Books published by Speaking Tiger

In the beautiful Swiss Alps, in a tiny village, lived a girl called Heidi who loved the mountains and her home there dearly. This is her story…Heidi is an orphan and comes to live with her grandfather when she is five years old. Grandfather's house is among the tall mountains, surrounded by beautiful meadows. Soon, Heidi begins to love her life here with the goats she looks after, her new friend Peter, his blind grandmother who dotes on Heidi and even her stern grandfather. But one day, she is taken far away from all of this to Frankfurt, a busy city where she can neither see the sky nor walk about as she pleases. As Heidi learns to live a new life, she keeps yearning for her old one, till one day, someone is convinced there is a ghost walking about at night in the house. Who is this ghost? What is the ghost's connection with Heidi? Will it help Heidi to go back to the village and to her grandfather?Heidi has been a favourite of adults and children all over the world since it was first published. In this new edition introduced by Ruskin Bond, be ready to fall under its spell once again.

Nimmi Daruwala is starting Grade 6, and she is sure it is going to be absolutely SPECTABULOUS! Will it?Eleven-year-old Nimmi Daruwala does not like her last name at all, nor Sumit, her chief tormentor and general pie-faced classmate. But she loves drama, Miss Tanvi, her drama teacher-and, most of all, inventing utterly unusual words. On the first day of Grade 6, Nimmi wakes up thinking it is going to be a spectacular+fabulous=spectabulous year. But starting with an ill-fitting skort, nothing goes right for her. Sumit is suddenly on the same school bus as her. Her best friend Sophia is talking in a strange singsong accent and is friendly with mean girl Alisha Dubash. And Nimmi's favourite drama teacher has taken the year off. In her place there is the dull, pale-eyed Miss Aatmaja, who brands Nimmi the Troublemaker of Grade 6!With jumping rubber spiders, tumbling candy coloured school furniture, a principal with one too many bright ideas, and a birthday party where almost everything goes wrong, Nimmi's Spectabulous Schooldays is hilarious and dramatic and a story every schoolchild will relate to.

Where does beauty live? Where should we travel to find it?Is a dawn without birdsong still beautiful?What might we see through the branches of a cherry tree at night?Can we crave the rose if we fear its thorns?What does the heart have to do with beauty?Few writers anywhere have celebrated the beauty of the world, of all creatures great and small, as magically as Ruskin Bond has done. This little anthology brings together his own ideas and images of beauty and those of writers and thinkers he has read and liked. This pocketbook is a thing of quiet beauty.

The Scope of Happiness is the autobiography of an outstanding world figure who was the sister, confidante, and lifelong political associate of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and the aunt of Indira Gandhi. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit participated in the Indian national struggle for freedom from its inception and was imprisoned three times. In this very personal view of the struggle for independence, she gives an evocative picture of the cultured and protected world in which she grew up in Anand Bhavan in Allahabad, conveying even the textures, aromas and sounds of her childhood home. She offers an unprecedented picture of life in India under British rule, with its rigorous restrictions and racial bigotry.A compelling strength of this book is the intimate picture the author draws of many great figures: the searching and affectionate view of her brother, the insight into her niece Indira, a personal record of Mahatma Gandhi that no one else could give-and penetrating and entertaining anecdotes of world figures such as Krishna Menon, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Chester Bowles, Dag Hammarskjold, Eleanor Roosevelt, President Tito and Prince Charles. No other living individual could draw the sweeping historical picture that Mrs Pandit has given us in her memoir, making it a book of rare significance that will speak lastingly for generations to come.

'By turns terrifying and amusing, this is not a book you want to read before you go to sleep. Or maybe you do...'-Jerry PintoSharmeen's life is disrupted when, after an unexpected tragedy, she moves into her Nani's rambling ancestral bungalow with her family. She hates this new life: her mother, Aliya, and Nani fight constantly; her new schoolmates bully her; and the family retainer, her loving Aziz Bhai, suddenly becomes dominating. The only place where Sharmeen finds solace is the world of Nani's fantastical stories: tales of Jinn, shapeshifters and other dastardly creatures. But slowly, unseen forces that had lain dormant for centuries start to awaken. Sharmeen meets her own personal Jinn, the prankster Jugnu, who reveals her family's history, a pact one of her ancestors made with the Jinn-world, and also some not-so-good news-and Sharmeen realizes that it is up to her to rescue the adults in her life…Mysterious, magical and moving, A Firefly in the Dark is a page-turner and a work of fantasy and soaring imagination that will delight readers of all ages.

