Top 10 Books of 2017 by Indian Authors


Pushpak Pande



This year number of books were published. Few did touch our heart and few were not worth reading. We sorted out few books based on the selling and reviews of the customer.

Below are the Top 10 Books of 2017 by Indian Authors.

Sita – Warrior of Mithila By Amish Tripathy


Immerse yourself in book 2 of the Ram Chandra series, based on the Ramayana, the story of Lady Sita, written by the multi-million bestselling Indian Author Amish; the author who has transformed Indian Fiction with his unique combination of mystery, mythology, religious symbolism and philosophy. In this book, you will follow Lady Sita's journey from an Adopted Child to the Prime Minister to finding her true calling. You will find all the familiar characters you have heard of, like Lord Ram and Lord Lakshman and see more of Lord Hanuman and many others from Mithila. You will also start discovering the true purpose of the Vayuputras and Malayaputras and their conflicting ideologies that leads to plot twists, politics and intrigue as they try to influence outcomes from behind the scenes.

She is the warrior we need. The Goddess we await.
She will defend Dharma. She will protect us.

India, 3400 BCE.

India is beset with divisions, resentment and poverty. The people hate their rulers. They despise their corrupt and selfish elite. Chaos is just one spark away. Outsiders exploit these divisions. Raavan, the demon king of Lanka, grows increasingly powerful, sinking his fangs deeper into the hapless Sapt Sindhu. 

Two powerful tribes, the protectors of the divine land of India, decide that enough is enough. A saviour is needed. They begin their search.

An abandoned baby is found in a field. Protected by a vulture from a pack of murderous wolves. She is adopted by the ruler of Mithila, a powerless kingdom, ignored by all. Nobody believes this child will amount to much. But they are wrong. 

For she is no ordinary girl. She is Sita.

Continue the epic journey with Amish’s latest: A thrilling adventure that chronicles the rise of an adopted child, who became the prime minister. And then, a Goddess. 

This is the second book in the Ram Chandra Series. A sequel that takes you back. Back before the beginning.



The Boy Who Loved  by Durjoy Datta 


The only thing you cannot plan in life is when and who to fall in love with . . . Raghu likes to show that there is nothing remarkable about his life loving, middleclass parents, an elder brother he looks up to, and plans to study in an IIT. And that s how he wants things to seem normal. Deep down, however, the guilt of letting his closest friend drown in the school s swimming pool gnaws at him. And even as he punishes himself by hiding from the world and shying away from love and friendship, he feels drawn to the fascinating Brahmi a girl quite like him, yet so different. No matter how hard Raghu tries, he begins to care . . . Then life throws him into the deep end and he has to face his worst fears. Will love be strong enough to pull him out? The Boy Who Loved, first of a two-part romance, is warm and dark, edgy and quirky, wonderfully realistic and dangerously unreal.


Forever Is a Lie by Novoneel Chakraborty 


The best thing happened to her . . . but in the worst way possible . . .
Prisha Srivastav turned eighteen two months back. Hailing from Faridabad, she studies mass communication in Bengaluru. She meets a mysterious man, double her age, who goes by the name 'the mean monster' in the Bengaluru party circuit. Intrigued, she pursues him and falls for him. However, there's a problem. Prisha doesn't know he kills the one who loves him. Literally. From the master of twists, Novoneel Chakraborty, comes another beguiling tale of dark romance and thrill that won't let you put the book down till the last page.


This is Not Your Story by Savi Sharma 


Sometimes, you do not write your story, it writes you. You don't choose your story, it chooses you.

But would you believe it if someone told you, ‘This is Not Your Story’? Would you have the courage to rewrite it?

Shaurya, a CA student. This is his story of following his dreams.

Miraya, an interior designer. This is her story of believing in love.

Anubhav, an aspiring entrepreneur. This is his story of giving life another chance.

After her record-breaking debut novel Everyone Has A Story, Savi Sharma tells a transforming tale of courage, hope and self-discovery.

Prologue:
For a moment, forget who you are. More importantly, leave behind who we are and empty out everything. Instead, just be me.
‘I never wanted anything from life.’
If I say those words, I would be lying. In fact, that would be the biggest lie of my life. I wanted, I have always wanted. I just never could bring the words out. My voice failing, my heart breaking, my soul shattering.
But, what do I really want in life? I don’t know yet. So, I will tell you everything I wanted and still want. Today, I will be true; true to you, and most importantly, true to myself.
I...I...I want to live.
Yes. Not one but many lives in one lifetime. I want to write about myself and everyone I ever met, capture the essence of what it’s like to live. To be able to read everything beautiful and painful ever written and appreciate the experiences captured. All of this hoping to inspire and be inspired.
I want to learn and to teach. Yes, both, because I have had life-defining encounters that need to be shared and understood. Even so, I still have life-changing experiences, lessons to learn.
I want to give away everything I have. Yes, I want that and I want to begin again. To remind myself what it means to start over, to be back at the beginning of one’s life.
I want to eat and dress well, have a nice car and a nicer home. To be rich, famous and appreciated. The little things and the bigger things, I want all of them.
I want to be single and yet attached. Alone yet accompanied. I want to be everything and nothing, all at once!
I want Death to want me. He cannot take me, I want him to come when I have exhausted these lives I want to live and become! I want him to desire the enriched soul I will be!
I want it all; slowly, gradually, definitely. But is this all possible? Can one person be all these things in one lifetime?
I don’t know, but I certainly want to know.


