Young readers love a good story, more so if it features a superhero of their age. Chris Colfer’s Roswell Johnson Saves the World! is about 11-year-old Roswell Johnson who is abducted by a spaceship and must save the world from an alien invasion. Roswell and his gang (comprising a Mantis, Cyborg, Pleiadean, Grays and a Fungarian) must defeat the evil force of General Xelic. It’s fantasy at its nail-biting best. Published by Hachette, 464 pages, ₹.699
‘A Murder Is Fixed’, by Madhav Nayak
Madhav Nayak’s pacey thriller, A Murder is Fixed, brings together murder and match-fixing. Can there be a more surefire hook for readers of a nation obsessed with cricket and celebrities ? Throw a Mumbaiyya cop, Inspector Vichare, and his sidekick, Constable Lobo, of Dhobi Talao Police Station, in the mix and you get an unlikely police procedural. Published by HarperCollins, 320 pages, ₹.399
In 2024 we are far from a gender balanced Parliament; that is hardly surprising, considering that the blueprint for modern India was set in 1946 by a Constituent Assembly of 299 men against 15 women. In The Fifteen: The Lives and Times of the Women in India’s Constituent Assembly, Angellica Aribam and Akash Satyawali tell the stories of these women from diverse backgrounds whose contributions remain unsung. Published by Hachette, 320 pages, ₹.799
Lubaaba Al-Azami’s new book, Travellers in the Golden Realm, takes us to the origins of colonialism in South Asia—in trade and commerce, rather than any imperial ambitions. It also opens a fascinating window into the world of the Mughals, their awe-inspiring kings and queens, before foreign travellers came in and changed the dynamics. Hachette, 375 pages, ₹.799