A thrilling subterranean adventure filled with startling and strange discoveriesWhen Professor Otto Liedenbrock comes across a strange code, he is convinced that it points the way to reaching the centre of the earth. With the help of his nephew Axel, he deciphers the code and with Axel at his side, sets off for Iceland. There, they venture down the crater of a volcano. Travelling further and further, deeper into the earth using a series of interconnected passageways, they have incredible adventures and close encounters with death. The discoveries they make inside the earth are as astounding as they are unbelievable. From the existence of an underground sea and echoing chambers, to prehistoric animals and much more, the explorers go from one exciting episode to another. But will they be able to find their way back to the surface of the earth finally?As enthralling and electrifying today as it was when it was first published, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth remains an enduring classic that continues to inspire voyagers and readers alike. Let it come alive once more in this beautiful edition, with an introduction by Ruskin Bond.

The thrilling adventures of Sinbad the sailor, Ali Baba and the forty thieves, and Princess Periezade-from the unforgettable 1001 Arabian Nights.Princess Scheherazade's tales of the Arabian Nights, composed over ten centuries ago, have captivated the imagination of generations of readers. These unforgettable tales of adventure, magic and fantasy come alive in this collection. In 'Sinbad the Sailor', the prosperous sailor narrates his seven incredible ship journeys. In each of these voyages he ends up shipwrecked and encounters gigantic snakes and birds, cannibals, mythical creatures and more. But he escapes each time using his wit, amassing great wealth in the process. In 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves', Ali Baba and his family discover a secret cave filled with glittering gems and gold. But who will rescue them when the thieves trap them in the cave? And, in a lesser-known gem of a tale, the brave and intelligent Princess Periezade goes in search of the singing tree, the talking bird and the golden fountain, all of which lead her to an even greater secret.Dive into this collection, specially selected and introduced by Ruskin Bond, to enter a world full of wonder, enchantment and daredevilry.

When exams drive you crazy and books and studies are all everyone seems to talk about, it is time to pick up this book.Did Early Man and Woman make their children take fastest-firemaker-first exams? What happens when a gorilla gatecrashes the examination hall and asks difficult Gorilla Pythagoras questions? Who is a zgnogir and did he pass the most difficult test ever when he was sent to Mumbai? Did Lakshmi Perumal really make the philosopher's stone while doing her Chemistry practicals? And how did exam day solve the problem of the boy who had a really long name?Exams have never seemed as full of mischief, and as fun, imaginative and fantastic as in these stories by the very best children's writers of the country. Jerry Pinto, Shreekumar Varma, Deepa Agarwal, Shabnam Minwalla, Jane D'Suza, Andaleeb Wajid and many others provide a laugh and a chuckle on every page in this book that is sure to chase away the examination blues.

'Over the course of Keki Daruwalla's long career, some things have stayed the same: a vertical view of history that plunges across centuries and mythologies, an epic canvas rendered in minute detail, and a narrative engine that never stops ticking. What has changed is a tonal quality. Early poems that drip with scorn segue into the lovely late lyrics, with their grudging acceptance of mortality and frailty. This is an essential collection, a summing-up, as well as a fount of instruction and pleasure.' -Jeet Thayil'Daruwalla's verbs have lost none of their feral quality. His poetic line remains, for the most part, sinewy and energetic. The capacity to combine atmospheric sweep with succinctness, and to turn out the startling turn of phrase with an almost throwaway air are unchanged. Several moments in these poems linger long after one has closed the book: the wind "whetting its razor on eroded slopes", "leaves like old scrolls wrapped in their crackling selves", "a firefly pulsing/low on battery", "the full-throated tremolo [of wolves] ricocheting in the wilds", "the tangled reed-and-sedge locks of Shiva", and "elegy moving like a slow Wagnerian movement", to name just a few [...] Vigorous and powerful, the poems of Keki Daruwalla continue to take wing.'-Arundhathi Subramaniam

