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THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION
₨ 530In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything was transformed. Huxley described his experience in this book and its sequel “Heaven and Hell”.
ISBN: 0099458209
Publisher: VINTAGE CLASSICS -
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BEGUN SUMROO
₨ 600The play is set in the late eighteenth century during the decline of the Moghul Empire when Shah Alam was emperor and India swarmed with a variety of European mercenary soldiers and adventurers who came to make their fortunes by taking part in the power-struggles that were going on. The play focuses first, on a military brigade led by a Swiss German soldier-of fortune named Col. Walter Reinhardt Sombre. It was one of the best-trained brigades and had a component of 273 Europeans, many of them deserters from the British and other European armies, along with 2,700 Indian soldiers.
They were a tough lot who demanded loyalty and wages — by the roughest means. Col. Sombre came to be known in India as Sumroo’ through a mispronunciation of his last name.
The play shows how an extremely capable Indian woman, with humble beginnings as an impoverished dancing-girl, took over the brigade from its smitten European commander, led it, made it the most efficient in India, never lost a battle, rescued an Emperor, was wooed by the English and French, had lovers uf many nationalities and, among her fans, she could eventually count men of the cloth including the Pope.
She also built a couple of palaces and churches that may be seen to this day. She was like an Indian equivalent of Joan of Arc but succeeded so admirably in all she did that she avoided being martyred and is therefore not remembered except by a few historians. In short, the play is about a European-officered brigade and an amazing Indian woman who was ahead of her time and ours.
ISBN: 8129105179
Publisher: RUPA & CO -
THE AFTERLIFE OF GARDENS
₨ 7,714Most books on the history of gardens describe the way that gardens have been created; by contrast, The Afterlife of Gardens examines the way that gardens have been experienced. Using examples from many sites around the world, John Dixon Hunt examines responses to gardens, from Renaissance sites to Baroque creations to modern motorway landscaping. Examining how a garden has been experienced extends its history beyond the physical into cultural terms, and the author describes how this ‘afterlife’ of gardens, as they are understood and experienced by many generations, is often ‘redesigned’ in visitors’ imaginative and cultural responses. The author looks at many aspects of the subject, including the enigmatic Hypnerotomachia Polifili of 1499; part fictional narrative and part scholarly treatise, this fascinating early narrative of garden reception paves the way for an exploration of subsequent landscapes and their reception in later periods. He also looks at Italian Renaissance gardens; the Picturesque; the architectural and inscriptional elements of gardens; the ways experiences of gardens have been recorded; and the different kinds of movement within gardens, from the strolling pedestrian to the motorway traveller who experiences landscapes at speed. In this ambitious new book the author shows how the complete history of a garden must extend beyond the moment of its design and the aims of the designer to record its subsequent reception. He raises questions about the preservation of historical sites, and provides lessons for the contemporary designer, who may perhaps be more attentive to the life of a work after its design and implementation. This book will interest all who have a professional interest in gardens, as well as the wide general audience for gardens and landscapes of past and present.
ISBN: 1861892187
Publisher: GARDEN HISTORY -
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JEAN GENET
₨ 3,379An engaging and challenging introduction to Jean Genet, this concise biography of the French writer and his work cuts directly to the intersection of thought and life that was essential to Genet’s creativity. Arguing that Genet’s life was an extraordinary spectacle in which the themes of his most revolutionary works were played out, Stephen Barber gives both the work and its singular inspiration in Genet’s life their full due. Abandoned, arrested, and repeatedly incarcerated, Genet, who died in 1986, led a life that could best be described as a tour of the underworld of the twentieth century. Similarly, Genet’s work is recognized by its nearly obsessive and often savage treatment of certain recurring themes. Sex, desire, death, oppression, domination-these ideas, central to Genet’s artistic project, can be seen as preoccupations that arose directly from the artist’s travels, imprisonments, sexual and emotional relationships, and political engagements and protests. This trenchant volume focuses directly on the moments in Genet’s life in which those preoccupations are vividly projected in his novels, theater works, and film projects.
Genet’s works have been hugely influential for a vast array of writers, filmmakers, choreographers, and directors, especially at moments of social crisis; thus Genet’s life is not only at the root of his own work but also that of many important artists of the twentieth century. With its frank and illuminating introduction by Edmund White, Jean Genet gives readers access to this brilliant and brutal mind.
ISBN: 1861891784
Publisher: REAKTION BOOKS -
WOMEN, ISLAM AND CINEMA
₨ 3,086The first book to examine the troubled relationships between women, Islam and cinema. Film critic and author Gönül Dönmez-Colin explores the role of women as spectators, images and image constructors in the cinemas of the countries where Islam is the predominant religion, focusing on Iran and Turkey from the Middle East.
