On The Racks

C. Whitlock & R. Evans
10 Women who Changed Science and the World  | Hachette

‘Oxford Housewife Wins Nobel’, read the headline when Dorothy Hodgkin received the coveted prize in 1964. This collection chronicles her and other female scientists who defied the glass ceiling to make the planet a better place. However, diversity is not one of its strong points—most of the women featured are White or from the First World.

D. Bricker & J. Ibbitson
Empty Planet | Hachette

In a generation or so, even formerly populous nations will experience a drastic decline in birth rates. While it will benefit the environment and bring higher wages, an ageing population will reduce the tax base and increase healthcare costs. The authors diagnose this new world and suggest reducing isolationism and promoting immigration to deal with the disruption.

Tanaz Bhathena
The Beauty of the Moment | Penguin

High school is memories that can be bundled into a single moment of feeling. The author takes us through two heady narratives: a boy and a girl, both NRIs, alternatively tell us how their lives intertwined with a Canadian school and its many characters. The familiar ingredients of this book include young love, diaspora blues, jealousy and reconciliation.

Swati Ghosh
Design Movement in Tagore’s Santiniketan | Niyogi Books

Every province in India has its own tradition of hand-drawn design. In Bengal, ‘alpanas’ adorn floors and walls. In this exquisitely illustrated and deeply researched book, Ghosh shows how a folk practice was elevated to cultural artefact in Tagore’s Santiniketan. Combining influences from across India, practitioners like Gouri Devi and Nani Gopal Ghosh extended the alpana’s limits, watched over by the likes of Nandalal Bose.

Amrita Mahale
Milk Teeth | Antext

Matunga, Mumbai; the 1980s. Ira and Kartik, childhood friends, form a deep bond of friendship and promise each to the other. In the ’90s, Ira is a journalist, living, then reliving, a passionate love in all its physicality. Kartik has a corporate job, and a secret life. Mahale’s first novel is a very good one, brought alive by a Mumbai swirling with life, ideosyncrasies and Indians eyeing modern ways of being.

Akil Kumarasamy
Half Gods | HarperCollins

A butcher from Angola who finds solace in New Jersey, an entomologist in Sri Lanka searching for his missing son and a baby girl renamed after a Hindu goddess but raised as a Muslim. Kumarasamy’s first book brings together these characters in a set of ten interlinked stories with evocative descriptions and a dash of nostalgia.