Dev-charismatic and powerful, a guru with thousands of followers around the world, and a string of ashrams fuelled by a flourishing business in drugs and gun-running. Ashrams that bring him the power and wealth he craves and fulfil his desire for women. But of all the women he knows-and at times, loves-there are three who play a pivotal role in his life: his wife, Gita, whose death is shrouded in mystery, and Cynthia and Madge, who unwittingly launch him into his career as a guru.Nitya is Dev's complete antithesis-pure of heart and deeply spiritual. He comes to Dev as a disciple, and for years his devotion to his guru makes him blind to his failings. But when the truth can no longer be ignored, he is disillusioned.Though he escapes charges of rape and murder, Dev does finally receive a death sentence-he is fatally afflicted with AIDS. As he lies on his deathbed in Rishikesh, Nitya comes to see him, unable to turn away from him completely. Dev tells him his story, and what compelled him to make the choices he did. Nitya also uncovers the truth about Gita's death. When the end finally comes, Nitya has a deeper understanding of the man he once loved so blindly, and realizes how, ultimately, the quest for perfection can be marred by human frailty.

A storm batters a hillside farmstead through the night, and the family living in it debates its decision to give up the comforts of Darjeeling town for the pride of owning land. Ancient law allows Harshajit to cut down Rudraman, who has staked claim to his wife Thuli, but when Harshajit catches up with the couple after days of relentless chase, he witnesses a fearsome encounter that compels him to consecrate their marriage with his own hands. When a man on his way to Darjeeling stops in a bungalow near the Teesta river, he is drawn to the conversation of the labourers next door and, in their chatter about the ideal recipe for cooking kheer, he gains a profound insight into the human condition. And Jayamaya, part of the Gurkha community in Burma forced on a long march to India during the Second World War, helplessly witnesses her life disintegrate in the face of invasion.Lyrically translated, the stories in Long Night of Storm are wise, psychologically astute and deeply compassionate. A collection that will yield more at every reading, this is a book to keep returning to.

A timely and insightful book on ISIS-the world's most dangerous terrorist network-by the bestselling author of Holy Warriors.Governments across the world openly acknowledge the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as one of the greatest terrorist threats in history, greater even than Al Qaeda, which first set light to a global jihad. Never before has there been such a wealth of information, propaganda and counter-propaganda available on the subject, especially on the Internet. And yet, in all the noise, there's confusion. This book draws on thorough research and rare interviews to deconstruct the founding ideology of ISIS and chart its growth: how it recruits, using the Dark Web to indoctrinate the disaffected and the emotionally vulnerable across the world; how it has spread globally, using violence as theatre and making secret pacts with cynical governments; and how it finances itself-through sale of oil, extortion and slave trade. The book also examines how this terrorist state is being dismantled by an unlikely coalition of forces from the Middle East and the West, even as it warns that the nationalist chauvinism and economic protectionism sweeping the world today could provide new fuel to ISIS and its ideology. Rigorous and insightful, The Hollow Kingdom is a necessary read-a compelling mix of research and reportage.

The finest non-fiction by Ruskin Bond, a singular writer who has inspired and comforted three generations of readers, collected in a single volume.A lifetime of reading and writing, observation and contemplation is distilled in this comprehensive volume of the best essays, profiles and sketches by Ruskin Bond, the masterly and compassionate chronicler of the small details and lambent moments that capture the essence of a meaningful life. By turns thoughtful, humorous, keenly observed and wise, these essays span more than sixty years of his writing-from reflections on companionship and solitude, to lyrical yet finely honed appreciations of nature, to nostalgic evocations of bygone people and ways of life. As an essayist, he brings to his travel narratives about the major pilgrimage centres of the Himalaya, or the story about searching for the gravestone of a long-forgotten author, the same empathy and sense of wonder that mark his accounts of glimpsing an elusive leopard, or watching the mist rise in a forest of pines. A Time for All Things contains the finest non-fiction of a singular writer who has inspired and comforted three generations of readers with his sustained, steady and affectionate engagement with life in a world that grows ever more hectic.