The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter by Shilpa Raj


Saved by her grandmother from being killed at birth for having been born a female, Shilpa’s life took many unexpected turns and twists through her early years. She faced abandonment by her mother, the formidable constraints placed on her by her family, and the barbs of village elders bound by hundreds of years of oppressive practices and customs that subjugate women. Shilpa is torn between the contrasting lives she leads: one of servitude and injustice experienced by her family; the other of opportunity and empowerment offered by a good education in a school started by a philanthropist.

Just when all seems settled, an unforeseen death under mysterious circumstances shatters whatever stability remains in her life. Pulled in opposite directions, and torn between despair and dreams, Shilpa finally makes a choice for her future. Is she strong enough to stand up to the people she loves, and pursue what she wants?

At its heart The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter is about hope, when all seems lost. Written with raw honesty and grit, this is a deeply moving memoir of a young girl confronting her ‘untouchable’ status in a caste-based society, and her aspirations for modernity.


'No One Can Pronounce My Name' by Rakesh Satyal


A HUMOROUS AND TENDER MULTIGENERATIONAL NOVEL ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND OUTSIDERS―THOSE TRYING TO FIND THEIR PLACE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY AND WITHIN THEIR OWN FAMILIES

In a suburb outside Cleveland, a community of Indian Americans has settled into lives that straddle the divide between Eastern and Western cultures. For some, America is a bewildering and alienating place where coworkers can’t pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class. Harit, a lonely Indian immigrant in his mid forties, lives with his mother who can no longer function after the death of Harit’s sister, Swati. In a misguided attempt to keep both himself and his mother sane, Harit has taken to dressing up in a sari every night to pass himself off as his sister. Meanwhile, Ranjana, also an Indian immigrant in her mid forties, has just seen her only child, Prashant, off to college. Worried that her husband has begun an affair, she seeks solace by writing paranormal romances in secret. When Harit and Ranjana’s paths cross, they begin a strange yet necessary friendship that brings to light their own passions and fears.

Rakesh Satyal's No One Can Pronounce My Name is a distinctive, funny, and insightful look into the lives of people who must reconcile the strictures of their culture and traditions with their own dreams and desires.


'No Other World' by Rahul Mehta


From the author of the prize-winning collection Quarantine, an insightful, compelling debut novel set in rural America and India in the 1980s and ’90s, part coming-of-age story about a gay Indian American boy, part family saga about an immigrant family’s struggles to find a sense of belonging, identity, and hope.

In a rural community in Western New York, twelve-year-old Kiran Shah, the American-born son of Indian immigrants, longingly observes his prototypically American neighbors, the Bells. He attends school with Kelly Bell, but he’s powerfully drawn—in a way he does not yet understand—to her charismatic father, Chris.

Kiran’s yearnings echo his parents’ bewilderment as they try to adjust to a new world. His father, Nishit Shah, a successful doctor, is haunted by thoughts of the brother he left behind. His mother, Shanti, struggles to accept a life with a man she did not choose—her marriage to Nishit was arranged—and her growing attachment to an American man. Kiran is close to his older sister, Preeti—until an unexpected threat and an unfathomable betrayal drive a wedge between them that will reverberate through their lives.

As he leaves childhood behind, Kiran finds himself perpetually on the outside—as an Indian American torn between two cultures and as a gay man in a homophobic society. In the wake of an emotional breakdown, he travels to India, where he forms an intense bond with a teenage hijra, a member of India’s ancient transgender community. With her help, Kiran begins to pull together the pieces of his broken past.

Sweeping and emotionally complex, No Other World is a haunting meditation on love, belonging, and forgiveness that explores the line between our responsibilities to our families and to ourselves, the difficult choices we make, and the painful cost of claiming our true selves.


'Pashmina' by Nidhi Chanani


A heartfelt young adult graphic novel about an Indian-American teen's attempt to reconnect with her mother’s homeland through a magical pashmina shawl.Priyanka Das has so many unanswered questions: Why did her mother abandon her home in India years ago? What was it like there? And most importantly, who is her father and why did her mom leave him behind? But Pri’s mom avoids these questions—the topic of India is permanently closed.

For Pri, her mother's homeland can only exist in her imagination. That is, until she finds a mysterious pashmina tucked away in a forgotten suitcase. When she wraps herself in it, she is transported to a place more vivid and colorful than any guidebook or Bollywood film. But is this the real India? And what is that shadow lurking in the background? To learn the truth, Pri must travel farther than she’s ever dared and find the family she never knew.


'The Windfall' by Diksha Basu


 

A heartfelt comedy of manners, Diksha Basu’s debut novel unfolds the story of a family discovering what it means to “make it” in modern India.

For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. They thought they'd settled comfortably into their golden years, pleased with their son’s acceptance into an American business school. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to the super-rich side of town, where he becomes eager to fit in as a man of status: skinny ties, hired guards, shoe-polishing machines, and all.
 
The move sets off a chain of events that rock their neighbors, their marriage, and their son, who is struggling to keep a lid on his romantic dilemmas and slipping grades, and brings unintended consequences, ultimately forcing the Jha family to reckon with what really matters. Hilarious and wise, The Windfall illuminates with warmth and charm the precariousness of social status, the fragility of pride, and, above all, the human drive to build and share a home. Even the rich, it turns out, need to belong somewhere.


 

Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni



Taking us back to a time that is half history, half myth and wholly magical, bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni gives voice to Panchaali, the fire-born heroine of the Mahabharata, as she weaves a vibrant retelling of an ancient epic saga.

Married to five royal husbands who have been cheated out of their father's kingdom, Panchaali aids their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war. But she cannot deny her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna—or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands' most dangerous enemy—as she is caught up in the ever-manipulating hands of fate.


Share Article :




You may also like