A case of Bengal catnapping leads a groomer-turned-sleuth to a deadly new case in this cozy cat mystery by the author of Feral Attraction. Grooming and boarding the cats of Chadwick, New Jersey, has introduced Cassie McGlone to some colorful characters, both human and feline. But something’s fishy about the agitated young man who wants to board his big, brown cat, Ayesha. After a bath washes dye out of the cat's coat and reveals beautiful spots, Cassie suspects Ayesha may in fact be a valuable Bengal show cat—possibly stolen. And when Ayesha's alleged owner turns up dead, it looks like whoever wants the beautiful Bengal is not pussyfooting around. Working with the police, Cassie and her staff need to be careful not to reveal the purloined purebred's whereabouts while they discreetly make inquiries with cat breeders to find her real owners. But after a break-in attempt rattles Cassie's cage, it's clear someone let the cat out of the bag. Now Cassie better act fast to catch a killer who may be grooming her to be the next victim. “It doesn’t take a cat lover to fall in love with this perfectly crafted cozy series.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Study on the social and cultural transformation as happened in 18th and 19th century Bengal, India.

A cat groomer tails a killer who’s gone wild for feral felines in this cozy mystery by the author of The Persian Always Meows Twice—“a cat lover’s delight” (Publishers Weekly). When her friend Dawn starts an organization to protect a colony of stray cats in Chadwick, New Jersey, cat groomer Cassie McGlone is happy to help. The residents of a local condo community have got their backs up over the cat invasion, and Dawn needs someone with feline finesse to talk them down off the limb. Not everyone's against the cats. Eccentric Sabrina Ward has even created makeshift shelters for them in the nearby woods. But after Cassie and Dawn make their proposal at a heated community meeting, Sabrina turns up dead. While the police declare it an accident, Cassie smells a rat. And now she’s determined to collar the killer before another cat lover has a fatal accident. “It doesn’t take a cat lover to fall in love with this perfectly crafted cozy series.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Bengal Identity

Blended with the author's own family remembrances and diverse sources, this is a meticulous, insightful and comprehensive portrait of a rural Muslim family in a historical context.

"Sponsored by the Inter-Faculty Committee for South Asian Studies, University of Oxford."

The effects of the partition of India in 1947 have been more far-reaching and complex than the existing partition narratives of violence and separation reveal. The immediacy of the movement of refugees between India and the newly-formed state of Pakistan overshadowed the actual effect of the drawing of the border between the two states. The book is an empirical study of border narratives across the India-Bangladesh border, specifically the West Bengal part of India’s border with Bangladesh. It tries to move away from the perpetrator state-victim civilian framework usually used in the studies of marginal people, and looks at the kind of agencies that the border people avail themselves of. Instead of looking at the border as the periphery, the book looks at it as the line of convergence and negotiations—the ‘centre of the people’ who survive it every day. It shows that various social, political and economic identities converge at the borderland and is modified in unique ways by the spatial specificity of the border—thus, forming a ‘border identity’ and a ‘border consciousness’. Common sense of the civilians and the state machinery (embodied in the border guards) collide, cooperate and effect each other at the borderlands to form this unique spatial consciousness. It is the everyday survival strategies of the border people which aptly reflects this consciousness rather than any universal border theory or state-centric discourses about the borders. A bottom-up approach is of utmost importance in order to understand how a spatially unique area binds diverse other identities into a larger spatial identity of a ‘border people’. The book’s relevance lies in its attempt to explore such everyday narratives across the Bengal border, while avoiding any major theorising project so as not to choke the potential of such experience-centred insights into the lives of a unique community of people. In that, it contributes towards a study of borders globally, providing potential approaches to understand border people worldwide. Based on detailed field research, this book brings a fresh approach to the study of this border. It will be of interest to researchers in the field of South Asian studies, citizenship, development, governance and border studies.

Amartya Sen argues that most of the conflicts in the contemporary world arise from individuals' notions of who they are, and which groups they belong to - local, national, religious - which define themselves in opposition to others.

A cat groomer scratches below the surface of her picturesque town to sniff out a killer in this series debut—“a deft blend of mystery and cat love” (Kirkus). Cassie McGlone, owner of Cassie’s Comfy Cats in Chadwick, New Jersey, knows that professional cat grooming isn’t all fluff. She handles her feistiest four-legged clients with a caring touch and nerves of steel. And she needs all the nerve she can muster on her latest house call—when she finds the murdered body of her favorite client, millionaire George DeLeuw, and his newly orphaned Persian, Harpo. Cassie wants to do whatever she can to help the local police find George’s killer. Taking temporary custody of Harpo seems simple enough—until it becomes clear that someone is desperate to get their claws on the cat. Could the feline be the key to untangling a felony? As cat at whisperer Cassie tries to coax out deadly secrets, she better tread lightly. After all, she gets one life, not nine. “It doesn’t take a cat lover to fall in love with this perfectly crafted cozy series.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Bengal Identity

This elegant young adult novel captures the immigrant experience for one Indian-American family with humor and heart. Told in alternating teen voices across three generations, You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture--for better or worse. From a grandmother worried that her children are losing their Indian identity to a daughter wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair to a granddaughter social-activist fighting to preserve Bengali tigers, award-winning author Mitali Perkins weaves together the threads of a family growing into an American identity. Here is a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new.

Art, literature, music and other intellectual expressions of a particular society are together regarded as the culture of that society. Ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular people or society are also its ‘culture’. Contrary to what we think, it is not easy to describe ‘culture’, nor is it easy to write the cultural history. Writing the history of Bengali culture is even more difficult because Bengali society is truly plural in its nature, made even more so by its political division. The two main religious communities that share this culture are often more aware of the differences between them than the similarities. Nonetheless, the people remain bound by history and a shared language and literature. Ghulam Murshid’s Bengali Culture over a Thousand Years is the first non-partisan and holistic discussion of Bengali culture. Written for the general reader, the language is simple and the style lucid. It shows how the individual ingredients of Bengali culture have evolved and found expression, in the context of political developments and how certain individuals have moulded culture. Above all, the book presents the identity and special qualities of Bengali culture. The book was originally published in Bengali in Dhaka in 2006. This is the first English translation.