A masterpiece of world literature-the exhilarating adventures of the boy who lived with wolves.Mowgli is found abandoned in the jungle by Father Wolf who takes him to his pack. The baby boy becomes a part of the wolf pack; he grows up and learns to live like any other animal in the jungle, playing with his wolf brothers and sisters and his friends Bagheera and Baloo. But Shere Khan the tiger cannot bear the thought of a human living in the jungle among them and is determined to get the better of Mowgli. Will the 'man-cub' accept defeat and go away, or will he fight for his place in the forest?Rudyard Kipling's immortal stories in The Jungle Book bring to life the forests and animals of India and the thrilling adventures of Mowgli have captivated the imagination of readers the world over. Fall under their spell once again in this edition, introduced affectionately by Ruskin Bond.

The ever popular, unforgettable story of a puppet who came to life.Pinocchio is a wooden puppet who comes alive and starts talking and running about. When Pinocchio is sent to school, he decides to sell his school books and join a puppet show. From there start his many adventures which take him all over the countryside, making enemies like the Fox and Cat, getting turned into a donkey, being swallowed by a whale and ending up with the Blue Fairy who promises to turn him into a real boy if he stops being naughty.The story of Pinocchio has been read and adored by children for more than a century. With this new edition introduced by Ruskin Bond, the inquisitive and mischievous Pinocchio's incredible adventures will entertain and amuse readers once more.

A classic collection of spooky stories about spirits and goblins from ancient Japan.In the late 1800s, Lafcadio Hearn collected and retold strange and wonderful ghostly tales from old Japanese legends. In these stories, a blind poet must perform for members of a dead royal family; an old man gives up his life in exchange for blossoms on a wilting cherry tree; a man trying to comfort a strange woman crying in the dark recoils in horror on seeing her face; and a mandarin duck haunts the hunter who shot her companion.These are timeless and hair-raising stories in which humans and ghostly creatures co-exist. This new edition, with an introduction by Ruskin Bond, will leave readers spellbound.

'The author of this absorbing book was, where India is concerned, truly present at the Creation...I urge her book on everyone who lived in those great years and on all those who want to know more about them.' -John Kenneth GalbraithWhen Mahatma Gandhi gave the call for the nation to join in the freedom struggle, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit threw herself wholeheartedly into the Movement, along with her father, Motilal Nehru, brother Jawaharlal, and husband, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit. Prison Days is an account of her third and final term in Naini Central Jail in Allahabad. She was arrested on 12 August 1942. World War II was on, the country was under military rule and arrest and imprisonment took place without trial. Several lorries filled with armed policemen arrived that night at Anand Bhawan to arrest one lone, unarmed woman.Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was soon joined in jail by her 25-year-old niece, Indira Gandhi. In this diary, Pandit recounts her experiences in jail and the hardships she endured along with others who had joined the fight for freedom: rations mixed with dirt and stones, a lack of water and sanitary facilities, surviving on an allowance of 9 annas a day, and only the hard ground to sleep on.Though it is more the personal, day-to-day details of her life that fill Pandit's jail diary, it is the politics of the day-the overarching desire to throw off the shackles of British rule and Mahatma Gandhi's unique approach of non-violence and non-cooperation to achieve this, that define the book. It is this that gives Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and her fellow prisoners the courage to carry on the fight with unbroken spirits-and at the stroke of the midnight hour on 15 August 1947, victory was theirs. India was reborn as an independent nation.

