MG Vassanji is partially exploring his own roots with this latest work – he too is a resident of Canada with ties to India and Tanzania, writes Aishwarya Subramanian.

Nayantara Sahgal’s reissued biography of Indira Gandhi, whose twenty-eighth death anniversary is on October 31, shows the effect of personality on history, writes Ritu Menon.

Gurcharan Das’s latest work offers a prescription for a strong liberal Indian state, writes Dipankar Bhattacharyya.

Desi James Bond, Bourne Identity or what? Graphic novel Payback begins in Hollywood style with time, date and location counters, and has a tagged narration in almost the entire book that highlights the volatility of war and terrorism today.

A new book talks about the concept of heritage walks and tours, with a focus on their ability to exhibit different cultures.

Bengaluru noir Borei Gowda, the protagonist of Anita Nair’s new crime novel, Cut Like Wound, is an inspector in the classic mould of the hard drinking sleuth with complicated relationships and an unerring instinct for trouble. Manjula Narayan writes.

Indian fashion’s first autobiography is not a tell-all. Neena Haridas writes.
 

The book’s protagonist, Sneha, is a divorced single mother, who with the help of her best friend, is able to move past her unhappy marriage and raises her son in Mumbai.

In the end, Zoo Time, a darkly comic work, is a devastating play on notions of success and failure. Soumya Bhattacharya writes.

Though the compilation doesnot answer all the questions, it does tell us what young India should think about.

There’s something about Janice Pariat’s short stories that makes you want to linger, to return to particular lyrical descriptions of the north east, to set down the book and contemplate the point where folk lore and reality intersect.

The Accidental Godman is described as an attempt to “meld godmen, passion and national governance into a fiery mould” on the backflap.

Many mourn the demise of the Nehruvian consensus in Indian foreign policy. They now have an earnest defence of the more liberal internationalist elements of that early doctrine.

This week's best reads include a cookbook, a powerful novel set in early 80s Punjab, an examination of the cultural worth of the heritage walk, and lines wrenched from the innards of Mumbai.