petrograd after being exiled by the revolutionaries. All family members struggle …

"Al Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World" by Hugh Miles is a biography of a TV network hated in the west as a mouthpiece of the terrorists and in the middle east as a mouthpiece of the west. If they are hated by everyone and yet have a …

What's the first thing one picks up when intending to go sightseeing? Most likely a guide book? The popular guide books (like Lonely Planet) cater to more than sights ie food, experiences etc. Christopher Hibbert's "Rome: The biography of a city" is an unconventional guidebook that intertwines history of the …

How did Rome end up becoming such an important city? How did it's story start? Michael Grant, tries to compress nearly 1500 years of history into 300 pages. The book's language is simple but condensing so much into a single book is quite overwhelming. Nevertheless, this book is a great …

How would you feel if you made millions of dollars through trading? In seventh heaven, I guess?

How would you feel if you made millions of dollars betting against the herd? When the herd's collapse could shutter some of the biggest financial institutions and push thousands of home owners on …

Seabiscuit was the horse that held up the spirits of not just it's owner but thousands of Americans during the Great Depression. The horse had gone unnoticed until it came into the stable of Charles Howard, a successful America car dealer. Charles Howard appointed Tom Smith to train the horse …

The plunder of Somanatha by Mahmud of Ghazni was supposed to be a watershed moment in Indian history. It is usually summed up as the start of Islamic rule in India and the oppression of majority Hindus.

Romila Thapar investigates if that is the case. She concludes that is not …

When one generally talks of Indian history, we immediately assume the story of Kings, wars, their golden administration and vilification of the other neighbouring kingdoms. But Romila Thapar's "Early India from the Origins to 1300AD" is a different kind of a history book.

It emphasises little on kings and stories …

Annihilation of Caste was supposed to be the last speech to have been delivered by Dr. B.R Ambedkar before he gave up Hinduism and converted to Buddhism. The speech was to have been delivered before an anti-caste organization in Lahore in the 1930s. But the anti-caste group found Ambedkar's …

M.Krishnan was amongst India's earliest nature conservationist and policy expert. This book is a collection of short stories on his tryst with nature's creations.

Some of the stories are everyday stories like the author's encounter with a snake in his backyard or with common birds like crows. Others being …