'A riveting book on real-life crimes and how the police solve them. We sleep in peace in a world made safer by these supermen and women in white.'-Sourav Ganguly, cricketerBrother kills brother using the plague bacteria as a murder weapon.A man is killed in his sleep and his body walled up in the house.A seemingly docile housewife masterminds a gruesome twin murder…The Kolkata Police is one of the oldest and most illustrious police forces in the country. In Murder in the City, Supratim Sarkar digs deep into their archives and chooses twelve astonishing cases to recount, bringing investigators, criminals and indeed the city to life in startling detail. Among the cases described in these pages are one where the method of 'photographic superimposition' was used for the first time ever in India to identify a body; another, where a single word led the police to a ruthless killer's hideout; and an extraordinary case of a kidnap and murder that was solved even though the body was never found.Initially written in Bengali for the Kolkata Police Facebook page and website, these stories went viral and were shared widely when they appeared online for the first time. Here, they have been translated and compiled into a book that is as utterly gripping as it is fascinating.

Illustrated love stories that take you on a journey through gardens across the world.This charming set of illustrated stories takes you on a guided tour through the historic tombs of the Lodhi Garden in New Delhi, the magnificent ruins of the Forum Romanum in Rome, the deliberately designed natural landscape of Central Park in New York, and the topiary oddities of the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai. This unusual itinerary takes the characters on a journey of self-discovery which unfolds through conversations that gradually reveal the drama of their personal lives, of a marriage made and unmade, and made again. Their walks through vast swathes of history are complemented by exquisite pen and ink drawings.

Lalli, retired policewoman, intrepid detective, collects curiosities… that inevitably lead to murder.The curiosity of murder unfolds in seven acts.Since Kalpana Swaminathan's first whodunit was published over ten years ago, Lalli-sixty and silver-haired and tough as nails-has been one of the most memorable detectives in Indian fiction. Lalli returns in this brilliant page-turner, a collection of seven stories, to solve some of the strangest, most complex cases of her career.The opening act, in which a face keeps reappearing until a crime committed long ago is revealed, is followed by a murder that could be hypothetical-or a reality (Lalli turns to Schrodinger's Cat to find out). In the third act in this unfolding drama, Lalli and Sita are invited to a book-burning which turns out to be murder most foul. And Lalli turns her skills to the world of high fashion when Sita sits next to a serial killer on a bus-but was he killer or victim?The aptly named Sucide Point in Bombay's suburbs, leads Lalli to a suicide that turns out to be something far more sinister. And an innocuous desk ornament is the clue to a crime most artistically executed. Finally, for connoisseurs of fiction, the curtains come down with a threnody for lost love.

'Endearing, explosive, heartbreaking and a little bit nuts.'- Palash Krishna Mehrotra, author and columnistHow well does a single woman hitting her forties fare in the urban jungle of romantic relationships? When Delhi-based writer and journalist Ritu Bhatia turned single in middle age, and set forth to discover a new life and romantic relationship, she had no idea of what she was up against. All the books she could find were for the twenty- and thirty-somethings, not women of her generation, which led her to chronicle her own experiences.Optimistic about finding true love, she discovers the city has all kinds of men looking to mingle: there's the debonair single dad, who wants her to play stepmom; a middle-aged singleton who can't be parted from his Mommy; a dashing Mr India who turns into Mr Sleazy when she enters his apartment; and a smooth-talking salsa dancer who sweeps her off her feet. Keeping pace with a younger man, she finds, needs vast reserves of energy-and a generous budget for gyms and beauty treatments, bringing her attempts to turn into a 'desi cougar' to nought.Told with engaging wit and candour, Manspotting looks at the metamorphosis of love, sex and relationships over two decades, in a culture beset with contradictions and judgements about women's interactions with the opposite sex. The future of romance, says Ritu, depends upon the willingness of men and women to step out of gender stereotypes and embrace unconventional relationships that allow partners to live on their own terms.

Heartwarming and candid, this is the story of one of our foremost literary voices, told in her own words-a life beset by tragedy which yet carries a message of courage, hope and happiness.Growing up in pre-Partition Lahore, Ajeet Cour spent a childhood wrapped in warm and enticing experiences, despite her disciplinarian father. From such a beginning, her life moves on to a first, true love that is lost on account of a misunderstanding; a violent, bitter marriage that leaves her with two young children to support; the death of a beloved child, and the loss, again, of love when at last she seems to have found it. But despite the tragedy that always seems to follow her, Ajeet Cour's story is one of courage, hope and a sort of happiness, as she finds her eventual refuge in herself.