Back of the book

The Zahir
by Paulo Coelho. Harper Collins.
Pages 342. Rs 295.

One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared leaving no trace. Though time brings more success and new love, he remains mystified — and increasingly fascinated — by her absence. Was she kidnapped, blackmailed, or simply bored with their marriage? The unrest she causes is as strong as the attraction she exerts. His search for her — and for the truth of his own life — takes him from South America to Spain, France, Croatia and, eventually, the bleakly beautiful landscape of Central Asia. More than that, it leads him into a new understanding of the nature of love, the power of destiny and what it really means to follow your heart. With The Zahir, Paulo Coelho demonstrates not just his powerful and captivating storytelling, but also his extraordinary insight into what it is to be a human being in a world full of possibility.

Soft Target
by Stephen Leather. Hodder Headline. London. Pages 520. £ 3.00.

When a group of armed police in an elite unit turn maverick and start to rip off drug dealers at gunpoint, undercover cop Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd is given his most dangerous mission so far. His orders are to infiltrate the tight-knit team, to gain their confidence and ultimately to betray them. Facing men with guns is nothing new for the former SAS trooper, but it’s the first time he’s had to investigate his own. As Shepherd finds himself in the firing line, he has to decide exactly where his loyalties lie.

Singing Bird
Roisin Mc Auley. Headline.
Pages 374. £2.99

The phone call comes out of the blue. It is the nun who, 27 years earlier, set up the adoption of Lena Molloy’s baby girl in Ireland. Just tying up loose ends, she says, nothing to worry about. But Lena is worried — and intrigued — and decides to go on a secret mission to the west of Ireland, with her best friend, to trace the birth parents of her daughter, now making her international debut as an opera singer. At first the trail seems to have gone cold, but at last a chance meeting sets Lena on a journey to an outcome which in her wildest dreams she could not have foreseen.

Book of my Mother
by Albert Cohen. Rupa. Pages 124. Rs 195.

This is a moving memorial to his mother’s life by Albert Cohen, the internationally renowned author of Belle du Seigneur. Cohen left France for London to escape the Nazis in 1940. In 1943, he received news of his mother’s death in Marseilles. Unable to mourn her, he expressed his grief in a series of articles for La France Libre and revised them in 1954 for publication as Le Live de Ma mere (Book of my Mother). Since then the book has been translated into eleven languages. Cohen intended it as a tribute to all mothers: I shall not have written in vain if one of you, after reading my song of death, is one evening gentler with his mother because of me and my mother.

The Rupa Book of Great Escapes
Ed Ruskin Bond. Pages 195. Rs 95

Ruskin Bond brings to the comfort and safety of your armchair a collection of inspiring and hair-raising stories of courage and wits, from dangerous and exotic locales all over the world. The stories in this collection are mostly non-fictional, first-person accounts, all the more gripping for their direct narrative style and terse description. We travel through different yet equally exciting periods in history, from Casanova’s gaol, to the erstwhile French colonies in North Africa, from the horrific battlefields of World War I, to Malekula in the South Pacific. Besides being compelling accounts of ‘famous escapes’, this anthology provides a peek into fascinating histories, geographies and cultures, and urges you to be, as Ruskin Bond says, ‘a global traveller’.

HOME