A SoulSearching Adventure with PatanjaliForeword by Yogacharya Dr. Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, Chairman, International Centre for Yoga Education and Research (ICYER)A restless mind is the root cause of all your troubles, but a calm mind will liberate you. Want to know how to reach that state?In this gentle elaboration of the brilliant Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Vasudev Murthy delves into life’s fundamental questions. Taking the reader through Patanjali’s 196 powerpacked sutras, he explains t...

1893: King Kamehameha III of Hawaii declares Sovereignty Restoration Day…Tension grows between China and Japan over Korea .. The Bengal Famine worsens… Senior priest at Kinkaku-ji temple is found dead in mysterious circumstances Dr John H. Watson receives a strange letter from his supposedly dead friend, and sets out for Tokyo. On the ship, his quiet, distinguished cabin-mate is murdered as he sleeps just a door away. Meanwhile, in the opium dens of Shanghai and in the back alleys of Tokyo...

"This story has great richness of voice and will take you on a fascinating journey. It is both an adventure and a colourful experience." —Calvert Markham, Treasurer of the Sherlock Holmes Society of LondonStill wondering what Sherlock Holmes was doing between his reported death at Reichenbach and his reappearance in The Empty House? Only Dr. Watson knew the truth. From 1891 to 1894, Sherlock Holmes was dead to the world—and having the grandest adventures of his car...

August Book Sense PickA fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed 'scientist of women.' A purring, voluptuous siren. A young shop-girl enduring the clammy touch of her boss and hating herself for accepting the modest banknotes he tucks into her pocket afterward. An earnest, devout young doorman, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism. A cynical, secretly gay newspaper editor, helplessly in love with a peasant security guard. A roof-squatting tailor, schemi...

Five nuanced and powerful historical novels depicting the clashes among Muslims, Christians, and Jews from the Crusades to twenty-first-century London.Celebrated British-Pakistani journalist and author Tariq Ali takes a mind-expanding journey through the ages with these five acclaimed works of fiction, available now in one collection.Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree : "Ali captures the humanity and splendor of Muslim...

In 1933 Robert Byron began a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Teheran to Oxiana--the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The Road to Oxiana offers not only a wonderful record of his adventures, but also a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travelers.

In 1900 Lady Anna Winterbourne travels to Egypt where she falls in love with Sharif, and Egyptian Nationalist utterly committed to his country's cause.A hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, an American divorcee and a descendant of Anna and Sharif, goes to Egypt, taking with her an old family trunk, inside which are found notebooks and journals which reveal Anna and Sharif's secret.

A gripping historical novel set in 11th century Persia that imagines the life of poet and philosopher Omar KhayyamAccused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone.Thus begins the seamless blend ...

Ibn Battutah set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on the pilgrimage to Mecca. By the time he returned twenty-nine years later, he had visited most of the known world, travelling three times the distance Marco Polo covered. Spiritual backpacker, social climber, temporary hermit and failed ambassador, he braved brigands, blisters and his own prejudices. The outcome was a monumental travel classic.Captivated by this indefatigable man, award-winning travel writer Tim Mackintosh-Smit...

"A scholar and a spy whose extraordinary career spanned the heyday of the British Empire and culminated in the creation of Iraq . . . a gripping read." —Jason Goodwin, The Washington Post Book WorldShe has been called the female Lawrence of Arabia, which, while not inaccurate, fails to give Gertrude Bell her due. She was at one time the most powerful woman in the British Empire: a nation builder, the driving force behind the creation of m...

Gertrude Bell, happily for her family and friends, was one of the people whose lives can be reconstructed from correspondence.Through all her wanderings, whether far or near, she kept in the closest touch with her home, always anxious to share her experiences and impressions with her family, to chronicle for their benefit all that happened to her, important or unimportant: whether a stirring tale of adventure or an account of a dinner party. Those letters, varied, witty, enthralling...

A lyrical, haunting, multi-generational memoir of one family’s tempestuous century in Iraq from 1900 to the present.The Chalabis are one of the oldest and most prominent families in Iraq. For centuries they have occupied positions of honour and responsibility, loyally serving first the Ottoman Empire and, later, the national government.In ‘Late for Tea at the Deer Palace’, Tamara Chalabi explores the dramatic story of her extraordinary family’s history in this beautiful, pa...