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India

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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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 EXIDA310. Buy these 5 items as a set for $95 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

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Eyewitness Guide India

by 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)

India

by Stanley Wolpert

• HISTORY
• 2009
• PAPER
• 281 PAGES

Reflections on India -- religion and philosophy, art, culture, and politics -- by the dean of its American 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)

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)

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

Culture Smart! India

by Becky Stephen

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2010
• PAPER
• 168 PAGES

A concise, well-illustrated guide to both social and business customs in India. (IDA298, $9.95)

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)

Lonely Planet India Phrasebook

by Omkar Koul

• LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
• 2008
• PAPER
• 398 PAGES

A handy palm-sized guide. (IDA538, $10.99)

Love Delhi

by Fiona Caulfield

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2010
• BOXED
• 166 PAGES

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

by Fiona Caulfield

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2008
• BOXED
• 160 PAGES

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

by Edward Luce

• HISTORY
• 2008
• PAPER
• 346 PAGES

As the world's largest democracy and a rising international economic power, India has long been heralded for its great strides in technology and trade. Yet it is also plagued by poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and a vast array of other social and economic issues. 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

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)

Handmade in India

by M.P. Ranjan | Aditi Ranjan

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 2009
• HARD COVER
• 580 PAGES

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

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)

Taj Mahal, Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire

by Diana Preston | Michael Preston

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 2007
• PAPER
• 317 PAGES

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

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)

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)

Beneath a Marble Sky, A Love Story

by John Shors

• LITERATURE
• 2006
• PAPER
• 344 PAGES

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

by Chandrahas Choudhury

• ANTHOLOGY
• 2010
• PAPER
• 256 PAGES

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

by R. K. Narayan

• LITERATURE
• 2006
• PAPER
• 272 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Wonderful tales 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

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 God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

• LITERATURE
• 2008
• PAPER
• 336 PAGES

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

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)

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)

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)

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