Avantika Singh, better known as General Gosling, was born aboard a Boeing 747 somewhere over the Arabian Sea. Gosling and her siblings - Duckling and the twins Dingaling and Dumpling - have been brought up at Shadow House by their grandfather, the crazy, zany Nana and his lovely partner Shabby Aunty. Nana, an ex-army surgeon, is completely whacko and life at Shadow House is exasperating, funny and unforgettable, what with Nana's fixation for his ten Classic and Vintage cars, Duckling's collections of virtually everything 'collectible' and the twins' notorious business swindles. But then when it becomes clear that Nana is slowly falling prey to dementia and Alzheimer's, his daughter makes diabolical plans for him-and for the children's future. Plans that Gosling and the others are determined to thwart, without foreseeing how terribly things could go wrong for everyone. Will dear nutcase Nana survive all this and return to his beloved Shadow House and Shabby Aunty? At once funny and heart-breaking, Our Nana Was a Nutcase is a delightfully touching story about growing up, growing old and loving your grandparent no matter how nutty he may seem. A Children's Bookshelf Selection: Each month our editor's pick the best books for children and young adults by age to be a part of the children's bookshelf. These are editorial recommendations made by our team of experts. Our monthly reading list includes a mix of bestsellers and top new releases and evergreen books that will help enhance a child's reading life.

His stories instruct and entertain, bringing the past of Indian Railways alive in the present. Did you know that India's first steam engine never ran on tracks and was actually used to run driving mills in a factory? That the maximum speed of the first commercial train in India was 4.5 miles/hour?

Sreedharan's expertise and foresight-on behalf of those not as richly blessed as he was-ensured that political will was converted into a multipurpose railway project. The [Chithoni railway link] bridge was completed eleven weeks ahead of schedule and proved to be helpful to one and all. Two key railway projects changed the way India travels by train-the 760-km stretch of Konkan Railway and the Delhi Metro. Both the projects were up and running in seven years flat and the man in charge was Dr Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, popularly known as the Railway Man. He has been hailed as the messiah of new-age infrastructure projects and his success stories have become railway engineering benchmark. Respected, loved and equally hated, this book covers the amazing story of one man-his perseverance, beliefs, and public and private battles. India's Railway Man: A Biography of E. Sreedharan is a tribute to this extraordinary man.

Bishwanath Ghosh had alighted from his train at Itarsi station to stretch his legs and grab a glass of tea before he resumed his journey.

Beloved bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been hailed by Abraham Verghese as a “gifted storyteller” and by People magazine as a “skilled cartographer of the heart.” Now, Divakaruni returns with her most gripping novel yet, a sweeping, suspenseful coming-of-age tale about a young woman who leaves India for America on a search that will transform her life. THOUGH SHE WAS ORPHANED AT BIRTH, the wild and headstrong Korobi Roy has enjoyed a privileged childhood with her adoring grandparents, spending her first seventeen years sheltered in a beautiful, crumbling old mansion in Kolkata. But despite all that her grandparents have done for her, she is troubled by the silence that surrounds the circumstances of her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found, years ago, hidden in a book of poetry that had belonged to her mother. As she grows, Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents’, and it seems her wish has finally come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family. Shortly after their engagement, however, a sudden heart attack kills Korobi’s grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi’s past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents’ betrayal, Korobi decides to undertake a courageous search across post-9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will ultimately thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life. With flawless narrative instinct and a boundless sympathy for her irrepressible characters, in Oleander Girl Divakaruni brings us a perfect treat of a novel— moving, wise, and unforgettable. As The Wall Street Journal raves, “Divakaruni emphasizes the cathartic force of storytelling with sumptuous prose. . . . She defies categorization.”

What would you do? When confronted with the impossible? The ghostly? The bizarre? The dangerous? Challenges demanding answers? With or without adequate resources? Against the clock? Meet Manab Banerjee, the Station Master. A regular guy, like you, or that guy there wearing that rather nondescript shirt. Except, as the quintessential Indian Railways man, he dealt with them routinely… Strange wails in the still of a misty night… a bloody beheading on the platform… a mysterious lady with an aura of danger… gold biscuits… a brutal murder… a catastrophic accident in the station… and a storm that led to a death and its consequences… all these and more. Manab meets them head-on in this collection of ten stories based on real life, resolute but accommodating, quick yet patient… and always with his heart in the right place.

One of the finest living writers in the English language, V. S. Naipaul gives us a tale as wholly unexpected as it is affecting, his first novel since the exultantly acclaimed A Way in the World, published seven years ago. Half a Life is the story of Willie Chandran, whose father, heeding the call of Mahatma Gandhi, turned his back on his brahmin heritage and married a woman of low caste—a disastrous union he would live to regret, as he would the children that issued from it. When Willie reaches manhood, his flight from the travails of his mixed birth takes him from India to London, where, in the shabby haunts of immigrants and literary bohemians of the 1950s, he contrives a new identity. This is what happens as he tries to defeat self-doubt in sexual adventures and in the struggle to become a writer—strivings that bring him to the brink of exhaustion, from which he is rescued, to his amazement, only by the love of a good woman. And this is what happens when he returns with her—carried along, really—to her home in Africa, to live, until the last doomed days of colonialism, yet another life not his own. In a luminous narrative that takes us across three continents, Naipaul explores his great theme of inheritance with an intimacy and directness unsurpassed in his extraordinary body of work. And even as he lays bare the bitter comical ironies of assumed identities, he gives us a poignant spectacle of the enervation peculiar to a borrowed life. In one man’s determined refusal of what he has been given to be, Naipaul reveals the way of all our experience. As Willie comes to see, “Everything goes on a bias. The world should stop, but it goes on.” A masterpiece of economy and emotional nuance, Half a Life is an indelible feat of the imagination.