Fire of Bengal plunges us into the midst of life in Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan during the late 1920s. Rozsa Hajnoczy, wife of a Hungarian professor, kept a journal of her impression during their three years stay at the ashram. After her death in 1942 this was published in Budapest and became one of the classics of modern Hungarian literature. For through Rozsa's clear yet compassionate eye we witness Tagore's heaven of peace beg torn apart by the tensions that were shaking the foundations of the Raj, by subversion and riot among students and staff, and by the ill-fated East-West marriage between Atany Ray, a professor of English, and his European wife, Himjhuri. For these dramatic events Rozsa Hajnoczy provides a kaleidoscopic background of temples, places, harems and hovels, of mountain, jungle and plain, of princes and beggars, of holy men and revolutionaries. All this, and the portraits of Tagore, Gandhi, and the cosmopolitan characters on the campus, surely contains much that will be a revelation even to those who remember those times.

From New York Times bestselling author Sayantani DasGupta comes the story of a demon who must embrace her bad to serve the greater good. Pinki hails from a long line of rakkhosh resistors, demons who have spent years building interspecies relationships, working together to achieve their goal of overthrowing the snakey oppressors and taking back their rights. But she has more important things to worry about, like maintaining her status as fiercest rakkhosh in her class and looking after her little cousins. There is also the teeny tiny detail of not yet being able to control her fire breathing and accidentally burning up school property.Then Sesha, the charming son of the Serpentine Governor, calls on Pinki for help in defeating the resistance, promising to give her what she most desires in return -- the ability to control her fire. First she'll have to protect the Moon Maiden, pretend to be a human (ick), and survive a family reunion. But it's all worth it for the control of her powers . . . right?

Before a crowd of several thousand people, mostly men, a young woman dressed in her bridal finery was burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre. The apparent revival of an ancient tradition opened old wounds in Indian society and focused world attention on the status and treatment of women in modern India.".

The Indian Ocean was global long before the Atlantic, and today the countries bordering the Bay of Bengal—India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia—are home to one in four people on Earth. Crossing the Bay of Bengal places this region at the heart of world history for the first time. Integrating human and environmental history, and mining a wealth of sources, Sunil Amrith gives a revelatory and stirring new account of the Bay and those who have inhabited it. For centuries the Bay of Bengal served as a maritime highway between India and China, and then as a battleground for European empires, all while being shaped by the monsoons and by human migration. Imperial powers in the nineteenth century, abetted by the force of capital and the power of steam, reconfigured the Bay in their quest for coffee, rice, and rubber. Millions of Indian migrants crossed the sea, bound by debt or spurred by drought, and filled with ambition. Booming port cities like Singapore and Penang became the most culturally diverse societies of their time. By the 1930s, however, economic, political, and environmental pressures began to erode the Bay’s centuries-old patterns of interconnection. Today, rising waters leave the Bay of Bengal’s shores especially vulnerable to climate change, at the same time that its location makes it central to struggles over Asia’s future. Amrith’s evocative and compelling narrative of the region’s pasts offers insights critical to understanding and confronting the many challenges facing Asia in the decades ahead.

Examines the interconnected events including World War II, India's struggle for independence, and a period of acute scarcity that lead to mass starvation in colonial Bengal.

A Christian Science Monitor Best Fiction Book of the Year A Guardian Best Book of the Year A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year The stunningly vibrant final novel in the bestselling Ibis Trilogy from Amitav Ghosh, Flood of Fire. It is 1839 and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade. Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company. He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong. Along the way, many characters from the Ibis Trilogy come aboard, including Zachary Reid, a young American speculator in opium futures, and Shireen, the widow of an opium merchant whose mysterious death in China has compelled her to seek out his lost son. The Hind docks in Hong Kong just as war breaks out and opium is “pouring into the market like monsoon flood.” From Bombay to Calcutta, from naval engagements to the decks of a hospital ship, among embezzlement, profiteering, and espionage, Amitav Ghosh’s Flood of Fire charts a breathless course through the culminating moment of the British opium trade and vexed colonial history.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK! • A "gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary" (USA Today) about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India. Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear. Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning is an electrifying debut.

Highlights the state's rich cultural and natural landscapes and attractions with fifty-seven photographs in a week-at-a-glance format.

Vols. 8 and 9 of a 10 v. abridgement of the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society from 1655-1750.