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Southern India   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE
We feature a handpicked selection of travel guides, maps, literature, books on art, nature and culture, all designed to help you get more out of your travels to South India. Order an essential package, and we'll ship any additional items for free.

Essential Books These 4 items are available for $68, including
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Lonely Planet South India  •   Lonely Planet  •   Lonely Planet Publications
GUIDEBOOK •  2009 •  PAPER  • 592 PAGES
In Lonely Planet's hallmark style, this practical guide to South India features maps, a good overview of culture, history and nature and much nitty-gritty information on excursions, accommodations and sightseeing. With a section of color photos and 50 maps. (IDA188, $24.99)
  Lonely Planet South 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, $21.95)
  India
Malgudi Days  •  R. K. Narayan  •  Jhumpa Lahiri
LITERATURE •  2006 •  PAPER  • 272 PAGES • FAVORITE
Wonderful tales about a fictional South Indian town by a beloved Indian writer. Malgudi is a composite of Narayan's two hometowns -- Mysore and Madras -- populated by quirky characters whose unique approaches to tradition and modernity are the stuff of great short stories. (IDA59, $15.00)
  Malgudi Days
India South Map  •   Nelles
2008 •  MAP
A double-sided colorful regional map of India south of Mumbai, including Sri Lanka and the Andaman and Nicobar islands, at a scale of 1:1,500,000. With maps of Goa, Hyderabad, Bangalore (Bengaluru), Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. Two Sides. 20x40 inches. (IDA69, $10.95)
  India South Map
 

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Footprint South India  •  Robert Bradnock   • GUIDEBOOK  •  A comprehensive guide in the popular British series. (IDA237, $23.95)
 
 
Love Bengaluru  •  Fiona Caulfield   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This rather remarkable, hand-crafted book, presented in its own satchel of locally woven silk, is a loving, personal guide to singular shops and spas, restaurants, escapes and experiences in and around the city. 2nd edition. (IDA359, $40.00)
 
 
Love Mumbai  •  Fiona Caulfield   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This beautifully made, affectionate guide, packaged in its own satchel of locally woven raw silk and printed on hand-made paper, captures the soul of the city, pointing with authority to neighborhoods, shops, markets, restaurants and attractions. The second in the Love Travel Guide series. (IDA389, $40.00)
 
 
Rough Guide South India  •   Rough Guide   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This comprehensive guide balances an authoritative, succinct overview of history and culture with a superbly detailed roundup of attractions. (IDA93, $23.99)
 
 
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)
 
 
India, A Concise History  •  Francis Watson   • HISTORY  •  An illustrated history in the fine series from Thames & Hudson. (IDA139, $18.95)
 
 
India, A Wounded Civilization  •  V.S. Naipaul   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  A vivid and unsentimental cultural portrait that draws together conversations with Indians, news reports, politics and literature, paying particular attention to the Hindu confrontation with the West. (IDA224, $12.95)
 
 
May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, A Journey Among the Women of India  •  Elisabeth Bumiller   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  A wonderfully written, 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 Land of Naked People, Encounters with Stone Age Islanders  •  Madhusree Mukerjee   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  Mukerjee reveals a fascinating world nearly gone in the Andamens -- a place where the Great Andamese, Onge, Jarawa, and Sentinelese peoples once lived in near isolation. (IDA525, $24.00)
 
 
Darsan, Seeing the Divine Image in India  •  Diana L. Eck   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  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  •  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, $19.95)
 
 
The Ajanta Caves, Ancient Paintings of Buddhist India  •  Benoy Behl   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  A beautifully photographed overview of the ancient murals and paintings of the life of Buddha carved into a hillside in western India. (IDA316, $34.95)
 
 
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)
 
 
Goa, and the Blue Mountains or Six Months of Sick Leave  •  Richard Burton   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  A facsimile edition of Burton's first book, an account of travels in Goa, the Nilgiri mountains and cities along the Malabar coast of southwestern India, first published in 1851. (IDA259, $26.95)
 
 
Hindu Myths  •  Wendy Doniger   • ANTHOLOGY  •  A sourcebook, translated from the Sanskrit, this anthology is drawn from editor and University of Chicago professor Doniger's courses on Hinduism and mythology. (IDA347, $16.00)
 
 
Mirrorwork, 50 Years of Indian Writing 1947-1997  •  Salman Rushdie  •  Elizabeth West   • ANTHOLOGY  •  A selection of 20th-century Indian prose, both fiction and non-fiction, compiled by Salman Rushdie and featuring work by Jawaharlal Nehru, R.K. Narayan, Satyajit Ray, Amit Chaudhuri, and Vikram Seth. Published in celebration of India's 50 years of independence. (IDA293, $19.00)
 
 
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, $15.95)
 
 
Gods, Demons and Others  •  R. K. Narayan  •  R.K. Laxman   • LITERATURE  •  Hindu stories freely adapted by Narayan, one of India's foremost writers. They include tales both highly readable and revealing of Indian Hindu traditions, some drawn from the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. (IDA101, $23.00)
 
 
Midnight's Children  •  Salman Rushdie   • LITERATURE • FAVORITE  •  A madcap, comic take on the birth of modern India in all its splendid and unexpected manifestations, Rushdie's greatest novel was recently crowned "Best of the Booker." The title refers to those, like the narrator, born at the stroke of midnight August 15, 1947. (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, $15.00)
 
 
The House of Blue Mangoes  •  David Davidar   • LITERATURE  •  Davidar's sweeping saga follows the traumas and triumphs of three generations of the Dorai family on Kerala's lush Coromandel Coast from 1899 through the tumult of Independence. (IDA548, $13.99)
 
 
The Mango Season  •  Amulya Malladi   • LITERATURE  •  A marvelously evocative novel of life in South India, in which the prodigal daughter returns home. The pleasure and importance of food in the novel (which includes recipes) underscores the tension between modern and traditional. (IDA257, $13.95)
 
 
The Moor's Last Sigh  •  Salman Rushdie   • LITERATURE  •  A sweeping family epic that tackles many of the most complex aspects about Indian culture. In his characteristically rich prose, Rushdie tells the history of India, set among the spice traders of Cochin. (IDA89, $16.00)
 
 
The Ramayana, A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic  •  R. K. Narayan   • LITERATURE  •  Novelist Narayan's translation of the ancient Hindu epic of heroism, love and fate. (IDA311, $14.00)
 
 
The Red Carpet, Bangalore Stories  •  Lavanya Sankaran   • LITERATURE  •  Born in Bangalore and educated at Bryn Mawr, Sankaran perfectly captures the region's characteristic collision of traditional and modern in these wry stories. (IDA549, $13.00)
 
 
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. Adiga's India is a place where religion doesn't create morality and money doesn't solve every problem, though craven ambition can get you far indeed. (IDA542, $15.00)
 
 
India Safari Companion  •  Alain Pons   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A colorful, illustrated slim guide to wildlife, photography and travel in India. (IDA371, $14.95)
 
 
Birds of India  •  Richard Grimmett  •  Carol Inskipp  •  Tim Inskipp   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A compact, authoritative guide to 1,300 birds of the subcontinent, from Nepal and Bhutan to Sri Lanka, with stunning color plates, range maps and descriptive information on facing pages. (FG43, $35.00)
 
 


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