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Heart of India: Tigers, Tribes & the Taj

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Enrich your travels with reading! Here's a hand-picked list prepared for your journey in conjunction with the book experts at Longitude.

Item EXIDA319. Buy these 5 items as a set for $103 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
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India

by Stanley Wolpert

• HISTORY
• 2009
• PAPER
• 281 PAGES

Reflections on India - its religion and philosophy, its art, culture, and politics - by the dean of the country's Ameri-can historians: beautifully written, and provocative as well as evocative. (IDA04, $24.95)

Taj Mahal

by Giles Tillotson | Mary Beard

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 2008
• HARD COVER
• 190 PAGES

An enlightening pocket guide to the myth, meaning and legends of the celebrated tomb, "the queen of architecture." (IDA528, $19.95)

Wild India, The Wildlife of India and Nepal

by Guy Mountefort | Gerald Cubitt

• NATURAL HISTORY
• 2008
• PAPER
• 208 PAGES

An informative introduction to the natural history of the region in a handsome oversize volume. With hundreds of extraordinary photographs of the wildlife and landscapes of the Himalayas, the Indo-Ganges Plain and the Deccan. (IDA02, $29.95)

Eyewitness Guide Delhi, Agra and Jaipur

by Anuradha Chaturvedi

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2010
• PAPER
• 320 PAGES

With chapters on Taj Mahal, Amber Fort Palace, Keoladeo Ghana National Park, Red Fort and dozens of other highlights for the traveler, this compact, gorgeously illustrated guide to Delhi and its environs features 900 color photographs, maps and site plans. (IDA151, $25.00)

India Map

by ITMB

• 2009
• MAP

The most detailed shaded relief map (at a scale of 1:2,100,000) of India available. (IDA18, $12.95)

 

Also Recommended

Blue Guide India

by Sam Miller

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2011
• PAPER
• 800 PAGES

Known for its outstanding coverage of ancient history and archaeology, this Blue Guide to India offers comprehensive coverage of the country's art, culture and archaeology. (IDA631, $29.95)

A Traveller's History of India

by Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda

• HISTORY
• 2007
• PAPER
• 288 PAGES

A condensed introduction to the themes and events that have shaped India from prehistory to Rajiv Gandhi's rule. (IDA57, $14.95)

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

by William Dalrymple

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2003
• PAPER
• 350 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Dalrymple infectiously interweaves his own experiences over a year in Delhi with the art, architecture, history and literature of the city. (IDA06, $16.00)

In Spite of the Gods, The Strange Rise of Modern India

by Edward Luce

• HISTORY
• 2008
• PAPER
• 346 PAGES

Luce tackles the challenges and reality of the world's largest democracy with insight and balance in this portrait of a nation in transition. (IDA349, $16.00)

India Calling, An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking

by Anand Giridharadas

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2011
• HARD COVER
• 273 PAGES

An astute portrait of India today by an international journalist. Moving through the cities and countryside, Giridharadas encounters families, workers and entrepreneurs and provides insight into a country in the midst of reinventing itself. (IDA623, $25.00)

India, A Million Mutinies Now

by V.S. Naipaul

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2011
• PAPER
• 520 PAGES

In this engaging classic Naipaul interviews people from various castes all across India, provocatively concluding that this collection of competing interests adds to India's strength. (IDA14, $16.95)

May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, A Journey Among the Women of India

by Elisabeth Bumiller

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 1991
• PAPER
• 220 PAGES

A wonderfully written and fascinating portrayal of Indian women from Bollywood stars to Indira Gandhi to prostitutes. It's an insightful portrait of the country as seen through the eyes of its women. (IDA37, $14.95)

The Idea of India

by Sunil Khilnani

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 1999
• PAPER
• 263 PAGES

Khilnani confronts the complexities, paradoxes and challenges of the nation in this brief, elegant survey of India since independence. (IDA160, $17.00)

Darsan, Seeing the Divine Image in India

by Diana L. Eck

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 1998
• PAPER
• 115 PAGES

Tremendously useful for the traveler, this rigorous guide explains the significance and meaning of Hindu temples, festivals and ritual. Darsan, which translates as "seeing", reveals religious expression in India. (IDA75, $25.00)

Hindu Art and Architecture

by George Michell

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 2000
• PAPER
• 224 PAGES

An excellent survey of Hindu art and architecture, explaining the meaning and construction of principal images and buildings, as well as the development of Hinduism and the corpus of myths that have influenced its artistic tradition. (IDA147, $18.95)

Indian Art, A Concise History

by Roy C. Craven

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 1997
• PAPER
• 256 PAGES

This convenient volume in the acclaimed "World of Art" series is a crisp, illustrated overview of the range of Indian art over the centuries. (IDA16, $21.95)

