First Look

The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt.

Classic Sunil Gangopadhyay;trs. Aruna Chakravarti and Sreejata Guha, Penguin, Rs.999.

This omnibus contains translations of three novels — Those days (Sei Somoy), First Light (Prothom Alo) and The Lonely Emperor (Nisshongo Samrat) — from Bengali. Sunil Gangopadhyay, who came to Calcutta as a refugee in 1947, subsequently authored the trend-setting Atma Prakash and emerged as one of the foremost Bengali novelists. The three works in the omnibus, including Sei Somoy, which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award, are considered his best.

Bankerupt;

Ravi Subramanian, Penguin, Rs.299.

An adrenaline-packed adventure set in the world of banking,

Bankerupt is the story of Aditya Raisinghania, an ambitious banker whose estranged wife stumbles into a dangerous secret at MIT Boston. Accused of murder, Aditya must race against time to find the real culprits, who will stop at nothing short of seeing him dead. The tale is played out in Mumbai, Boston and Coimbatore.

The Goal;Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Productivity & Quality Publishing, Rs.495.

Alex Rogo is the harried plant manager of a factory heading towards disaster. His marriage too, is on the rocks. He has 90days to save his plant, and a chance meeting with Jonah, a professor from student days, sparks an unconventional plan to turn things around. A message for all managers in industry, wrapped in a fast-paced thriller.

Nature Songs of Rabindranath Tagore;Trs. Malati Mukherjee, Writers Workshop, Rs.150.

“I have drowned Bengal in thousands of songs…you can forget me, but not my songs,” said poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore. His songs of nature celebrate every aspect of creation. With gentle strokes, he draws nature’s beauty, as well as its darkness and gloom. Carefully chosen, these verses lend themselves to transcreation. While Tagore chose not to title any of these songs, the author has created her own.

Hindi for Heart;Gulzar with Rina Singh, HarperCollins, Rs.299.

An illustrated, alphabetic anthology of Gulzar, one of Hindi’s favourite poets, Hindi for heart is filled with simple, alliterative poetry. “You might need to learn a language, or fall in love, at any point in life,” the poet says in his foreword. His poems help both pursuits. Each trio of verses, transliterated and illustrated, begins with one letter of the Hindi language.

Indo-Australian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry;Eds.Sunil Sharma, Rob Harle, Sangeeta Sharma, Authorspress, Rs.595.

An anthology of poems by writers — debutants as well as veterans — from India and Australia, this is an attempt to strike up a conversation between the two countries.