India   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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Essential Books These 5 items are available for $95, including
U.S. shipping, a 15% discount (Item no. EXIDA310)		  
Eyewitness Guide India  •  Eyewitness Guides
GUIDEBOOK •  2011 •  PAPER  • 824 PAGES
A handsome, beautifully illustrated guide to India. It features color photographs, history and plenty of background information. (IDA265, $30.00)		   Eyewitness Guide India
India  •  Stanley Wolpert
HISTORY •  2009 •  PAPER  • 281 PAGES
A wonderfully literate introduction to India by the acknowledged master. Author of 14 books and a professor of history since 1958, Wolpert distills a tremendous amount of information in this detailed overview, tackling the environment, religion and philosophy, the arts and sciences, domestic and foreign policy and culture. (IDA04, $24.95)		   India
Taj Mahal  •  Giles Tillotson  •  Mary Beard
ART & ARCHITECTURE •  2008 •  HARD COVER  • 190 PAGES
This pocket book in Harvard's Wonders of the World series is a guide and witty meditation on the place of the Taj Mahal in the cultural imagination of India and the wider world. An art historian, Tillotson demolishes myths about the structure ("the queen of architecture"), its history and meaning. (IDA528, $19.95)		   Taj Mahal
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi  •  William Dalrymple
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  2003 •  PAPER  • 350 PAGES • FAVORITE
A year's sojourn in Old Delhi provides the springboard for a brilliant ramble through several thousand years of the city's history; architecture, art and literature are leavened and lightened by a mixture of the author's daily life. Any visitor will see a Delhi, New and Old, with fresh eyes after walking through the crowds on Chandni Chowk with the incomparable Dalrymple as guide. (IDA06, $16.00)		   City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
India Map  •  ITMB
2009 •  MAP
A double-sided shaded relief map of India at the excellent scale of 1:2,100,000, printed on tear and waterproof paper. With an index, it shows major roads, rivers, and locations of national parks. Two Sides. 27x40 inches. (IDA18, $12.95)		   India Map



Also Recommended

Culture Smart! India  •  Becky Stephen   • GUIDEBOOK  •  A concise, well-illustrated guide to both social and business customs in India. (IDA298, $9.95)
 		  
Eyewitness Guide Delhi, Agra and Jaipur  •  Anuradha Chaturvedi   • GUIDEBOOK  •  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)
 		  
Lonely Planet India Phrasebook  •  Omkar Koul   • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS  •  A handy palm-sized guide. (IDA538, $10.99)
 		  
Love Delhi  •  Fiona Caulfield   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Packaged in very fashionable locally woven cloth, this beautifully made, discerning guide captures the soul of the city, pointing with authority to neighborhoods, shops, markets, restaurants and attractions. A labor of love by the Bangalore-based Fiona Caulfield and friends. Third edition. (IDA403, $50.00)
 		  
Love Mumbai  •  Fiona Caulfield   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This beautifully made, affectionate guide, packaged in its own satchel of locally woven cloth or khadi and printed on hand-made paper, captures the soul of the city, pointing with authority to neighborhoods, shops, markets, restaurants and attractions. 3rd Edition. (IDA389, $50.00)
 		  
In Spite of the Gods, The Strange Rise of Modern India  •  Edward Luce   • HISTORY  •  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)
 		  
May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, A Journey Among the Women of India  •  Elisabeth Bumiller   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  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  •  Sunil Khilnani   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  Khilnani confronts the complexities, paradoxes and challenges of the nation in this brief, elegant survey of India since independence. (IDA160, $17.00)
 		  
Handmade in India  •  M.P. Ranjan  •  Aditi Ranjan   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  Featuring 3500 color photos and organized by region, this sumptuous album covers the diverse crafts of India with style and authority. (IDA579, $65.00)
 		  
Hindu Art and Architecture  •  George Michell   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  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  •  Roy C. Craven   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  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  •  M.C. Joshi  •  Jean-Louis Nou  •  Amina Okada   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  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)
 		  
Taj Mahal, Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire  •  Diana Preston  •  Michael Preston   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  A vivid narrative history of the creation of the Taj Mahal, a memorial created by Moghul emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife. (IDA340, $16.95)
 		  
A Princess Remembers, The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur  •  Devi Gayatri   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • 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  •  Mohandas K. Gandhi   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR  •  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)
 		  
A Fine Balance  •  Rohinton Mistry   • LITERATURE • 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)
 		  
Beneath a Marble Sky, A Love Story  •  John Shors   • LITERATURE  •  Built to mourn the tragic death of the emperor's wife, the Taj Mahal is at the center of this murderous, fantastical and dazzling tale, told from the point of view of daughter Princess Jaharana. (IDA301, $15.00)
 		  
India, A Traveler's Literary Companion  •  Chandrahas Choudhury   • ANTHOLOGY  •  Each of these 14 stories evokes place and landscape, providing an excellent introduction both to contemporary writers and to India's diverse cultures and history. (IDA598, $14.95)
 		  
Malgudi Days  •  R. K. Narayan   • LITERATURE • FAVORITE  •  Wonderful tales from one of India's foremost writers about a fictional South Indian town, populated by quirky characters whose unique approaches to tradition and modernity are the stuff of great short stories. (IDA59, $15.00)
 		  
Midnight's Children  •  Salman Rushdie   • LITERATURE • 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 God of Small Things  •  Arundhati Roy   • LITERATURE  •  This luminous, Booker-prize winning novel is part mystery, part family saga -- a tale of lost innocence set in Kerala during the tumult of the 1960s. (IDA31, $16.00)
 		  
The White Tiger, A Novel  •  Aravind Adiga   • LITERATURE  •  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  •  James O'Reilly  •  Larry Habegger   • ANTHOLOGY  •  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)
 		  
Wild India, The Wildlife of India and Nepal  •  Guy Mountefort  •  Gerald Cubitt   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  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)
 		  
Birds of India  •  Richard Grimmett  •  Carol Inskipp  •  Tim Inskipp   • FIELD GUIDE  •  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)
 		  
 
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