ISBN: 1861892209
Publisher: REAKTION BOOKS -
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RUPA CLASSICS: THE PROFESSOR
₨ 246An English man, William Crimsworth, takes up the job of a teacher in Brussels and falls in love with his beautiful colleague, Frances Henri, an Anglo-Swiss girl. A novel that flouted the conventional ethos of the contemporary times, The Professor was Charlotte Bronte’s first completed novel, published posthumously in 1857.
ISBN: 817167464X
Publisher: RUPA & CO -
DUEL IN THE SNOWS
₨ 6,171In December 1903 a British army marched over the Himalayas to counter a non-existent Russian threat and was confronted by a medieval Tibetan army ordered to stop it by non-violent means. It was a clash between the mightiest political power in the world and the weakest: a land of mystery locked behind the most formidable natural barriers on earth and governed by a reincarnate lama. Leading what was supposed to be a peaceful political mission was the charismatic Francis Younghusband. At his side, a group of young officers who were as eager as he to be the first Europeans in almost a century to reach Lhasa: to gaze, as one of their number put it, ‘with awe upon the temples and palaces of the long-sealed Forbidden City’. But commanding the army escort was an officer determined to do things by the book: General James Macdonald, known to his troops as ‘Retiring Mac’. The result was conflict at every level, with a tragic outcome that both enthralled and shocked the outside world. Drawing on diaries, letters and unpublished first-hand accounts, Charles Allen overturns this accepted view, presenting the real story of what became known to history as the Younghusband Mission. In doing so, he reveals not only the true character of one of Britain’s great imperial heroes but also the calamitous outcome for the Tibetan people of Britain’s last attempt at empire-building.
ISBN: 0719554276
Publisher: JOHN MURRAY -
THE THREE-CORNERED HAT
₨ 910One of the best-loved Spanish novels of all time, The Three-Cornered Hat is a hilarious tale of lust, intrigue and corrupt authorities set in eighteenth-century Andalusia. When the hideous and lascivious corregidor Don Eugenio takes a fancy to the formidable – and formidably desirable – Senora Frasquita, the wife of a local miller, the couple set about foiling his plans for a seduction. There ensues a fast-paced comedy of moonlight flits, clothes swapping, mistaken identity, and slapstick accidents as the characters struggle in vain to maintain both dignity and marital harmony. Calm is eventually restored in a scene of unmasking and mutual forgiveness of truly operatic proportions.
ISBN: 1843910802
Publisher: HESPERUS₨ 2,157 -
THE LOVER’S WATCH
₨ 910A charming and witty volume of instruction for the aspiring lover, detailing hour by hour the correct way to spend a day apart. Iris is well aware of the hours of reflection and sighing due to her as a beautiful and sought-after woman, as well as the dangers and temptations that await a man whose lover is absent. Thus the hour between eight and nine, before Damon is enjoined to rise, may be spent in ‘Agreeable Reverie’, of which the principle subject is, of course, Iris, whilst five o’clock is the hour of ‘Dangerous Visits’ when Damon will be a prey to the wiles and machinations of his female acquaintances. Interspersed with beautiful – and instructive – verses, The Lover’s Watch is a sharp-witted and ironic observation of the universal manners of love, and an indispensable manual for all eager suitors.
ISBN: 1843910748
Publisher: HESPERUS₨ 2,157 -
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LITTLE WOMEN
₨ 345This authoritative, accurate text of the first edition (1868—69) of Little Women is accompanied by textual variants and thorough explanatory annotations. “Backgrounds and Contexts” includes a wealth of archival materials, among them previously unpublished correspondence with Thomas Niles and Alcott’s own precursors to Little Women. “Criticism” reprints twenty nineteenth-century reviews. Seven modern essays represent a variety of critical theories used to read and study the novel, including feminist (Catharine R. Stimpson, Elizabeth Keyser), new historicist (Richard H. Brodhead), psychoanalytic (Angela M. Estes and Kathleen Margaret Lant), and reader-response (Elizabeth Vincent). A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
ISBN: 0393976149
Publisher: NORTON -
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LORD JIM
₨ 692This “Critical Edition” represents a recasting of the 1968 edition; the first English edition (Blackwood’s Magazine, 1900) is now the copy-text. Accompanying the novel is material such as: Conrad’s correspondence; accounts of the novel’s historical and literary sources; and 12 critical essays.
ISBN: 0393963357
Publisher: NORTON CRITICAL EDITIONS -
OLIVER TWIST
₨ 360A critical edition of “Oliver Twist” which reprints the 1846 text – the last edition Dickens substantially revised. It provides background and source material which focuses on the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act; significant 20th century interpretations of the novel; and witty early reactions to it.
ISBN: 039396292X
Publisher: VIVA BOOKS