Taj Mahal

by M.C. Joshi | Jean-Louis Nou | Amina Okada

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 1993
• HARD COVER
• 231 PAGES

This lavish portrait features 158 full-color photographs (including four magnificent foldout panels) by the extraordinary Jean-Louis Nou. With grand exterior views, filigreed inscriptions and bejeweled floral mosaics. (IDA108, $75.00)

A Princess Remembers, The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur

by Devi Gayatri

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 1996
• PAPER
• 408 PAGES
• HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

The memoirs of an extraordinary life. Widow of the Maharaja of Jaipur, member of parliament and a fascinating character, Gayatri recalls growing up in the palace compound, marrying the Maharaja, her political triumphs and work on behalf of education in India. (IDA149, $39.95)

An Autobiography, Or the Story of My Experiments with Truth

by Mohandas K. Gandhi

• BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
• 1995
• PAPER
• 480 PAGES

There is no substitute for reading Gandhi in his own simple, direct prose. A highly recommended glimpse into the personality and life of this remarkable figure. (IDA163, $10.95)

Spell of the Tiger, The Man-eaters of Sundarbans

by Sy Montgomery

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 2009
• PAPER
• 240 PAGES

Montgomery weaves her travels with the Sundarbans with local legends, religion and the natural history of the Bay of Bengal, home to the largest population of tigers on Earth. (IDA524, $16.95)

A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry

• LITERATURE
• 1997
• PAPER
• 624 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Set in Indira Gandhi's "Emergency Raj" of 1975 in an unnamed Indian "city by the sea," which bears a striking resemblance to Bombay, this tender novel follows the intermingled fortunes of a Parsi widow, her boarder and two tailors. (IDA92, $17.00)

Midnight's Children

by Salman Rushdie

• LITERATURE
• 2006
• PAPER
• 533 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Crowned Best of the Booker in 2008, Rushdie's greatest novel is a madcap, comic take on the birth of modern India in all its splendid and unexpected manifestations. (IDA12, $16.00)

The Jungle Book

by Rudyard Kipling

• LITERATURE
• 2009
• PAPER
• 240 PAGES

Mowgli, an Indian boy adopted by wolves, learns the ways of the jungle as he grows up in the company of cobras, panthers, bears and tigers. Kipling set his adventures in what is now Kanha National Park. (IDA313, $4.99)

The White Tiger, A Novel

by Aravind Adiga

• LITERATURE
• 2008
• PAPER
• 288 PAGES

Mordant, funny, angry, horrifying, this Booker Prize-winning tale of a village pauper turned success (and murderer) skewers the ambition, inequity and corruption of 21st-century India. (IDA542, $15.00)

Travelers' Tales India

by James O'Reilly | Larry Habegger

• ANTHOLOGY
• 2004
• PAPER
• 496 PAGES

A collection of 45 descriptive and thought-provoking short excerpts on Indian life and culture, including contributions from Rushdie, Naipaul and Dalrymple, plus some valuable excerpts from books long out of print. (IDA05, $19.95)

India: Kingdom of the Tiger

by Bruce Neibaur

• NATURAL HISTORY
• 2002
• DVD

This dazzling film of tigers in the wild and pioneering conservation efforts was filmed on location at Bhandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. (IDA248, $19.99)

Of Tigers and Men

by Richard Ives

• NATURAL HISTORY
• 1997
• PAPER
• 304 PAGES
• HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

A haunting, beautifully written tale of a man's quest to encounter tigers in the wild, and to understand the meaning of the threat of the tiger's extinction. Ives visits the forests of India, Thailand, and Sumatra. (IDA30, $12.50)

A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India

by Bikram Grewal | Bill Harvey | Otto Pfister

• FIELD GUIDE
• 2003
• PAPER
• 520 PAGES

A comprehensive photographic guide to the subcontinent. (IDA215, $35.00)

Birds of India

by Richard Grimmett | Carol Inskipp | Tim Inskipp

• FIELD GUIDE
• 2012
• PAPER
• 384 PAGES

Thoroughly revised, with 73 new plates and many others updated or repainted, the second edition of the masterful Birds of India now features all maps and text opposite the plates for quicker and easier reference. (FG43, $39.50)

Mammals of India

by Vivek Menon

• FIELD GUIDE
• 2009
• PAPER
• 200 PAGES

A Princeton Field Guide edition of Menon's authoritative survey of 400 mammalian species from tropical lowlands to the Himalayas. With large, clear photographs, range maps and introductory chapters on the groups of mammals, conservation and protected areas. (IDA546, $35.00)

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